托马斯·卡莱尔

托马斯·卡莱尔（英语：Thomas Carlyle，1795年12月4日—1881年2月5日）是苏格兰评论、讽刺作家、历史学家。他的作品在维多利亚时代甚具影响力。在《英雄与英雄崇拜》中提出“历史除了为伟人写传，什么都不是”的英雄史观。1865年被任命为爱丁堡大学校长，出任到1868年。

著作

《衣裳哲学》

《法国革命史》

《论历史上的英雄、英雄崇拜和英雄业绩》

《过去与现在》

Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. Known as the "sage of Chelsea", his writings strongly influenced the intellectual and artistic culture of the Victorian era.

Carlyle was born in Ecclefechan, a village in Dumfriesshire. He attended the University of Edinburgh, where he excelled in mathematics and invented the Carlyle circle. After finishing the arts course he prepared to become a minister in the Burgher Church while working as a schoolmaster. He quit these and several other endeavours before settling on literature, writing for the Edinburgh Encyclopædia and working as a translator. He initially gained prominence in English-language literary circles for his extensive writing on German Romantic literature and philosophy. These themes were explored in his first major work, a semi-autobiographical philosophical novel entitled Sartor Resartus (1833–34).

Carlyle eventually relocated to London, where he published The French Revolution: A History (1837). Its popular success made him a celebrity, prompting the collection and reissue of his earlier essays under the title of Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1838–39). His subsequent works were highly regarded throughout Europe and North America, including On Heroes (1841), Past and Present (1843), Cromwell's Letters (1845), Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), and Frederick the Great (1858–65). He founded the London Library, helped to establish the National Portrait Galleries in London and in Edinburgh, became Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh in 1865 and received the Pour le Mérite in 1874, amongst other honours.

Carlyle occupied a central position in Victorian culture, being considered the "undoubted head of English letters" and a "secular prophet". Posthumously, a series of publications by his friend James Anthony Froude damaged Carlyle's reputation, provoking controversy about his personal life and his marriage to Jane Welsh Carlyle in particular. His reputation further declined in the aftermaths of the First World War and the Second World War, when his philosophy was seen as a precursor of both Prussianism and fascism. Growing scholarship in the field of Carlyle studies since the 1950s has improved his standing, and although little-read today, he is yet recognised as "one of the enduring monuments of [English] literature".

Biography

Early life

Thomas Carlyle was born on 4 December 1795 to James and Margaret Aitken Carlyle in the village of Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire in southwest Scotland. His parents were members of the Burgher secession Presbyterian church. James Carlyle was a stonemason, later a farmer, who built the Arched House wherein his son was born. His maxim was that "man was created to work, not to speculate, or feel, or dream." Nicholas Carlisle, an English antiquary, traced his ancestry back to Margaret Bruce, sister of Robert the Bruce.

As a result of his upbringing, James Carlyle became deeply religious in his youth, reading many books of sermons and doctrinal arguments throughout his life. In 1791 he married his first wife, distant cousin Janet, who gave birth to John Carlyle and then died. He married Margaret Aitken in 1795, a poor farmer's daughter then working as a servant. They had nine children, of whom Thomas was the eldest. Margaret was pious and devout and hoped that Thomas would become a minister. She was close to her eldest son, being a "smoking companion, counsellor and confidante" in Carlyle's early days. She suffered a manic episode when Carlyle was a teenager, in which she became "elated, disinhibited, over-talkative and violent." She suffered another breakdown in 1817, which required her to be removed from her home and restrained. Carlyle always spoke highly of his parents, and his character was deeply influenced by both of them.