Jefferson's Body: A Corporeal Biography by Maurizio Valsania (review)

Maurizio Valsania's Jefferson's Body: A Corporeal Biography presents readers with an intriguing and compelling concept: that one's body tells a story of its own. This is a valuable book for anyone interested in understanding historical actors and builds on recent scholarship about corporeality and sensory history. Elegantly written and filled with important insights on Jefferson, the body, and embodiment, this book was a pleasure to read. Divided not into chapters but simply into two parts, the book has a narrow focus but vast consequences because Valsania challenges us to think about historical people as embodied actors. A corporeal biography is important, the author notes, because "[o]ur bodies control us at least as much as we control our bodies," and corporeality adds to our understanding of historical figures (3).

This idea, that one's body and one's perception of bodies is important to understanding her or his worldview, is especially applicable to Thomas Jefferson, who was very careful to guard his personal life from public scrutiny. Valsania argues that much of what we "know" about Jefferson's private life was actually carefully scripted to reveal only what he thought decorous or polite. For example, while his private life was private—such as what he said in letters like his infamous "head and heart" letter to Maria Cosway revealing his feelings for her—these communications were simultaneously "a strategy of public revelation" (123). Jefferson thought about his body and communicated with his body, and his body—particularly his white maleness—shaped how he thought about others and the world around him. And because Jefferson was particularly adept at keeping other people from observing his body in unguarded moments most of what we know about his body comes from his conscious corporeal performance.

Valsania starts his biography with Jefferson's own body. He asks important and stunningly basic questions: What, exactly, did Jefferson look like—How did he understand his body compared to other bodies—What image did he want to convey to the world through his body—These questions may seem simple but are quite complex. The Jefferson Americans have come to know was ramrod straight, tall, and stately. But that presence was cultivated through the years by Jefferson himself and his devoted family and followers. Even so, Valsania shows the reader that descriptions of Jefferson sometimes misinterpret Jefferson's conscious efforts at self-display. Sometimes described as indifferent to fashion, Jefferson, Valsania notes, "adhered to more than one standard, doing more than one thing with the apparel he donned" (48). His clothing was chosen to make a statement and not just to please himself or others. Like everyone's, Jefferson's body and his understanding of that body was inconstant.

Part 1 dwells frequently on Jefferson's understanding of what was natural and how best to train other Americans to desire a simple, natural world befitting middle-class republicans. Valsania uses textual and visual sources, particularly descriptions and depictions of Jefferson to consider the embodied Jefferson. These sources also include Jefferson's clothing purchases, instructions to others, and letters describing his perception of his own body. Although earlier in his life he had preferred to dress like a British gentleman, "Jefferson's body, eventually, underwent a bourgeois revolution" (67). As the Republic grew, Jefferson came to prefer loose pantaloons. His dress came to reflect the middle-class habits he wanted to inculcate in the nation. This transformation was acceptable to Jefferson because "his Enlightenment principles led him to a very modern perspective, that he could perfect his own corporeality" (4). To attain perfection meant to change and develop new aesthetics and as a patriarch he could do just that.

His role as a patriarch also allowed him to reject some cultural norms. Throughout his life Jefferson was accused of being feminine in his voice and mannerisms, almost pacific in his interactions with others. While this persona does not reinforce what contemporary readers may think of as a patriarch, Valsania argues...