Abstract

Jefferson and the Iconography of Romanticism is the first full-length study to examine how Jefferson, in the process of inventing the USA as the first new nation of the Romantic era, sought to find an appropriate imagery to represent the people, their homeland and the cultural ideal to which they should aspire. It examines in detail the role of his villa at Monticello in embodying the national ideal, shows how those ideals emerged and how they were subsequently challenged by the reinterpretation of Jefferson's iconography.