Thomas
Carlyle's Influence on Contemporary (and Later) Writers
George P. Landow, Professor of English
and Art History, Brown University
1. Carlyle the Victorian Sage
Carlyle, the first of the great Victorian sages or wisdom-writers, had
an enormous influence upon his contemporaries, in large part because he
offered the example of one who had survived spiritual trials. The structure
of those sections in Sartor Resartus dramatizing this process appear
repeatedly in works of later authors. Where, for instance, does the Carlylean
pattern of abandonment of old faith (see "The Everlasting No"), indifference,
and final belief in a universality of meaning appear in Dickens, Tennyson,
and others you have read?
2. Carlyle the Survivor of Religious Crisis
In addition to providing both the example of someone who had survived spiritual
crisis in a Romantic age and a structure by which to communicate that crisis,
Carlyle had other important influences on the art and thought of his time.
They include his emphasis upon the social and political importance of literature,
particularly his argument that literature was replacing religion as a source
of spiritual knowledge, convinced many writers (and readers) that novels
and poetry were important and that the writer had the role of a prophet.
Where in Arnold, Ruskin, Tennyson, and Dickens do you find the effects
of this Carlylean emphasis? In what ways do Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, and other
modernist writers reject Carlyle and in what ways do they simply extend
him?
3. Carlyle and the Grotesque
Carlyle's sage-writing ("Signs of the Times" is the first example) made
major use of grotesque and fanciful images, expressions, and characterizations.
What has this Carlylean technique and mode of thought to do with Wemmick,
the opening of Great Expectations, and the whole matter of Miss Havisham?
To what extent do modernist writers of fiction use such grotesqueness?
4. Carlyle and Virtuouso Interpretation
Similarly, Carlyle's practice of making unexpected interpretations of often
trivial details of contemporary life not only had a major effect on Ruskin
and Arnold but also on realistic writers like Dickens, Gaskell, Eliot and
others. What effects does Carlyle's approach have on the voice and tone
of novelists?
Victorian web: http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/carlyle/carlyle2.html
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