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Thomas Carlyle and the “Characteristics” of Nineteenth‐Century English Literature
Author(s) -
SchatzJakobsen C.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1034/j.1600-0730.2001.d01-43.x
Subject(s) - rhetorical question , literature , romance , reading (process) , period (music) , history , history of english , rhetorical device , history of literature , poetry , rest (music) , victorian literature , philosophy , art , linguistics , aesthetics , medicine , cardiology
The place of Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) in nineteenth‐century English literary history is as uncertain as the nature and genre‐affiliation of early writings like “Characteristics” (1831) and Sartor Resartus (1833–34). The question of whether Carlyle war ‘really’ a Romantic or a Victorian runs parallel to the question of the kind of ground, rhetorical or conceptual, on which his texts rest. While a sufficiently close (rhetorical) reading of “Characteristics” may provide an answer to the second question, it may be the same token render the first question, and the period‐terms resorted in its formulation, irrelevant.