Sartor Resartus. On Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History

by Thomas Carlyle

This Elibron Classics title is a reprint of the original edition published by J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.; E. P. Dutton & Co. in London; New York, 1914. This book is in English. This book contains 496 pages.

Genres: Philosophy, Essays, History

496 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2005

About the author

Thomas Carlyle, Scottish historian, critic, and sociological writer. was born in the village of Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, eldest child of James Carlyle, stonemason, and Margaret (Aitken) Carlyle. The father was stern, irascible, a puritan of the puritans, but withal a man of rigid probity and strength of character. The mother, too, was of the Scottish earth, and Thomas' education was begun at home by both the parents. From the age of five to nine he was at the village school; from nine to fourteen at Annan Grammar School. where he showed proficiency in mathematics and was well grounded in French and Latin. In November 1809 he walked to Edinburgh, and attended courses at the University till 1814, with the ultimate aim of becoming a minister. He left without a degree, became a mathematical tutor at Annan Academy in 1814, and three years later abandoned all thoughts of entering the Kirk, having reached a theological position incompatible with its teachings. He had begun to learn German in Edinburgh, and had done much independent reading outside the regular curriculum. Late in 1816 he moved to a school in Kirkcaldy, where he became the intimate associate of Edward Irving, an old boy of Annan School, and now also a schoolmaster. This contact was Carlyle's first experience of true intellectual companionship, and the two men became lifelong friends. He remained there two years, was attracted by Margaret Gordon, a lady of good family (whose friends vetoed an engagement), and in October 1818 gave up schoolmastering and went to Edinburgh, where he took mathematical pupils and made some show of reading law.

During this period in the Scottish capital he began to suffer agonies from a gastric complaint which continued to torment him all his life, and may well have played a large part in shaping the rugged, rude fabric of his philosophy. In literature he had at first little success, a series of articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia bringing in little money and no special credit. In 1820 and 1821 he visited Irving in Glasgow and made long stays at his father's new farm, Mainhill; and in June 1821, in Leith Walk, Edinburgh, he experienced a striking spiritual rebirth which is related in Sartor Resartus. Put briefly and prosaically, it consisted in a sudden clearing away of doubts as to the beneficent organization of the universe; a semi-mystical conviction that he was free to think and work, and that honest effort and striving would not be thwarted by what he called the "Everlasting No."

For about a year, from the spring of 1823, Carlyle was tutor to Charles and Arthur Buller, young men of substance, first in Edinburgh and later at Dunkeld. Now likewise appeared the first fruits of his deep studies in German, the Life of Schiller, which was published serially in the London Magazine in 1823-24 and issued as a separate volume in 1825. A second garner from the same field was his version of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister which earned the praise of Blackwood's and was at once recognized as a very masterly rendering.

In 1821 Irving had gone to London, and in June 1821 Carlyle followed, in the train of his employers, the Bullers. But he soon resigned his tutorship, and, after a few weeks at Birmingham, trying a dyspepsia cure, he lived with Irving at Pentonville, London, and paid a short visit to Paris. March 1825 saw him back; in Scotland, on his brother's farm, Hoddam Hill, near the Solway. Here for a year he worked hard at German translations, perhaps more serenely than before or after and free from that noise which was always a curse to his sensitive ear and which later caused him to build a sound-proof room in his Chelsea home.

Before leaving for London Irving had introduced Carlyle to Jane Baillie Welsh daughter of the surgeon, John Welsh, and descended from John Knox. She was beautiful, precociously learned, talented, and a brilliant mistress of cynical satire. Among her numerous suitors, the rough, uncouth

Reviews

[Adam Chandler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Per usual with Carlyle's work, there is an obviously good side to it and a poor side to it. The good is that Carlyle is a master of phrasing and wordsmithing so everything flows amazingly with great sound. The poor is that Carlyle's style eclipses what he writes about so his minor points are almost unheard as his major points are slightly deafened. He also sacrifices correctness, evidence, etc. in favour of his style. You are heroic or right the more he is interested in you, not because of what you actually did.

Sartor Resartus is a satirical social commentary where he pretends to have found a work on the philosophy of clothes from a German author. The joke is that no such work exists and Carlyle is merely commenting how frivolous treatment of clothing really is, such as giving status to people based on it.

On Heroes and Hero Worship is a more direct philosophical work and reflection on human history. Carlyle bases his ideas on the mythological hero being the original ideal on which all other heroes are constructed--and the mythological is itself a construct on top of a real person who would have had flaws. Unfortunately, Carlyle over-idealizes everything so that the history of the historical examples of heroes is suspect at best and none of this really fits the patterns we find in thought nor history. For example, he begins with Odin as hero and then tries to explain Mohammed in light of Odin, even though Mohammed preceded the extant Norse myths by centuries. A better understanding of things would be to simply compare them, not draw a stark union of the ideas.

[Laura]

The philanthropy and the purity of moral sentiment, which inspire the work, will find their way to the heart of every lover of virtue."—Preface to Sartor Resartus: Boston, 1835, 1837.

