Life
1795-1881; b. 4 Dec., Ecclefechan, Annadale, Dumfriesshire; son of stonemason;
ed. Annan Academy, and Univ. of Edinburgh, reading widely in French and
English literature, and also in mathematics; admiration for a Miss Gordon
(prob. Blumine of Sartor); abandoned plans for ministry; taught
at Annan and Kirkcaldy, meeting Edward Irving, who became a close friend
and encouraged his literary interests; resigned, 1818; began to read German,
1819; tutor to the Bullers; trans. Legendre’s Geometry; wrote
visited Coleridge at Highgate, resulting in singular chp. in his life
of Sterling; life of Schiller appeared in London Magazine, 1823-24
(book-form 1825); trans. Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship,
and Wilhelm Meister’s Travels (1824, 1827); received friendly
letter from Goethe, acknowledging translation; suggested and carried through
the gift of a seal to Goethe on his birthday from 15 English friends,
incl. Scott and Wordsworth; ed. German Romance, 4 vols. (1827);
developed a hectoring prose style based on Jean-Paul Richter; m. Jane
Baillie Welsh (1801-1866), 17 Oct. 1826; resided at Comely Bank, Edinburgh,
and attracted attention by brilliant conversation; became known as head
of ‘mystic’ school; candidature for chair in St Andrews fails;
lived for two years on her farm at Craigenputtock, Nithsdale; attacked
Utilitarianism in ‘Signs of the Times’, Edinburgh Review
(1829); moved to London with loan of £50 from Jeffrey to look for
work, 1831; returned to Craigenputtock, Spring 1832; used materials in
advocate’s Library, Edinburgh, to write the Diamond Necklace;
Sartor Resartus, centered on the philosopher Teufelsdrochk, appeared
in Fraser’s, 1833-34; moved to 5 (now 24) Cheyne Walk, 1834,
to better to study French affairs; Mill introduces Emerson to Carlyle;
accidental burning of manuscript of History of the French Revolution,
at house of Mrs Taylor, the lover of Mill, who offered a cheque for £200
in compensation; completed History of the French Revolution (1837);
published Chartism (1839), a pamphlet first offered to the Quarterly
and rejected by Lockhart in Dec. 1839, to be printed by Fraser, Carlyle
having been unwilling to published it in the Westminister Review;
widely supposed on the strength of it to favour strong government for
its own sake; “Lectures on Heroes” , delivered 1840, published
as On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841); Past
and Present (1843), studied the ‘Condition-of-England question;
attacking especially the tendencies by which the cash nexus became the
sole relation between man and man’; ed. Oliver Cromwell’s
Letters and Speeches (2 vols. 1845); ‘Occasional Discourse on
the Nigger Question’ (1849), leading to breach with Mill, who answered
it; visited Ireland, 1846, and again in 1849, meeting John Mitchel in
company with Charles Gavan Duffy on Kingstown pier on the first occasion;
Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), expressing anti-democratic views in
exaggerated form, and suffering lack of sales; suffered through mental
ill-health of his wife from the 1840s; exacerbated difficulties from dyspepsia;
established himself in sound-proof room at top of house after death of
his mother in 1853; biography of Frederick the Great (6 vols.,
1858-65); Life of John Sterling [his disciple, d.1844] (1851),
incl. reminiscences of Coleridge at Highgate; appointed Rector of Edinburgh
University, 1866; death of Jane Carlyle following shock of accident to
her dog, 1866; gave her papers to J. A. Froude (published as Letters
and Memorials, 1883, with his own annotations), including love-letters
that the editor misconstrued to her disadvantage in his biography
of Carlyle; other letters seen by Froude finally published by Alexander
Carlyle, 1887; began writing Reminiscences at Mentone, [Menton,
S. France] 1866; Froude edited Carlyle’s Reminiscences, in
Century Monthly Magazine, 1881, and wrote a biography (4 vols.,
1882-84); visited Ireland (DNB, 1846 and 1849); issued Occasional
Discourse on the Nigger Question (1849); Carlyle’s visit was
attended and memorialised by Charles Gavan Duffy; His manuscript Reminiscences
of My Irish Journey in 1849 was edited with preface by J. A.
