Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books is a novel by the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle, first serialised in Fraser's Magazine from November 1833 to August 1834. It purports to be a commentary on the thought and early life of a German philosopher called Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (which translates as 'Zeus-born Devil's-dung'),"The full name, Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, Zeus-born Devil's Dung, indicates the combination in one person of the half malicious Swiftian satire with the ethereal idealism of a Fichte or a Goethe. Carlyle calls attention to this twofold nature of his hero in numerous places. In the chapter on Reminiscences the editor remembers seeing in his eyes 'gleams of an ethereal or else a diabolic fire'; in the chapter on Characteristics we are told that his voice screws itself aloft 'as into the song of spirits, or else the shrill mockery of fiends,' that at times we distinguish 'gleams of an ethereal love, 'soft wailings of infinite pity,' and at others "some half invisible wrinkle of a bitter sardonic humor" so that 'you look on him almost with a shudder, as on some incarnate Mephistopheles.' His eyes again are described as sparkling with lights, which 'may indeed be reflexes of the heavenly stars, but perhaps also gleams from the region of Nether Fire'." — Johnson, William Savage (1911). "Sartor Resartus." In: Thomas Carlyle: A Study of his Literary Apprenticeship, 1814-1831. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 113–114. author of a tome entitled Clothes: Their Origin and Influence. Teufelsdröckh's transcendentalist musings are mulled over by a skeptical English Reviewer (referred to as Editor) who also provides fragmentary biographical material on the philosopher. The work is a parody, in part of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and more generally of German idealism.
Background
Archibald MacMechan surmised that the novel's invention had three literary sources. The first of these was A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift, whom Carlyle intensely admired in his college years, even going by the nicknames "Jonathan" and "The Dean". In that work, the three main traditions of Western Christianity are represented by a father bestowing his three children with clothes they may never alter, but proceed to do so according to fashion. Carlyle's second influence, according to MacMechan, was his own work in translating works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, particularly Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Faust, all of which Carlyle quotes and explicitly refers to, especially when Teufelsdröckh names his own crisis "The Sorrows of Young Teufelsdröckh". The third major influence was Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, from which Carlyle quotes many phrases, and to which he had referred in earlier letters."My first favourite books had been Hudibras and Tristram Shandy." quoted in
Carlyle worked on an earlier novel, Wotton Reinfred, which MacMechan refers to as "[t]he first draft of Sartor." Carlyle finished seven chapters of the semi-autobiographical novel depicting a young man of deeply religious upbringing being scorned in love, and thereafter wandering. He eventually finds at least philosophical consolation in a mysterious stranger named Maurice Herbert, who invites Wotton into his home and frequently discusses speculative philosophy with him. At this point, the novel abruptly shifts to highly philosophical dialogue revolving mostly around Immanuel Kant. Though the unfinished novel deeply impressed Carlyle's wife Jane, (née Welsh) Carlyle never published it and its existence was forgotten until long after Carlyle's death. MacMechan suggests that the novel provoked Carlyle's frustration and scorn due to the "zeal for truth and his hatred for fiction" he speaks of in his letters of the time. Numerous parts of Wotton appear in the biographical section of Sartor Resartus, where Carlyle humorously turns them into Teufelsdröckh's autobiographical sketches, which the Editor constantly complains are overly fragmented or derivative of Goethe. Though widely and erroneously reported as having been burned by Carlyle, the unfinished novel is still extant in draft form; several passages were moved verbatim to Sartor Resartus, but with their context radically changed.
Carlyle had difficulty finding a publisher for the novel, and he began composing it as an article in October 1831 at Craigenputtock.Fred Kaplan, "Carlyle, Thomas (1795–1881)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., 2008, accessed 10 Jan 2011. Fraser's Magazine serialised it in 1833–1834. The text first appeared in volume form in Boston, United States, in 1836, its publication arranged by the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, who much admired the book and Carlyle. Emerson's savvy dealing with the overseas publishers ensured Carlyle received high compensation, which the novel did not attain in Britain. The first British edition was published in London in 1838.Campbell, Ian. "Thomas Carlyle". Victorian Prose Writers Before 1867. Ed. William B. Thesing. Detroit: Gale Research, 1987. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 55. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 Jan. 2011.
Title "Sartor Resartus" is usually translated as "The Tailor Re-tailored"; it has also been rendered as "The Tailor Repatched", "The Tailor Patched", "The Clothes Volume Edited", and as "The Tailor Made Whole Again".
There is a song called "The Taylor Done Over" which was published in London in 1785. It has been suggested that a Scottish variant was popular in Carlyle's day and may have inspired his choice of title. Another source might have been Lord Byron's play The Deformed Transformed (1824). The play, based on Goethe's Faust, was admired by Goethe, who was a friend and mentor of Carlyle, and Carlyle referenced Byron in his writings from the late 1820s.
