Abstract

In this article, I seek to define the status and role of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense as a historical document. I argue that although Paine’s influential pamphlet offers no original ideas and seems simply to reinforce existing trends, its layered text transcends the regurgitation of propaganda and extends to literary achievement in its reflection of social and economic conditions, its deliberate narrative style, and its usage of literary devices and culture references grounded in historical context. Consequently, my methodology is necessarily focused through literary discourse to achieve historical understanding of this key document from the American Revolution.