Thomas Carlyle's prose style facts for kids
Thomas Carlyle was a famous writer who lived a long time ago. He thought that writing needed a fresh, new style for his time. He felt that the old ways of writing were breaking down, just like big changes were happening everywhere else!
Carlyle's special way of writing led to new words being made to describe it. One of the first words was "Carlylism" in 1841. Later, in 1858, the word "Carlylese" appeared, and it's the one people use most often today. Carlylese uses many interesting writing tricks. These include talking directly to someone who isn't there (like a character in a story), using old-fashioned words, shouting out loud (exclamations!), giving commands, mixing up word order, and repeating words or ideas. He also made up new words, used comparisons (metaphors), gave human qualities to non-human things, and often wrote as if things were happening right now (present tense).
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What is Carlylese?
When Thomas Carlyle first started writing, he worked hard to create his own unique style. He wanted his writing to feel full of energy and create strong pictures in your mind. Instead of being calm and balanced, his writing was exciting and sometimes a bit wild! Even his early writings, which he published without his name, stood out from other writers of his time.
His book Sartor Resartus shows off his style. It's a mix of joyful, poetic language, deep German ideas, and powerful speeches like those found in the Bible. Carlyle used this style to celebrate the amazing things in everyday life and to show a world full of creative power.
How Carlyle Wrote History
Carlyle's ideas for writing history came from writers like Goethe, John Bunyan, and Shakespeare. He loved how they made everything feel real and visual. He believed a writer's imagination could "body forth" (make real) things you can't see, turning them into clear "shapes" with their words.
He didn't like the usual, boring way history was written, which he called "Dull Pedantry." Instead of just listing facts from far away, he wanted to make events feel immediate and real, often writing about them as if they were happening right now. In his book The French Revolution, which is a huge and important book from the 1800s, Carlyle created a truly original voice. He made the writing exciting by mixing everyday language with clever hints about old stories and writers like Homer, Shakespeare, and John Milton.
Carlyle's Social Commentary
Carlyle used his love for metaphors (comparing two unlike things) to talk about the problems in England at the time. He saw society as very sick. He criticized English leaders for being aimless and weak. He even created funny, exaggerated characters like Sir Jabesh Windbag and Bobus of Houndsditch in his book Past and Present.
He also used memorable phrases like "Morrison's Pill" (which meant a quick fix that didn't work), the "Gospel of Mammonism" (meaning worshipping money), and "Doing as One Likes" (meaning people doing whatever they wanted without thinking of others). He used these phrases to challenge the empty sayings of his day. Carlyle often changed reality in his writing. He turned real people into funny, strange characters, made simple facts into symbols of right and wrong, and even brought in supernatural ideas. For example, in Latter-Day Pamphlets, he described spoiled criminals in scary dreams and wrong-headed do-gooders covered in their own mess.
Carlyle had a special talent for making familiar things seem new and strange through his powerful words and visions. But he could also be a very sharp and careful observer of real life. He could describe scenes with amazing clarity, as he did in his Reminiscences and Life of John Sterling. Because of this, he's often been compared to the famous painter Rembrandt. His strong appreciation for how things look and their inner energy, combined with his amazing way with words, made his style very appealing.
New Words from Carlyle
| Type | Number | Author rank |
|---|---|---|
| Total words quoted | 6778 | 26th |
| Words he used first | 547 | 45th |
| Words he used first in a special way | 1789 | 33rd |
This table shows information from the Oxford English Dictionary Online in 2012.
More than half of these words come from three of his major works: Sartor Resartus, The French Revolution, and History of Frederick the Great. Out of the 547 words that Carlyle was the first to use, 87 (or 16%) are still commonly used today!
Carlyle's Humour
Carlyle's sense of humour and how he used funny characters were shaped by books he read when he was young. These included works by Cervantes, Samuel Butler, Jonathan Swift, and Laurence Sterne. At first, he tried to use a popular kind of humour called irony, where you say the opposite of what you mean. But he soon stopped, choosing a "deeper spirit" of humour instead.
In his essays about the writer Jean Paul, Carlyle said he didn't like the mocking, ironic humour of Voltaire and Molière. Instead, he preferred the warm and understanding humour of Jean Paul and Cervantes. Carlyle created humour in many of his books through his characters, like the Editor (in Sartor Resartus), Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (which means "God-born Devil's-dung"), Gottfried Sauerteig, Dryasdust, and Smelfungus. He also made his writing funny with clever and exaggerated wordplay. His sentences were full of writing tricks: using capital letters, special punctuation, and italic words for emphasis; using symbols and allegories; making up hyphenated words; using German translations and word origins; and including quotes, self-quotes, and strange references. He also used a lot of repetition and old-fashioned speech.
Hidden Meanings and References
Carlyle's writing is full of allusions, which are indirect references to other famous works, especially the Bible. One expert, Ruth apRoberts, says that Thomas Carlyle might be the English writer most deeply influenced by the Bible. His language, his images, his sentence structure, his attitude, and his view of the world were all shaped by it.
The books of Job, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and Proverbs are the ones he referred to most often from the Old Testament. From the New Testament, he most often referred to the Gospel of Matthew. The basic structure of Sartor even follows a pattern found in the Bible.
The French Revolution is packed with many references and quotes from Homer's ancient Greek poems. Carlyle also used many of Homer's special descriptive phrases (epithets) and even made up his own Homeric-style epithets. Homer's influence, especially his attention to detail, his strong visual imagination, and his appreciation for language, can also be seen in Past and Present and Frederick the Great.
The language and images of John Milton are found throughout Carlyle's writings. His letters are full of references to many of Milton's works, including Lycidas, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, Samson Agonistes, and most often, Paradise Lost.
Carlyle's works also have many direct and indirect references to William Shakespeare. The French Revolution alone has two dozen references to Hamlet, and many more to Macbeth, Othello, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, and Shakespeare's history plays and comedies.