Plot
The novel takes the form of a long review by a somewhat cantankerous unnamed Editor for the English publication Fraser's Magazine (in which the novel was first serialised without any distinction of the content as fictional) who is, upon request, reviewing the fictional German book Clothes, Their Origin and Influence by the fictional philosopher Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (Professor of "Things in General" at Weissnichtwo—i.e., "Know-not-where"—University). The Editor is clearly flummoxed by the book, first struggling to explain it in the context of contemporary social issues in England, some of which he knows Germany to be sharing, then conceding that he knows Teufelsdröckh personally, but that even this relationship does not explain the curiosities of the book's philosophy. The Editor remarks that he has sent requests to Teufelsdröckh's office in Germany for more biographical information, hoping for further explanation, and the remainder of Book One contains summaries of Teufelsdröckh's book, including translated quotations, accompanied by the Editor's many objections, many of them buttressed by quotations from Goethe and William Shakespeare. The review becomes longer and longer due to the Editor's frustration at the philosophy, and his desire to expose its outrageous nature. At the final chapter of Book One, the Editor has received a reply from Teufelsdröckh's office in the form of several bags of paper scraps (rather esoterically organised according to the signs of the Zodiac) on which are written autobiographical fragments.
At the writing of Book Two, the Editor has somewhat organised the fragments into a coherent narrative. As a boy, Teufelsdröckh was left in a basket on the doorstep of a childless couple in the German country town of Entepfuhl ("Duck-pond"); his father a retired sergeant of Frederick the Great and his mother a very pious woman, who, to Teufelsdröckh's gratitude, raises him in utmost spiritual discipline. In very flowery language, Teufelsdröckh recalls at length the values instilled in his idyllic childhood, the Editor noting how most of his descriptions originate in intense spiritual pride. Teufelsdröckh eventually is recognised as being clever, and sent to Hinterschlag ("Slap-behind") Gymnasium. While there, Teufelsdröckh is intellectually stimulated, and befriended by a few of his teachers, but frequently bullied by other students. His reflections on this time of his life are ambivalent: glad for his education, but critical of that education's disregard for actual human activity and character, as regarding both his own treatment and his education's application to politics. While at university, Teufelsdröckh encounters the same problems, but eventually gains a small teaching post and some favour and recognition from the German nobility. While interacting with these social circles, Teufelsdröckh meets a woman he calls Blumine ("Goddess of Flowers"; the Editor assumes this to be a pseudonym), and abandons his teaching post to pursue her. She spurns his advances for a British aristocrat named Towgood. Teufelsdröckh is thrust into a spiritual crisis, and leaves the city to wander the European countryside, but even there encounters Blumine and Towgood on their honeymoon. He sinks into a deep depression, culminating in the celebrated "Everlasting No", disdaining all human activity. Still trying to piece together the fragments, the Editor surmises that Teufelsdröckh either fights in a war during this period, or at least intensely uses its imagery, which leads him to a "Centre of Indifference", and on reflection of all the ancient villages and forces of history around him, ultimately comes upon the affirmation of all life in the "Everlasting Yea". The Editor, in relief, promises to return to Teufelsdröckh's book, hoping with the insights of his assembled biography to glean some new insight into the philosophy.
Characters
Herr Diogenes Teufelsdröckh: (Greek/German: "Zeus-Born Devil's Dung") The Professor of "Things in General" at Weissnichtwo University, and writer of a long book of German idealist philosophy called Clothes, Their Origin and Influence, the review of which forms the contents of the novel. Both professor and book are fictional.
The Editor: The narrator of the novel, who in reviewing Teufelsdröckh's book, reveals much about his own tastes, as well as deep sympathy towards Teufelsdröckh, and much worry as to social issues of his day. His tone varies between conversational, and condemning and even semi-Biblical prophecy. The Reviewer should not be confused with Carlyle himself, seeing as much of Teufelsdröckh's life implements Carlyle's own biography.
Hofrath: Hofrath Heuschrecke (i.e., State-Councillor Grasshopper) is a loose, zigzag figure, a blind admirer of Teufelsdröckh, an incarnation of distraction distracted, and the only one who advises the editor and encourages him in his work; a victim to timidity and preyed on by an uncomfortable sense of mere physical cold, such as the majority of the state-counsellors of the day were.
Blumine: A woman associated to the German nobility with whom Teufelsdröckh falls in love early in his career. Her spurning of him to marry Towgood leads Teufelsdröckh to the spiritual crisis that culminates in the Everlasting No. Their relationship is somewhat parodic of Werther's spurned love for Lotte in The Sorrows of Young Werther (including her name "Goddess of Flowers", which may simply be a pseudonym), though, as the Editor notes, Teufelsdröckh does not take as much incentive as does Werther. Critics have associated her with Kitty Kirkpatrick, with whom Carlyle himself fell in love before marrying Jane Carlyle.Heffer, Simon (1995). Moral Desperado – A Life of Thomas Carlyle. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, p. 48. "East Did Meet West – 3," by Dr. Rizwana Rahim.