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Chapter Four
Teufelsdrockh, More Than a Literary Man…
…the Tailor is not only a Man, but something of a Creator or Divinity. Of Franklin it was said, that “he snatched the Thunder from Heaven and the Sceptre from Kings”: but which is greater …. [It is] how a man is by the Tailor new-created into a Nobleman, and clothed not only with Wool but with Divinity and a Mystic Dominion. (SR 217-18)
What were the implications of romantic notions of genius for the image of the scientist? … First, the Romantics promoted a concept of creative genius as transcending rules and conventions in poetry, art, and science.
Second, they encouraged the idea that such genius was intimately bound up with an extraordinary personality—one capable of breaking with conventional methods to achieve great discoveries, but also likely to transgress traditional norms of behaviour …. It is here…that the question of Newton’s character appeared…, put by Wordsworth and Carlyle….
(Yeo 1993:139-40)
I. What is Carlyle’s “Tailor”?
In one of the concluding chapters of Sartor Resartus, “Chapter XI Tailors,”
Carlyle exclaims that “What too are all Poets and moral Teachers, but a species of Metaphorical Tailors” (SR 218, italics mine). For Carlyle, Poets are of a significant role because ideally it is “who but the Poet first made Gods for men” (218). Due to the two statements, generally, there is always the equation of Carlyle’s Metaphorical Tailor with the Poet. The Carlylean transcendentalist hence seems to straightforwardly direct the Poet. If not the Poet, there is usually the assumption that the Carlylean transcendentalist must be a literary man.
However, does Carlyle indeed suppose a transcendentalist should be a poet or a literary man? If indeed a transcendental Tailor is a literary man or a poet, why does
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Carlyle claim “Close thy Byron; open thy Goethe” (SR 145)? And why does Carlyle take Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), the man to “[snatch] the Thunder from Heaven and the Sceptre from Kings” (217), as one of the emblematic ideals of the Tailor?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is generally assumed to be a literary man owing to his literary successes in Sorrows of Young Werter (1774), Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1795-96), and Faust (1808).24 However, Goethe dedicates himself to the study of optics more than to literature and believes himself to be the only person greater than Newton to know the truth in the science of colors (Eckermann “Dec. 30, 1823” par. 8; Uberoi 17). With regard to Franklin, though he composed “The Way to Wealth,” he has never been lauded for his literariness but his political and scientific achievements. According to Carlyle’s description of Franklin, the one to “snatch Thunder from Heaven and the Sceptre from Kings,” Franklin obviously appears to be a professional of the laws of nature and politics instead of literature. If Franklin is a scientist and a politician in Carlyle’s mind, and if Goethe is more than a literary man but a scientist, does Carlyle indeed suppose his philosophical thinker should be a Poet?
Otherwise, if Carlyle claims to “close thy Byron,” whether to be “a Poet” or not should not be the only estimation of a Carlylean philosopher. During Carlyle’s composition of Sartor (1830-31), Lord Byron (1788-1824) was already a prominent poet in Europe and a trendsetter in the Dandiacal Style. This international poet however does not win Carlyle’s admiration. If it is not Byron the poet, Carlyle’s contemporary prominent man of letters to represent the great prophet of the age, what kind of person of what kind of characteristics, can stand for the Carlylean great mind?
To take the “Tailor” chapter as the clue to help trace the possibility, Franklin and
24 Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus was primarily influenced by Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werter and Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, not by Faustus. In Sartor, Carlyle mentions both Sorrows and Wilhelm twice.
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Goethe may be two of the representatives to symbolize “[the world’s] Hierophant and Hierarch, or even its God” (218). To compare Goethe and Franklin, a common ground is science: both are familiar with science and are themselves scientists.25 Presumably, there seems to be some attributes related to “science” in Carlyle’s imaginations of his ideal philosopher.
With regard to Carlyle’s ideal philosopher, Teufelsdrockh is the incarnation.
The investigation of Carlyle’s Metaphorical Tailor hence should be focused on Teufelsdrockh, the character. Thus, what is Teufelsdrockh, if the Carlylean
philosopher is not necessarily a poet? What if Teufelsdrockh is more than a literary man? If not merely a literary man, what possibly is Teufelsdrockh? If Carlyle claims the significance of the “Torch of Science” in the opening of Sartor, what is
Teufelsdrockh the protagonist in relation to the Torch and Science since he supposedly is the holder of the Torch to reveal the truth? Furthermore, if Carlyle sympathizes with the use of matter by declaring “natural supernaturalism,” what is the significance of matter for Teufelsdrockh? Or, more specifically, what is the
significance of matter in Teufelsdrockh’s Clothes Philosophy? Moreover, if there seems to be the attribute of “science” in Carlyle’s imagination of his ideal philosopher, what is the attribute of science presented in Teufelsdrockh the philosopher?
This chapter thus proposes to examine Teufelsdrockh the protagonist as the incarnation of Carlyle’s ideal philosopher in Sartor. I suppose that, in Carlyle’s mind, the Metaphorical Tailor is not necessarily a poet or a literary man. Instead, there should be a more significant attribute when it comes to deciding whether a man is a transcendental philosopher or not. This means that to be a poet is good but not sufficient; the obligatory attribute of a true Carlylean philosopher resides in other
25 Goethe was a specialist in optics, plant morphology, and homology, and Franklin was a prodigious inventor who created the lightening rod, bifocal glasses, the refrigerator, etc.
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requirements. Besides, in terms of the importance of the Torch and the theory of
“Natural Supernaturalism,” I assume that “science” implicitly plays a pivotal role in Carlyle’s composition of the character of Teufelsdrockh. As long as Carlyle never disdains science and matter and personally gets involved in scientific studies at an early age, the significances of science may probably be merged into Teufelsdrockh the character, making the Carlylean ideal philosopher to be more than just a literary man.
In order to grasp a more explicit image of Teufelsdrockh, the exploration of Teufelsdrockh’s relation to science and matter would become necessary, because Sartor starts with the Torch of Science to claim “Natural Supernaturalism” and ends with Franklin the scientist as the typical Metaphorical Tailor. In the following research, then, there will be two parts. The first is a survey of Carlyle’s interrelation with
science and the men of science at an early age (1820-30).26 In this section, there will be sketches of Carlyle’s contemporary socio-cultural circumstances in reference to the development of science as a legitimate discipline and the emergence of the scientist as a respectable profession. The second part consists of two sections. In the first section there are theories concerning the philosophy of science and of the scientist proposed by Carlyle’s just contemporary philosopher of science, William Whewell
(1794-1866).27 A few discussions of Carlyle’s ideal science and scientists will also be analyzed by the comparisons of the Whewellian and the Carlylean thinking minds.
After having grasped Carlyle’s relations with his contemporary science and the man of science, the second section will undertake the analyses of 1) Teufelsdrockh the character—his study, his profession, his struggles, his awareness, and his theory, 2) the solution of the riddle hidden in the bizarre name, “Diogenes Teufelsdrockh,” and 3) the true meaning of Carlyle’s Tailor in Clothes Philosophy.
26 Sartor is composed in 1830-31.
27 Carlyle was born in 1795, one year after Whewell’s birth.