Froude (Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, vol. 24, May-July
1882), who also wrote a biography taking the controversial view that Miss
Welsh married him for ambition, and came to be unhappy on account of it;
publication of his edition of Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,
which includes 160pp. on Ireland, provided occasion for several volleys
in works on Drogheda and other matters by Denis Murphy and others. OCEL
FOST OCIL FDA
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Works
Contemporary & early editions: Chartism
[2nd edn.] (London: J. Fraser 1840), [4], 113, [2]pp., 12o.; On Heroes,
Hero-worship and the Heroic in History: Six Lectures, reported with emendations
and additions by Thomas Carlyle [2nd edn.] (London: Chapman and Hall,
1842), 382pp.; Oliver Cromwell’s letters and speeches, with
elucidations by Thomas Carlyle, 2nd edn. [enl.] (London: Chapman & Hall
1846), and Do. [rep. edn.] (London: Ward, Lock & Co. 1892), ill.,
incl. 160pp.; Reminiscences of My Irish Journey in 1849, with a
preface by J. A. Froude (London: Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington
1882), vii, 263pp.; Do. (NY: Harper & Bros. 1882), 8o.; Percy
Newberry, ed., Rescued Essays of Thomas Carlyle (London: The Leadenhall
Press 1892); Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Conversations With Carlyle (London:
Sampson Low, Marston & Co. 1892); Rescued Essays of Thomas Carlyle
(London: The Leadenhall Press 1892); [q. edn.,]; Hilaire Belloc, intro.,
The French Revolution [Everyman’s library], 3 vols. (London:
Dent 1906) [Vol. 1: xxiii, 351pp.]; Collected Letters of Thomas Carlyle
and Jane Welsh Carlyle, gen. ed. C. R. Sanders, 9 vols. (Duke UP [1970-81];
1997).
Journals (contributions on Ireland) ‘Ireland’, in The Irishman, 1, 33 (18 Aug. 1849); ‘To the Editor’, The Times [London] Wed, 19 June 1844, p. 6; ‘Wanted: A Few Workmen’, Nation. [n.s.] Vol. VII, No. 5 (29 Sept. 1849), p.72; ‘Ireland Not the Bravest’, Nation, Vol. V, No. 242 (29 May 1847), p. 537; ‘Sir James Graham’,” in Nation, Vol. III, No. 136 (17 May 1845), p.505.
Collected & reprint editions: The Centenary edition of the works of Thomas Carlyle [27 vols] (London: Chapman & Hall 1899). Various editions of major works issued by Chapman & Hall, Ward & Lock, and Everyman [Dent]; also, The French Revolution: A History, with an introduction by Richard Cobb (London: Folio Society 1989).
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Criticism
Anon, ‘Carlyle’s Politics’, in The Irishman, 1, 36 (8 Sept. 1849), p.567.
Anon, ‘Thomas Carlyle: First Sitting’, by TCD, in The Irishman, II, 11 (16 March 16 1850), p.171.
Anon, ‘Thomas Carlyle: Second Sitting’. by TCD, in The Irishman, II, 12 (23 March 1850).
Charles Gavan Duffy, Conversations with Carlyle (London: Sampson. Low, Marston 1892), x, 261pp., ill., 2 ports; and Do. [another edn.] (NY 1892).
Malcolm Brown, ‘Besides the Sickbed: Carlyle, Duffy, Dr. Cullen’, in Politics of Irish Literature: From Thomas Davis to W. B. Yeats (London: George Allen & Unwin 1972), Chap. 8 [p.116ff].
Fred Kaplan, Thomas Carlyle: A Biography (Cambridge UP 1983), and Do. [rep. edn.] (California UP 1993), 614pp., 49 ills.
