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Thomas Carlyle is notable both for his continuation of older traditions of the Tory

satirists of the 18th century in England and for forging a new tradition of
Victorian era criticism of progress known as sage writing.[56] Sartor Resartus can
be seen both as an extension of the chaotic, sceptical satires of Jonathan Swift
and Laurence Sterne and as an enunciation of a new point of view on values.

Carlyle is also important for helping to introduce German Romantic literature to


Britain. Although Samuel Taylor Coleridge had also been a proponent of Schiller,
Carlyle's efforts on behalf of Schiller and Goethe would bear fruit.[57]

Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle. James McNeill
Whistler, 1872�3. Oil on canvas, 171 x 143.5 cm.
The reputation of Carlyle's early work remained high during the 19th century, but
declined in the 20th century. George Orwell called him, "a master of belittlement.
Even at his emptiest sneer (as when he said that Whitman thought he was a big man
because he lived in a big country) the victim does seem to shrink a little. That
[...] is the power of the orator, the man of phrases and adjectives, turned to a
base use."[58] However, Whitman himself described Carlyle as lighting "up our
Nineteenth Century with the light of a powerful, penetrating and perfectly honest
intellect of the first-class" and "Never had political progressivism a foe it could
more heartily respect".[59] His reputation in Germany was always high, because of
his promotion of German thought and his biography of Frederick the Great. Friedrich
Nietzsche, whose ideas are comparable to Carlyle's in some respects,[60][61] was
dismissive of his moralism, calling him an "absurd muddlehead" in Beyond Good and
Evil[62] and regarded him as a thinker who failed to free himself from the very
petty-mindedness he professed to condemn.[63] Carlyle's distaste for democracy[64]
and his belief in charismatic leadership was appealing to Joseph Goebbels, who read
Carlyle's biography of Frederick to Hitler during his last days in 1945.[57][65]
Many critics in the 20th century identified Carlyle as an influence on fascism and
Nazism.[57] Ernst Cassirer argued in The Myth of the State that Carlyle's hero
worship contributed to 20th-century ideas of political leadership that became part
of fascist political ideology.[66]

Sartor Resartus has recently been recognised once more as a unique masterpiece,
anticipating many major philosophical and cultural developments, from
Existentialism to Postmodernism.[67] It has been argued that his critique of
ideological formulas in The French Revolution provides a good account of the ways
in which revolutionary cultures turn into repressive dogmatisms.

Essentially a Romantic, Carlyle attempted to reconcile Romantic affirmations of


feeling and freedom with respect for historical and political fact. Many believe
that he was always more attracted to the idea of heroic struggle itself, than to
any specific goal for which the struggle was being made. However, Carlyle's belief
in the continued use to humanity of the Hero, or Great Man, is stated succinctly at
the end of his essay on Muhammad (in On Heroes, Hero Worship & the Heroic in
History), in which he concludes that: �the Great Man was always as lightning out of
Heaven; the rest of men waited for him like fuel, and then they too would
flame."[68]

A bust of Carlyle is in the Hall of Heroes of the National Wallace Monument in


Stirling.

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