The French Revolution Now; or, Carlyle's Eternal Return. Issue 1 (2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Allison, Mark
• Is Part Of: Victorian literature and culture. Volume 50:Issue 1(2022)
• Page Start: 203
• Page End: 223
• Publication Date: 2022
• Subjects: English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Arts, Victorian -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Great Britain -- Civilization -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Criticism and interpretation -- Periodicals; Criticism and interpretation -- Periodicals; 820.8
• DOI: 10.1017/S1060150321000218
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1060-1503

Abstract

Abstract : This essay utilizes the publication of the first scholarly edition of The French Revolution: A History (1837) as an occasion to reassess this thoroughgoingly radical—and puzzlingly neglected—masterpiece. It explores how Thomas Carlyle's maverick conceptions of sympathy and affect, the relationship of the individual and the collective, and narrative itself underlie the audacious stylistic innovations that characterize this singular text. Moreover, this paper interprets Carlyle's history as a chronicle of inverted utopianism; that is, an apocalyptic manifestation of what is nevertheless a properly utopian longing for heaven on earth. Thus read, The French Revolution offers perspective on our own volatile times as well as a promise—or perhaps a warning—that the insurrectionary struggle for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity is not over.