G. Levine and W. Madden, London, 1968) George Levine has argued against the over-simplification which it involves. In a very stimulating discussion of the issue Levine prefers to argue that what is missing from Carlyle’s later prose is that energetic optimism embodied in Signs of the Times, in The French Revolution and in Chartism, which allows Carlyle to envisage even the most cataclysmic events in terms of the potential offered for renewal and rebirth. This, he argues, counteracts the negative implications of Carlyle’s critique of the world around him; once it has disappeared, the balance of the prose, and indeed its tension, disappear also.
In a letter to Emerson, written in 1842, Carlyle rebuked the American idealist for the escapist tendencies of his ideas: ‘A man has no right to say to his own generation, turning quite away from it, “Be Damned!” It is the whole Past and the whole Future, this same cotton-spinning, dollar-hunting, canting and shrieking, very wretched generation of ours. Come back into it I tell you.’ Carlyle himself never needed such a warning, and all of his major works can be said to have been written in response to social disturbance and the possibility of change. If this is most obviously true of Signs of the Times, Chartism, The French Revolution and Oliver Cromwell, it is none the less the case, implicitly, with Past and Present and Latter-Day Pamphlets, with their concern with forming order out of apparent chaos, and with Frederick the Great, whose hero is seen as the one true man in an age whose falsehood has brought it to the brink of anarchy. Sartor Resartus explores the theme in terms of the inner life of man, whose struggles are resolved by his assertion of the ‘Everlasting Yea’. There is no clearer indication of the difference between the best and the worst of Carlyle than that embodied in his reaction to change: at his prime he sees it in terms of opportunity, but ultimately he can only think in terms of disruption. His historical method and his prose style reflect this development: in The French Revolution he confronts the new with the new in a way which can genuinely be said to liberate the imagination, whereas in Frederick the Great he exhausts not only himself but also, in the end, his reader. More than any other author in our literature Carlyle requires a degree of apologetics that will induce suspicion in the most uncommitted reader, and his decline is a consequence of weaknesses which are endemic in his viewpoint from the start. To see him simply in terms of that decline, however, is to do him an injustice which we would not inflict upon authors who do less violence to our sensibilities.
This volume aims at a selection of Carlyle’s work that is representative of all stages of his career, rather than at a hypothetical ‘Best of Carlyle’, or even ‘Essential Carlyle’. I have tried to follow the principle of representing individual works by substantial passages, and where possible complete sections or chapters from them, for it seems to me that such a policy offers less opportunity for editorial misrepresentation than the alternative of selecting a wider variety of shorter pieces. Inevitably this has occasionally meant the inclusion of material which a more active editor might have omitted, but experience has shown that Carlyle does not lend himself easily to editorial surgery. I am conscious of two serious omissions: Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches and The Nigger Question are both unrepresented. In the case of the former it seemed to me clear that no selection could indicate the nature of the work satisfactorily and I have no qualms about its omission. The Nigger Question is a more difficult case, since it has achieved such a degree of notoriety, but I decided ultimately that it could only be represented in full, or not at all, and reasons of space dictated the latter course. I should perhaps add that similar factors were involved in the case of the late essay, Shooting Niagara: and After?, although here the omission has caused me less concern.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have pestered so many of my colleagues at the University of Manchester with inquiries relating to Carlyle that it seems invidious to mention individuals. I feel however that I must acknowledge particular indebtedness to Mr John Chapple, of the Department of English, who has always been helpful when I have turned to him for advice, and to Dr Lilian Furst, Dr Michael Rose and Dr Alan Wilson, whose specialized knowledge in their respective fields has been of considerable assistance. In acknowledging debts, of course, I in no way wish to imply responsibility for the inadequacies which undoubtedly remain: they are all my own.
ALAN SHELSTON
University of Manchester
September 1970
Early Essays
In a sense it is misleading to talk of the ‘early’ stages of Carlyle’s career since, while Signs of the Times attracted favourable notice in 1829, he had been writing for almost twenty years before The French Revolution established him as a public figure. Much of the work produced during this period consisted of reviews and essays written for the journals, most notably Lord Jeffrey’s Edinburgh Review and, in the 1830s, Fraser’s Magazine. At the same time Carlyle was translating German literature: in 1824 his translation of Wilhelm Meister was published in Edinburgh, and this was followed in 1827 by German Romance: Specimens of its Chief Authors, which included translations of Jean Paul Richter and Goethe.
Four extracts from Carlyle’s work during this stage of his career are reprinted here. That on Goethe is taken from the Introduction to the fourth volume of German Romance. The essay on Burns was published in the Edinburgh Review in December 1828; that on Voltaire in the Foreign Review in 1829. On History appeared in Fraser’s Magazine in November 1830.
from Goethe
(INTRODUCTION TO GERMAN ROMANCE, VOL. IV)
… Of a nature so rare and complex it is difficult to form a true comprehension; difficult even to express what comprehension one has formed. In Goethe’s mind, the first aspect that strikes us is its calmness, then its beauty; a deeper inspection reveals to us its vastness and unmeasured strength. This man rules, and is not ruled. The stern and fiery energies of a most passionate soul lie silent in the centre of his being; a trembling sensibility has been inured to stand, without flinching or murmur, the sharpest trials. Nothing outward, nothing inward, shall agitate or control him.
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