What do you think of Thomas Carlyle? What do you think of his views and his writings?

Answer 1

Carlyle was an essayist, historian and sage who challenged traditional beliefs and values. His wrote his histories as works of philosophy, relevant to contemporary values.

Carlyle was born in Ecclesfechan, Dumfriesshire where he attended the local school, graduated to Annan Academy and from there to Edinburgh University. His original intention was to study for the ministry but Carlyle gradually became disaffected by the established religious order, which he said was more to do with ‘hatred of the Devil than love of God’. After several unproductive years, tutoring at Edinburgh, Carlyle married one of his pupils, Jane Welsh, and after a brief interval moved with his wife to London to establish himself as a writer.

Carlyle’s major composition was The History of The French Revolution. The work describes the event with an emotional intensity not previously seen in historical narrative. Written largely in the present tense, it describes the motivations of the characters and the political ideas that inspired them. His style suited not only the description of the slipshod monarchy and clergy, which were discarded but also the chaotic course of events of the anarchy, which followed.

In Past and Present, Carlyle speaks of the dehumanisation of society comparing the life of a medieval abbot with that of a degenerate Nineteenth Century man. The monastic community, unified by human and spiritual values is contrasted by a society shaped by abstract economic laws and impersonal scientific development.

Carlyle was noted for his philosophical observations. He coined the term ‘gigman’ to mean one who ‘pays respect to respectability’. The term derives from a witness at the Assize Court, who when asked what he meant by respectable, replied “one who keeps a gig”. He created the term ‘Mights’ which he said were ‘Rights’ which had been realised and established.

Carlyle’s house [24 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, London SW3 5HL] is now a museum containing some of Carlyle’s furniture, writings and other possessions, together with memorabilia contributed by admirers.

Carlyle’s outstanding virtue was patience. When he had completed his History of The French Revolution, he took the only copy to show to John Stuart Mill, whose parlour maid, thinking it to be waste, burnt it on the fire. Carlyle assiduously wrote the whole work again.