Shakespeare says, we are creatures that look before and after: the more surprising that we do not look round a little, and see what is passing under our very eyes.

But great men are too often unknown, or what is worse, misknown.

Society, long pining, diabetic, consumptive, can be regarded as defunct; for those spasmodic, galvanic sprawlings are not life; neither indeed will they endure, galvanize as you may, beyond two days."

Call ye that a Society," cries he again, "where there is no longer any Social Idea extant; not so much as the Idea of a common Home, but only of a common over-crowded Lodging-house? Where each, isolated, regardless of his neighbor, turned against his neighbor, clutches what he can get, and cries 'Mine!' and calls it Peace, because, in the cut-purse and cut-throat Scramble, no steel knives, but only a far cunninger sort, can be employed? Where Friendship, Communion, has become an incredible tradition; and your holiest Sacramental Supper is a smoking Tavern Dinner, with Cook for Evangelist? Where your Priest has no tongue but for plate-licking: and your high Guides and Governors cannot guide; but on all hands hear it passionately proclaimed: Laissez faire; Leave us alone of your guidance, such light is darker than darkness; eat you your wages, and sleep!

Thus, too," continues he, "does an observant eye discern everywhere that saddest spectacle: The Poor perishing, like neglected, foundered Draught-Cattle, of Hunger and Overwork; the Rich, still more wretchedly, of Idleness, Satiety, and Overgrowth. The Highest in rank, at length, without honor from the Lowest; scarcely, with a little mouth-honor, as from tavern-waiters who expect to put it in the bill. Once-sacred Symbols fluttering as empty Pageants, whereof men grudge even the expense

A World becoming dismantled: in one word, the STATE fallen speechless, from obesity and apoplexy; the STATE shrunken into a Police-Office, straitened to get its pay!"

Old-Clothes Market to worship. With awe-struck heart I walk through that Monmouth Street, with its empty Suits, as through a Sanhedrim of stainless Ghosts. Silent are they, but expressive in their silence: the past witnesses and instruments of Woe and Joy, of Passions, Virtues, Crimes, and all the fathomless tumult of Good and Evil in 'the Prison men call Life.'

this of Mankind in general
"In vain thou deniest it," says the Professor; "thou art my Brother. Thy very Hatred, thy very Envy, those foolish Lies thou tellest of me in thy splenetic humor: what is all this but an inverted Sympathy? Were I a Steam-engine, wouldst thou take the trouble to tell lies of me? Not thou! I should grind all unheeded, whether badly or well.

truly are the bonds that unite us one and all; whether by the soft binding of Love, or the iron chaining of Necessity, as we like to choose it.
there has a Hole fallen out in the immeasurable, universal World-tissue, which must be darned up again

all high Titles of Honor come hitherto from Fighting. Your Herzog (Duke, Dux) is Leader of Armies; your Earl (Jarl) is Strong Man; your Marshal cavalry Horse-shoer.

[The Usual]

Of Sartor Resartus I have little to say. To read parody is requires either a knowledge of the thing parodied or, for the determined reader, footnotes. My copy (an ancient Everyman edition courtesy of the fished out of a bin book club) doesn’t run to footnotes, and I’ve not read enough books to truly appreciate it. That’s the risk you run with a very nearly free copy. I enjoyed the odd well-deserved dig at The Sorrows of Young Werther but in all honesty didn’t get much else out of the thing. Might have another crack at it when I’ve loaded up on German philosophy. Judgement withheld; ask me again in forty years.

Of Heroes, Hero-worship etc. - a series of lectures delivered between the 5th and 22nd May 1840… I don’t think these lectures are good history. I don’t think they’re good history because Carlyle is more interested in erecting historical figures into heroes and cataloguing them (Divinity, Prophet, Poet, Priest, Man of Letters, King) than in the balanced view; and good history needs the balanced view. Good history needs a cool head and clear eyes and I doubt that Carlyle had either. Carlyle had the floor and a moral point to prove.

Whether it’s good political philosophy is a different question. I certainly think his world-view is dangerous. Carlyle values fire: passion and sincerity are more important to him than cool reason; passion and sincerity, it seems to him, are the only way to truth. It doesn’t occurs to him that you can be passionate, sincere, and hideously, horribly, wickedly wrong. It doesn’t occur to him that a strong leader, filled with fire and vision, certain that what they do is for the best, and only for the best, can do an awful lot of damage.

I suppose, though, that had I been alive in 1840 (which obviously I wasn’t: I’m not a vampire), and had I attended his talks (which I didn’t: see above), I’d have come away not merely with the conviction that he was, in ways rather difficult to articulate, dead wrong, but with a sense of admiration for the lectern-thumping, floor-pacing energy of the man, for the strength of his conviction that if you burn down the world what’s important will remain.

And it might be best to leave it there.

[Michael Pruitt]

Thomas Carlyle is brilliantly clever... but perhaps a bit too clever for this gentle reader to be able to properly appreciate.

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Carlyle - and on my budget I can't complain about the sometimes confusing formatting of the Kindle editions.