THOMAS CARLYLE AS A CRITIC OF LITERATURE

THOMAS CARLYLE AS A CRITIC OF LITERATURE

THOMAS CARLYLE AS A CRITIC OF LITERATURE BY FREDERICK WILLIAM ROE, Ph.D. m^: gefe fork THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1910 A// rights reserved D

Copyright, 1910 By The Columbia University Press Printed from type January, 1910 PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COHP»NT LANCASTER. PA.

This Monograph has been approved by the Department of English in Columbia University as a contribution to knowledge worthy of publication. A. H. THORNDIKE, Secretary.

It is a strange work with me, studying these Essays over again : ten years of my life lie strangely written there; it is I, and it is not I, that wrote all that I They are as I could make them among the peat-bogs and other confusions. It rather seems the people like them in spite of all their crabbedness. Carlyle to his Mother, 1839 {New Letters, I, 178).

PREFACE The present study was begun some four years ago at the suggestion of Professor W. P. Trent and of the late Professor George R. Carpenter. It was thought that an account of Carlyle as a critic of literature would be of value, not only as an appreciation of a great personality on a different side from that usually considered, but also as a contribution to the history of literary criticism in England. In this belief, and with these ends in view, the following chapters have been written. The new interpretation in the first chapter of Carlyle's so-called conversion has not been made without a searching examination of the published biographical material, and with the sole purpose of setting the facts in their right relations. To the English department of Columbia University under whose direction I have worked my obligations are many. It is a pleasure to record my gratefulness to Professor Trent, whose criticism and encouragement have been constant and helpful. My thanks are also due to Professor Brander Matthews and to Professor W. A. Neilson, formerly of Columbia, now of Harvard University, for stimulating suggestions. To Professor A. H. Thomdike, who went over the entire work in manuscript with me, I am especially indebted for much valuable criticism. I am grateful also to Professor J. W. Cunliffe, and to Associate Professor H. B. Lathrop, of the English department of the University of Wisconsin, for kindly interest and counsel. In the preparation of this essay I have used the following books, besides others to, which reference is made in the footnotes: Carlyle's Works (especially the Critical and Miscellaneous Essays in seven volumes, copyright edition. Chapman and Hall, London) ; Reminiscences by Thomas Carlyle (2 vols., ed. Norton, New York, 1887) ; Early Letters (ed. Norton, New York, 1886) ; Letters, 1826-1836 (ed. Norton, New York,

1889) ; Correspondence between Goethe and Carlyle (ed. Norton, New York, 1887) ; Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson (2 vols., rev. ed., Boston, 1886) ; New Letters of Thomas Carlyle (2 vols.. New York, 1904) ; Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle (ed. Froude, 2 vols.. New York, 1883) ; New Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle (2 vols.. New York, 1903) ; Collectanea, Thomas Carlyle (ed. S. A. Jones, Canton, Pa., 1903) ; Lectures on the History of Literature (London, 1892) ; Two Note-Books of Thomas Carlyle (ed. Norton, New York, The Grolier Club, 1898) ; Last Words of Thomas Carlyle (New York, 1892) ; Thomas Carlyle (life by Froude, 4 vols.. New York, 1882 and 1884) ; Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Carlyle (by Shepherd and Williamson, 2 vols., London, 1881 ) Edinburgh Sketches and Memories (by Masson, London, 1892) ; Bielschowsky's Life of Goethe (3 vols., by Cooper, New York, 1907-8). Madison, Wisconsin.