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Teachers' Resource Web Thomas Carlyle Study Questions Portraits, Sartor, Past and Present, "Characteristics," Other General Questions 1. Look up the dictionary meanings of the word "sage." How does Carlyle function as a sage for Victorian readers? 2. What are some characteristics of Carlyle’s prose style in any of the selections we are reading? Portraits "Coleridge" 3. How does Carlyle tie his description of Coleridge's habits and appearance to the quality and effects of his philosophy upon young visitors? What kind of comment on the relevance of romantic thought to a new era does the portrait amount to? "Wordsworth" 4. In what way might this portrait be a comment on Wordsworth's ultimate value to British life and letters? How does Carlyle characterize the progress of Wordsworth's career? 5. What effect does the final description of Wordsworth chewing raisins and hiding behind a green circle to shield his eyes have on the rest of the portrait? Sartor Resartus (The Tailor Retailored) 6. Describe the three stages of Teufelsdröckh’s “spiritual crisis” in Sartor Resartus: What is “the Everlasting No”? How does it lead to “the Center of Indifference”? What is “the Everlasting Yea”? When does Teufelsdröckh’s “baphometic fire-baptism” occur? 7. Describe the spiritual problem that Carlyle addresses in Sartor's “The Everlasting Yea.” Why can’t humans find happiness? What, then, is the solution to this spiritual quandary? 8. How is Carlyle in Sartor Resartus a "recycler" of Christian concepts -- how does he refashion the basic tenets of Christianity to suit what he considers the needs of his own day? 9. In Sartor Resartus, what message do Teufelsdröckh and Carlyle take from their admission that humans cannot know ultimate reality? Is that inability a source of weakness or strength? Why is the acceptance of "mystery" essential to human attempts to create new truths? 10. What, according to Carlyle in Sartor Resartus, is Nature? Relate this concept to his metaphor of clothing. What is the central insight of the "Philosophy of Clothes" developed by Carlyle's fictional Professor Teufelsdröckh? The French Revolution "September [1792] in Paris" 11. What does Carlyle, in his description of the imprisoned Swiss Guard and of the Princess de Lamballe, imply about the possibility of heroism in the face of mob rule? "Place de la Revolution" 12. How does Carlyle contrast King Louis XVI with the men who led him to the guillotine? What is the value in offering a fairly detailed portrait of the King in his final hours? 13. What does Carlyle imply about the forces underlying the apparent chaos of the French Revolution? Is it really chaos that rules the day? If not, what is really "behind" that great event? 14. To what extent, according to Carlyle, do those who carry out or live through great events actually understand them? from "Cause and Effect" 15. What historical perspective does Carlyle offer on what is, by 1837, a long-past event and set of political actors in that event? Why, from your knowledge of the early Victorian period, is the French Revolution still important to Carlyle's British contemporaries? Past and Present “Democracy” from Past and Present 16. What examples does Carlyle offer of proper relations among humans? How does Carlyle describe relations between humans during feudal times? (See his comments on "Gurth.") 17. How does Carlyle define "liberty"? How does his definition undermine more common ones? “Captains of Industry” from Past and Present 18. What is Carlyle’s solution to Britain’s social problems? What, that is, does Carlyle say should be done with the working classes and the unemployed, and who should do it? 19. Why does Carlyle borrow a feudal term like "aristocracy" for his new hero-class? What is the implication, that is, of such an anachronistic borrowing for Carlyle's view of historical progress and of his own day's social and political developments? Edition: Abrams, M.H. et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2. Seventh edition. ------------------- Other Questions "Signs of the Times," On Heroes, Past
and Present General Questions 1. Look up the dictionary meanings of the word "sage." How does Carlyle function as a sage for Victorian readers? 2. What are some characteristics of Carlyle’s prose style in any of the selections we are reading? "Signs of the Times" (1829) 3. To what extent do you find Carlyle's style in this essay journalistic? In what ways does his style differ from that of journalism? 4. What is "the mechanical" according to Carlyle? Why are those who seek reforms in a "mechanical" way unable to solve Britain's problems? 5. How does the "dynamical" power (169) oppose the mechanical? How does Carlyle describe this force? What is the proper relationship between the mechanical and the dynamical power? 6. How does Carlyle, who lost his Scottish Calvinist faith by early adulthood, nonetheless preserve the rhetorical structures and value system of Christianity? For example, what is the value of "mystery" to human beings? 7. Where should Carlyle's readers look for relief or sustenance, if not to existing governmental structures or political debates between utilitarian Benthamites and aristocratic conservatives? What does he say about the present state of institutional religion and literature (most particularly romantic poetry)? 8. Does Carlyle closely define the most important of his terms, such as Nature, the Dynamical, Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Inward Perfection, Mystery, and the Infinite? Why might he not want to define such terms -- does linguistic vagueness help him achieve his rhetorical purpose? If so, how? 9. Some critics have said that Carlyle insists upon belief in moral absolutes even though he no longer believes in the Christian faith from which those absolutes derive. If you find that "Signs" fits that description, is the essay a convincing response to the "crisis of authority"? Or do you consider Carlyle a reactionary who wants to return his countrymen to some modern approximation of feudal, conservative values rather than to accept the need for systemic (i.e. scientific and wide-reaching) social and political reforms? from On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1840) "The Hero as Divinity" 10. How is history "the biography of Great Men?" In what sense is Carlyle's promotion of the Great Man theory of history a substitute for traditional religious faith? How, for example, does Carlyle define "worship" and "hero-worship"? 11. How does Carlyle, in offering his thoughts on the significance of early Scandinavian myth, (most specifically the god Odin), also make an argument about the relationship between language and nature? What did Odin do that was so significant as to cause his deification? 12. What keeps modern humans from discerning the "mystery" or "divinity" in their surroundings and in themselves, and how might they recover that power or some modern approximation of or equivalent for it? What role in this recovery might the prophet or poet play? from Past and Present (1843) "Midas" 13. What does Carlyle appear to mean by "enchantment"? Who is enchanted, and why? 14. What is Carlyle's attitude towards the "Poor Law" 1834, which provided relief only to the disabled and required others to enter "workhouses"? 15. What rhetorical value does Carlyle derive from the grotesque or ridiculous anecdotes and historical references he sometimes includes? See, for instance, his reference to the "Ugolino Hunger Cellar" or the Stockport Cellar" case as well as the "Midas" legend that gave this chapter its name. "Sphinx" 16. What was the Sphinx's riddle in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex? What is it in Carlyle's chapter? 17. What wrong answer to the Sphinx Riddle has been given by Carlyle's contemporaries, and what are the consequences of their failure? 18. What kinds of rhetorical oppositions does Carlyle employ to convince us that there is such a thing as Justice in the universe, even if we don't see it working? Does he ever define what he means by "justice"? As in the question about "Signs of the Times," how does linguistic vagueness help him achieve his rhetorical purpose? "Gospel of Mammonism" 18. Can you expound upon the Gospel of Mammonism? Give us a brief sermon from this gospel, and explain who, according to Carlyle, most loudly preaches it. 19. What effect has Britain’s practice of this gospel’s precepts had upon all human bonds, all sense of belonging and identity? 20. Why is it "impossible" to help the poor Irish widow who dies and infects seventeen others with typhus? "Happy" 21. How does Carlyle define "happiness"? In what does happiness consist? Whose idea of happiness is he opposing in this chapter? Edition: Mermin, Dorothy and Herbert Tucker. Victorian Literature: 1830-1900. Heinle & Heinle / Harcourt, 2001-02. ISBN: 0155071777.
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