Carlyle (Past masters)

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was a Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher. Considered one of the most important social commentators of his time, he presented many lectures during his lifetime with certain acclaim in the Victorian era. He was the first and greatest of the Victorian 'prophets'. The style and imagination of his writing dazzled the young intellectuals of the 1830s, and by the 1840s the scale and radicalism of his social criticism had captured some of the best minds of a conscience-stricken generation. He was proclaimed a great moral leader by such notable figures as dickens, Thackeray, Mrs. Gaskel, Browning and Tennyson, who had all fallen under his prophetic spell. Yet this role was not to last. As England emerged from the economic crisis of the 2840s, Carlyle's vicious attacks on democracy and his gloomy predictions clashed with a new era of liberal optimism. His call for moral leadership developed into an obsession with 'hero-worship'. He no longer saw ordinary men and women as long-suffering and much-abused, but as greedy and shiftless, redeemable only by the iron and merciless discipline of a despot. A. L. Le Quesne examines the rise and fall of this extraordinary man, whose genius was recognized by his contemporaries yet has proved difficult to define ever since. He explains how Carlyle's greatness lay in his ability to voice the needs of a remarkably moral generation, and traces the growing divergence between Carlyle and his disciples, illustrating how they finally came to feel, in the words of one contemporary, that "Carlyle has led us out into the desert - and he has left us there". The Edinburg University Journal said this was "a first-rate introduction".