Harold Bloom, ed., Thomas Carlyle (NY: Chelsea House Publ. 1986).
C. R. Sanders, Carlyle’s Friendships and Other Studies (Duke UP 1977), 342pp.
Christopher Morash, ‘The Rhetoric of Right in Mitchel’s Jail Journal’, in The Literature of Politics, The Politics of Literature [Proceedings of IASIL Leiden 1993], Vol. 1
C. C. Barfoot, Theo D’haen, and Tjebbe Westendorp, ed., ‘Forging in the Smithy: National Identity and Representation in Anglo-Irish Literary History’ (Amsterdam: Rodopi 1995), pp.207-17
Thomas Carlyle, ‘Chartism and the Irish in early Victorian England’, in Victorian Literature and Culture, 29, 1 (2001), 67-83pp.
Alan Warner, ‘The Diary of William Allingham’, Dublin Magazine (Summer 1967), p.20ff.; p.22.
Roy Foster, Modern Ireland (London: Allen Lane 1988), 363, 313. Foster, ‘The Magic of Its Lovely Dawn, Reading Irish history as Story’ [Carroll Inaugural Lecture], Times Literary Supplement, 16 Dec. 1994.
Malcolm Brown, Politics of Irish Literature: From Thomas Davis to W. B. Yeats (London: George Allen & Unwin 1972).
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2, p.374.
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References
Encyclopaedia Britannica (1949 Edn.), recounts that
he visited Ireland in 1846 and again in 1849, when he made a long tour
in company with Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, then a young member of the Nationalist
party (see Conversations with Carlyle for an interesting narrative).
Carlyle’s strong convictions as to the misery and misgovernment of
Ireland recommended him to men who had taken part in the rising of 1848.
Although the remedies acceptable to a eulogist of Cromwell could not be
to their taste, the admired his moral teaching; and he received their
attentions, as Sir C. G. Duffy testifies, with conspicuous courtesy. His
aversion from the ordinary radicalism led to an article on slavery in
1849, to which Mill replied, and which caused their final alienation.
... His hope that religion might survive the ‘old clothes’ in
which it had been draped seemed to grow fainter. NOTE also Matthew Arnold’s
advice to flee ‘Carlylese’ as you would flee the devil. Bibliography
cites best edn. of Reminiscences, ed. C. E. Norton (1887); also
Norton ed., Carlyle’s correspondence with Goethe (1887), and with
Emerson (1883), and 4 vols. of letters (1888); Alexander Carlyle, ed.,
Love Letters (1909), Letters to Mill, Sterling and Browning
(1923), New Letters (1904), and Carlyle intime (1907);
Jane Carlyle, Letters and memorials, ed. Froude (3 vols. 1883),
and two more vols. ed. Alexander Carlyle (1903); David G. Ritchie, ed.,
Early Letters (1924), and Leonard Huxley, ed., Letters to her Kinsfolk
(1924). Memoirs incl. C. G. Duffy, Conversations with Carlyle (1892),
F. Espinasse, Literary Recollections (1893), G. S. Venable, ‘Carlyle
in Society and at Home’ in Fortnightly Review (1883-84),
William Allingham, A Diary, ed. H. Allingham and D. Radford (1907),
and David Masson, Carlyle Personally and in his Writings (1885).
COMM, Augustus Ralli, Guide to Carlyle (2 vols., 1920); Froude,
Life of Thomas Carlyle (4 vols., 1882-84), and My Relations
with Carlyle, admitting that his account of the subject was based
on opinion of Miss Geraldine Jewsbury that Carlyle was one of those who
should never have married; see Sir James Crichton-Browne, and A Carlyle,
Nemesis of Froude (1903); D. A. Wilson, The Truth about Carlyle
(1913), pref. Crichton-Browne; D. A. Wilson, Life of Carlyle [5
vols.] (1923, 1924, 1925, &c.]
