Thomas Carlyle

University of Tunis El Manar : ISSHT

Thomas Carlyle : Signs of The Time (1829)

1st MA Intercultural Studies[pic 1]

Fall 2017

Presented by : Majouli Noussaiba Taieb Khouloud Douzi Nawres

Thomas Carlyle (born December 4, 1795, Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland—died February 5, 1881, London, England)

A Scottish historian and essayist, whose major works include The French Revolution, 3 vol. (1837), On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841), and The History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, 6 vol. (1858–65).

He was a Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, translator, historian, mathematician, and teacher . He was considered one of the most important social commentators of his time, he presented many lectures during his lifetime with certain acclaim in the Victorian era. One of those conferences resulted in his famous work On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History where he explains that the key role in history lies in the actions of the "Great Man", claiming that "History is nothing but the biography of the Great Man".

A respected historian, his 1837 book The French Revolution: A History was the inspiration for Charles Dickens' 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities, and remains popular today. Carlyle's 1836 Sartor Resartus is a notable philosophical novel.

His first major work, Sartor Resartus ("The Tailor Retailored") was begun in 1831 at his home (which his wife Jane provided for him from her estate), Craigenputtock, and was intended to be a new kind of book: simultaneously factual and fictional, serious and satirical, speculative and historical. Ironically, it commented on its own formal structure while forcing the reader to confront the problem of where 'truth' is to be found.

Sartor Resartus was first serialised in Fraser's Magazine from 1833 to 1834.

The text presents itself as an unnamed editor's attempt to introduce the British public to Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, a German philosopher of clothes, who is in fact a fictional creation of Carlyle's. The Editor is struck with admiration, but for the most part is confounded by Teufelsdröckh's outlandish philosophy, of which the Editor translates choice selections. To try to make sense of Teufelsdröckh's philosophy, the Editor tries to piece together a biography, but with limited success. Underneath the German philosopher's seemingly ridiculous statements, there are mordant attacks on Utilitarianism and the commercialisation of British society.

The French Revolution In 1834, Carlyle moved to London from Craigenputtock and began to move among celebrated company.Within the United Kingdom, Carlyle's success was assured by the publication of his three-volume work The French Revolution: A History in 1837. After the completed manuscript of the first volume was accidentally burned by the philosopher John

Stuart Mill's maid, Carlyle wrote the second and third volumes before rewriting the first from scratch.

The resulting work had a passion new to 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 historical writing stressed the immediacy of 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 'spiritual' – 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.

Charles Dickens used Carlyle's work as a secondary source for the events of the French Revolution in his novel A Tale of Two Cities.

The Victorian Age :

• The Victorian Age formally Begins in 1837 ( The year Victoria became a Queen) and ends in 1901 (The year of her Death ) .
• When she came to the British Throne , Queen Victoria was only eighteen Years Old .

• Yet , her influence enabled her to stamp a whole era with her name «        The Victorian ERA ».

• Is a prosperous Period for the British People .

• A period of transformation that brought England to its highest point of Development

↔        Trade was at its best : Dynamic Economy Material Progress

↔ A well-educated middle class that ruled the country

• Other countries were also prospered but Britain became “The Greatest Great Power ”

• The Victorian Age was an «        an age of improvement »        -- Asa Briggs

• It was also        was named        “        La Belle époque “ in retrospect, when it began to be

considered a "Golden        Age" in contrast to the horrors of World War I.

• Referred as        “Pax Britannica ” (Latin for "British Peace", modelled after Pax        Romana ) as

for the period of peace Britain witnessed

• The Victorian Era was also An Era of Reforms :

• The Three Great        Reform Act (1832- 1867-1884) : extended the right to vote

• The factory Act (1883) : prevented children from being employed

• The mines Act (1862) : banned women and children from working in mines .

• The poor law amendment Act (1834) : refused outdoor relief to those people who could not support themselves
• The sanitary Act (1866) : obliged local authorities to improve local conditions by the provision of water and street cleaning .

↔Victorian era witnessed new modes of thinking and conceptualization as Bentham and Mill are the precursors of Utilitarianism.

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