SOURCE: "Literature and Politics I: Tom Paine and the Vulgar Style," in Essays in Criticism, Vol. XII, No. 1, January, 1962, pp. 18-33.

In the following essay, Boulton seeks to re-evaluate the "vulgarity" of Paine's style in light of its efficacy and purpose; although it may not have suited the aesthetic standards of the era, Boulton argues, it did suit itself to Paine's intended audience and sense of urgency.

Prose—especially political prose—written for a largely uneducated audience seems to present the literary critic with a difficult problem of evaluation. Writers—such as those examined by John Holloway in The Victorian Sage—who cater for an audience alert to subtleties of allusion, tone, rhythm, imagery and so forth, and who in consequence are able to manipulate a large range of literary techniques, confident of their readers' response—such writers lend themselves readily to conventional literary analysis. But because our...