Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle (December 4, 1795 – February 5, 1881) was a Scottish essayist and historian, whose work was hugely influential during the Victorian era. He was born in Ecclefechan, Dumfries and Galloway, and was educated at Annan Academy. Coming from a strictly Calvinist family, Carlyle was expected by his father to become a preacher. However, while at Edinburgh University he lost his Christian faith. Nevertheless Calvinist values remained with him throughout his life. This combination of a religious temperament with loss of faith in orthodox Christianity made Carlyle's work appealing to many Victorians who were grappling with scientific and political changes that threatened the traditional social order.

Early writings

Carlyle's thinking was heavily influenced by German Transcendentalism, in particular the work of Fichte. He established himself as an expert on German literature in a series of essays for Frazer's Magazine, and by translating German writers, notably Goethe. His first major work, Sartor Resartus, purported to be a commentary in the thought of a German philosopher called Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (which translates as 'god-born devil-shit'), author of a tome entitled "Clothes: their Origin and Influence". Teufelsdröckh's Transcendentalist musings are mulled over by a skeptical English editor who also provides fragmentary biographical material on the philosopher.

Related Topics:
Transcendentalism - Fichte - Goethe - Sartor Resartus

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Sartor Resartus was intended to be a new kind of book: simultaneously factual and fictional, serious and satirical, speculative and historical. It ironically commented on its own formal structure, while forcing the reader to confront the problem of where 'truth' is to be found. The imaginary 'Philosophy of Clothes' holds that meaning is to be derived from phenomena, continually shifting over history, as cultures reconstruct themselves in changing fashions, power-structures, and faith-systems. The book contains a very Fichtean conception of religious conversion: based not on the acceptance of God but on the absolute freedom of the will to reject evil, and to construct meaning. This had led some writers to see Sartor Resartus as an early Existentialist text.

Related Topics:
Phenomena - Existentialist

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Sartor Resartus was initially considered bizarre and incomprehensible, but had a limited success in America, where it was admired by Ralph Waldo Emerson, influencing the development of New England Transcendentalism. However, within Britain Carlyle's success was assured by the publication of his two volume work The French Revolution, A History in 1837. After the completed manuscript of the book was accidentally burned by the philosopher John Stuart Mill's maid, Carlyle had to begin again from scratch. The resulting second version was filled with a passionate intensity, hitherto unknown in historical writing. In a politically charged Europe, filled with fears and hopes of revolution, Carlyle's account of the motivations and urges that inspired the events in France seemed powerfully relevant. Carlyle's style of writing emphasised this, continually stressing the immediacy of the action – often using the present tense. For Carlyle, chaotic events demanded what he called 'heroes' to take control over the competing forces erupting within society. While not denying the importance of economic and practical explanations for events, he saw these forces as essentially 'spiritual' in character – the hopes and aspirations of people that took the form of ideas, and were often ossified into ideologies ('formulas' or 'Isms', as he called them). In Carlyle's view only dynamic individuals could master events and direct these spiritual energies effectively. As soon as ideological 'formulas' replaced heroic human action society became dehumanised.

Related Topics:
Ralph Waldo Emerson - The French Revolution, A History - 1837 - John Stuart Mill - Isms

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This dehumanisation of society was a theme pursued in later books, such as Past and Present, in which Carlyle contrasted life in a Medieval monastery with modern society. For Carlyle the monastic community was unified by human and spiritual values, while modern culture deified impersonal economic forces and abstract theories of human 'rights' and natural 'laws'. Communal values were collapsing into isolated individualism and ruthless laissez faire Capitalism, justified by what he called the "dismal science" of economics.

Related Topics:
Capitalism - Dismal science - Economics

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