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Notes
The Tailor Re-tailored: In A Tale of a Tub Jonathan Swift
describes the worshippers of the deity of the Tailor who held the Universe
to be a suit of clothes and who worshipped their god in the posture of
a Persian emperor sitting with his legs interwoven under him under the
ensign of the goose, the sartoristic idol being placed in the highest
parts of the house on an altar three feet high; the cult is described
as very popular ‘especially in the grande monde and among everybody
of good fashion.’ (A Tale of A Tub, sect. 3; see Gerry Nolan,
paper on Edward Martyn in That Other World: The Supernatural and the
Fantastic in Irish Literature: Transactions of the Princess Grace
Irish Library Conference, 1998.)
Much cartage: Carlyle notoriously remarked on Eyre Sq., Galway, that such men as he saw there needed ‘picks, shovels, and men to guide them’ (Cited on Irish List, 13.9.96.)
Matthew Arnold credited Thomas Carlyle with doing more than any man to bring German literature to the attention of English readers; see Arnold’s essay on Heine, in Works, ed., Super, Vol. 3, p.107; note also that Carlyle called national literatures ‘repulsive’ [cited in Chris Corr, ‘English Literary Culture and Irish Literary Revival’, PhD Thesis, UUC 1995].
John Kelly (St. John’s Coll., Oxford) suggests that ‘[W. B.] Yeats’s true precursor is not Burke but [the Scottish] Thomas Carlyle’ (Okifumo Komescu and Masaru Sekine, eds., Irish Writers and Politics, Colin Smythe, 1991; cited in Books Ireland review, March 1992.)
Benedict Kiely (Poor Scholar, 1947), remarks on Carlyle anent John Mitchel’s language and also in connection with Fr. Mathew, whom Carlyle praised: ‘Across the sea, Thomas Carlyle, with a complacency that, because the man had no manners, was generally mistaken for prophetic discontent, was assuring the people of England, Scotland, and Wales, that deep down within them they had the divine something that would yet ... remake the world.’ (Kiely, op. cit., p.117).
Sean O’Faolain cites humorously the lady who said to Carlyle, ‘I have decided to accept the universe’. (The Irish, 1947, p.79.)
Frank O’Connor (Book of Ireland, 1969) quotes him on Irish physiognomy, and on the Protestant congregations praying ‘amid a black howling Babel of superstitious savagery’; NOTE also, James Joyce parodies his remarks on emigration and the use of Irish labour as ‘cartage’ in the Empire, in Chartism, in Finnegans Wake, ‘europeasianised Afferyank!’ (FW191.04).
William Bullen Morris, Ireland and St Patrick (London & NY: Burns and Oates; Dublin M. H. Gill & Son, 1891), contains comments on Carlyle, citing his remarks on the ‘foul tutelage’ of ‘the dirty, muddy-minded, semi-felonious, proselytising Irish Priest’ (Reminiscences, ii, 268; here 159).
Derek Mahon alludes to Carlyle and Mrs Siddons in Beyond Howth Head (1970): ‘... but still, like Mrs. Siddons, must / “accept the universe” on trust ...’, See also Note, ‘I accept the universe!’; ‘Madam, you’d better’ (Ibid., p.16).
James McNeill Whistler: There is a portrait of Carlyle (aetat. 78) by Whistler in the Glasgow Gallery of Art depicting a black figure seated against a papered wall much in the manner of his portrait of his mother, and actually painted following Carlyle’s viewing of that painting in the artist’s studio; here called one of the first works of Whistler to enter a public collection anywhere. (Glasgow Gallery notice.)
Charles Kingsley remarked on the ‘white chimpanzees’ who were the Irish recorded during a fishing trip in the summer of 1860. (See Peter Gray, Victoria's Irish? Irishness and Britishness, 1837-1901 , Four Courts; quoted in Books Ireland, Nov. 2004.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)