Carlyle and the Idea of the Modern:
Studies in Carlyle’s Prophetic Literature and Its
Relation to Blake, Nietzsche, Marx, and Others

by Albert J. LaValley

Acknowledgments	vii

Abbreviations	xi

Introduction	1

PART ONE: SELF-DISCOVERY AND SELF-CONSOLIDATION
Chapter 1
Preparations for Sartor: The Discovery of a Voice	17
The Masks of Schiller, Goethe, Richter, and Voltaire	17
Achievement and Failure in Wotton Reinfred	44
New Soundings in “Signs of the Times” and “Characteristics”	56

Chapter 2
Sartor Resartus: The Prophet Finds His Literary Role	69

PART TWO: LONDON—VARIETIES OF SOCIAL PROPHECY
Chapter 3
The French Revolution: Change and Historical Consciousness [Excerpt: Carlyle, Blake, Nietzsche: The French Revolution & The Birth of Tragedy (164-175)]	121

Chapter 4
Past and Present: Apocalypse and Full Vision [Excerpt: Past and Present: Marx & Blake vs Carlyle & Nietzsche (220-235)]	183

Chapter 5
Hunting for Heroes: The Flight from Reality	236
Hero‑Worship: Everlasting Adamant or Solacing Fact?	236
Cromwell and Frederick: Problems of Power and Futility	253
Toward the Totalitarian Self	278

Chapter 6
Limited Heroism: John Sterling	303

PART THREE: RETURN TO SELFHOOD

Chapter 7	328
Conclusion, with a Glance at the Reminiscences

A Basic Bibliography	337

Index	345

SOURCE: LaValley, Albert J. Carlyle and the Idea of the Modern: Studies in Carlyle’s Prophetic Literature and Its Relation to Blake, Nietzsche, Marx, and Others. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968. Contents, pp. ix-x.

Engels (& Borges) on Carlyle

Marx on political economy vs reversion to Romanticism

Engels on the British Ideology: Empiricism, Agnosticism, & “Shamefaced Materialism”

On Bentham and Coleridge (Excerpts) by John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill & the Dualities: Bentham & Coleridge
— Commentary by Ralph Dumain

“Mitologías del odio” de Jorge Luis Borges

Comparative Studies of William Blake & Other Modern Writers & Thinkers:
A Bibliography for a Study in Ideology

English & German Romanticism & Philosophy: A Bibliography

Anti-Nietzsche Bibliography

William Blake Study Guide

Positivism vs Life Philosophy (Lebensphilosophie) Study Guide

Marx and Marxism Web Guide