Introduction by Marciano Guerrero
Brief Bio of Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (1757–1832), was born in Scotland. Carlyle
was brought up as a strict Calvinist, and was educated at the village school. Later
he prepped at an academy before he won a place at the University of Edinburgh.
In 1816 he obtained a position to teach Latin,
French, arithmetic, bookkeeping, geometry, navigation and geography. In
November 1818, suffering from depression, Carlyle resigned and returned to
Edinburgh, where he met a Grace Welsh, a recent widow. With her help—she
reviewed and criticized his writing—he developed as a writer. His admiration
for Goethe induced him to translate some of Goethe’s masterpieces.
As his reputation grew, Carlyle started to receive
commissions from The Edinburgh Review and The Foreign Review.
Thomas and Jane Carlyle moved to London, where he
befriended John Stuart Mill and he had several articles published in his Westminster
Review. Mill suggested that Carlyle should write a book about the French Revolution.
When the book was published, Ralph Waldo Emerson arranged for it to be
published in America.
About Sartor Resartus
What serious essays don’t
accomplish, fiction often does. This is the case of Carlyle’s publication of Sartor
Resartus, which established him as a social critic. The work was received
with much confusion because of its unique literary style; never mind that not
many people really understood the work.
The title of the work means
"the tailor re-tailored" and highlights the main theme of the work:
that social customs and religious and political institutions are merely the
"clothing" of essential realities.
The book is a framed novel, with
Carlyle assuming the role of editor, of the theories of the German Professor
Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (devil's dung). Such theories the author calls a
Philosophy of Clothes. Teufelsdröckh's philosophy holds that just as clothes go
out of fashion, the same thing happen to ideas and institutions. In other words: there’s such a thing as
paradigm shifts. Consequently, if one doesn’t
change clothes (symbols), the least one can do is to patch them up.
Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges
in one of lectures says:
He tells the story of an ill-fated love, of a young woman who seems to
love him then leaves him, leaving him alone with the night. Then he describes
conversations with this imaginary philosopher, and gives long excerpts from a
book that never existed called Sartor,
the Tailor. And, as he is the one giving excerpts from that imaginary book,
he calls the work “The Mended Tailor.”
Carlyle's employs a deliberate literary
style that can be exasperating to many readers. The style is obscure,
irreverent, odd, eccentric, and often just downright silly. Such literary aberrations
offended discerning readers who found the work contained an atheistic vision
and other pernicious ideas. Those who defended Carlyle, simply said that his
intention was only to be an equal opportunity exposer or all systems, which he
viewed as limiting and false.
Our translation eliminates the
tedious typography (e.g., excessive capitalization), obscure words, and long
paragraphing. In addition, we have included distinctive summaries for each
chapter.
This first book (of 3) introduces the philosophy of clothes, while also introducing the philosopher Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, all based on the copious notes
provided by the friend of the
philosopher, Herr Heuschrecke. From chapter 8 on, we find that the discussion takes a serious turn when
dealing with the world of spirit and pure reason—which is Kant’s language.
The change in tone from
playful and sarcastic
to serious and deep is what injects a perennial
vitality to the work.
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