Thomas Carlyle - Famous Scots From Virtual Scotland
Thomas Carlyle - A Famous Scottish Historian and Essayist
"The sage of Ecclefechan"
Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881) was born at Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire, son of a stonemason. Thomas Carlyle was educated at a local school, Annan Academy and coming of a sternly Calvanistic family, he first studied theology at Edinburgh University (1809). His knowledge of French and German literature gave the first impulse to his thought, and it was in particular the serene classical order in the work of the Goethe that fascinated Carlyle's convulsed and violent mind. Although in 1813 he began to prepare for the ministry, he became a teacher at Annan and Kirkcaldy but this palled and he began extensive article-writing.
In 1824 he wrote his Life of Schiller. That year he met Samuel Coleridge, William Hazlitt, and other literary characters in London. 1825 saw the appearance of his translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, and in 1826 his marriage to Jane Boillie Welsh , a Scottish lady of strong character and an exceptionally good letter writer. He brought out further evidence of his enthusiasm for German literature in the 4-volume anthology, German Romance.
All this time his thought was hardening into an attitude of intansigent opposition and of puritanical refusal to condone the times in which he lived; this was to remain his basic vision of the world. Signs of the Times in 1831 was the first book in which this attitude became explicit. Carlyle's inability to come to terms woth the world around him, or at least to reach any objective understanding of it, was fully expressed in a remarkable work, Sartor Resartus, in 1833 - 1834. This was a heavily autobiographical allegory, in which he affirmed the need for man to throw off the false trappings of modern civilisation and clothe himself in a manner in keeping with the deep realities of his being. Materialism was the word he used to cover everything he despised about contemporary life, and he confronted the growing 'mass culture' with what amounted to a set of medieval notions about the organisation of society, and with a conception of man that left each individual stranded in a desert and at grips with a hostile environment. In 1834 he moved to London and lived in Cheyne Row in Chelsea from then until his death.
The French Revolution, which was published in 1837, was the first work in which his ideology was fully developed. In this book he applied his priciples to history. In the Revolution as seen by Carlyle great solitary figures, far above the mere masses, moved through an epic storm. Part of this book was destroyed accidentally by fire and was rewritten by Carlyle from memory. In 1841 came On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. This book put forward the hero as the central element of all historical reality. He developed this idea in his vast biographies, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches (1845) and the History of Frederick th Great, on which he laboured for 14 years (published 1858-1865).
He became Lord Rector of Edinburgh University (1866) but refused British state honours and monetary patronage. Carlyle married Jane Baillie Welsh (1801-66), daughter of Dr John Welsh, a medical practitioner, in 1826. Their marriage played a decisive part in his achievements, for both developed each other's creativity; she was a talented letter-writer and critic. Carlyle wrote little more after her death, save for his emotive Reminiscences (1881); it was as if in the writing of her epitaph he surrendered his inspiration. He wrote:
"In her bright existence she had more sorrows than are common: but also a soft invincibility, a clearness of discernment, and a noble loyalty of heart, which are rare.
For 40 years she was the true and ever-loving helpmate of her husband: and by act and word unweariedly forwarded him, as none else could, in all of worth that he did or attempted. She died at London, 21 April 1866, suddenly snatched away from him, and the light of his life is gone out.
Carlyle was in a sense the prophet of British imperialism. A mystic in love with myth, he was at the same time a political preacher whose work can be seen as justifying the expansions tendancies of the English society of his time. At the same time his contempt for the teaching of economics and for democratic government left him in a backwater of developing British thought. The tide in Britain has been running strongly against all such tendancies for many years now, and it is not surprising if Carlyle's reputation has been swept along with it.
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