Thomas Carlyle Essay, Research Paper

Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish essayist and historian; his writings helped him to become one of a select group of sages that earned the respect of the serious minded Victorian public. His writings consisted of historical events, political and economic situations, and he also wrote books about religious and biographical topics.

Thomas Carlyle was born in Ecclefechan, Annandale on December 4, 1795. His father, James Carlyle, was a profound Calvinist and was part of his early influence to enter the ministry. James could clearly see his oldest son had a special talent and saw that he was to receive a good education. Thomas?s early education consisted of going to Annan Academy in 1805 and then later to Edinburgh in 1809. His goal at the time was to become a minister. However, in 1814 he left without a degree and went to teach math at Annan. In 1816 he moved to a school in Kirkcaldy where he became a close friend with Edward Irving. This was Carlyle’s first experience of intellectual companionship and the two men became life long friends. Carlyle had complete admiration for Irving and later said this about their friendship. ?I had never known what communion of man with man means.? Irving later moved to London in 1822 and became a well-known preacher.

The next years of Carlyle’s life were hard ones that helped mold his writing style. In this time Carlyle lost his love for teaching and abandoned it to return to Edinburgh to study law in 1819. While studying law he spent three miserable years, feeling lonely and was unable to find any meaning in life. It was at this time that he eventually abandoned the idea of entering the ministry. In these years he also began his serious study of German, the literature which he most admired and enjoyed. He especially liked Goethe and published a translation of Wilhelm Meister?s Apprenticeship in 1824. At this time he made a living by holding several brief tutorships in Edinburgh and Dunkeld.

On October 17, 1826 Carlyle married Jane Welsh. Welsh had been one of Irving?s students and she and Carlyle had known each other for five years. In the early years of their marriage Carlyle lived at Craigenputtock and Dumfriesshire. He also at this time contributed to the Edinburgh Review and worked on Sartor Resarus. The book eventually achieved popular success. This book was a fictionalized account of his trial in which he searched for meaning in life. It is a brilliant mixture of autobiography, and German philosophy, written with bitterness and humor, this book was characteristic of Carlyle?s tortured and defiant spirit.

In 1834, after failing to obtain several jobs he desired, Carlyle moved to London with his wife, it was at this time he started his historical work The French Revolution. However, this masterpiece that Carlyle worked so hard on almost got lost forever. After writing the first volume Carlyle lent the volume to John Stuart Mill, whose servant used it to kindle a fire, destroying all the work and all the notes. After the loss of the manuscript he worked furiously at rewriting it, and it was finished in early 1837. This book solved the financial difficulties at the time and gave him popular success, along with bringing him many invitations to lecture.

After this point in Calyle?s life his career as a writer flourished. In 1840 he released Chartism which was followed by On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History in 1841. Just two years later he elaborated on his idea of a hero in Past and Present. Than in 1845 Carlyle turned to Cromwell as the greatest English example of an idea man, and produced Oliver Cromwell?s Letters and Speeches: With Elucidations. His next important work was just five years later in the Latter-Day Pamphlets in which he made the savage side of nature particularly prominent. In 1857 he started to a study on another of his heroes, Fredrick the Great, and The History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great appeared between 1858-1865. After much success, he was offered a rectorship of Edinburgh University; the speech he delivered was published in 1866 under the title On the Choice of Books. Soon after this triumph his wife died suddenly in London. Carlyle never completely recovered from her death and lived another fifteen years, writing very little. His last works were Reminiscences an autobiography (published in 1881) and edited letters from his wife (published in 1883). After these two works Carlyle soon died on February 5, 1881 and he was then buried next to his parents at Ecclefechan.

Carlyle?s background for writing came from many places. Carlyle?s love for history and his need to speak on religious and political issues was the driving factors in all of his work. In his earlier years his loss of meaning in life help set the kind of style which he wrote. Carlyle also wrote about events, such as the French Revolution, that were happening around the times in which he lived. All these factors help set Carlyle as a premier writer of the Victorian era. He fit in well with the era in which he wrote. His writings had common ground with several other authors of the time, particularly Matthew Arnold.

Carlyle stirred the conscience of his century; he helped people see their experiences in a historical and spiritual context to help them find meaning in their existence, and he inspired people with belief in dignity in their work.