Rabelaisianism in Carlyle

Author(s): A. H. Upham
Source: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 33, No. 7 (Nov., 1918), pp. 408-414
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2915763 .
Accessed: 19/04/2013 17:24
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Johns Hopkins University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Modern Language Notes.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 189.24.139.119 on Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:24:12 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

408

MODERN

LANGUAGE NOTES

sion of the countreywhich Englishmenhad so long held, after

good deliberationhee determinedto leave some men behinde to
reteilne
possessionof the Countrey." (Page 347.)
And ours to hold,
VIRGINIA,

Earth's onely Paradise.

Drayton perhaps intelndedto acknowledgehis indebtednessto

Hakluytin the concludingstanza:
Thy Voyages attend,
Industrious Hacklvit,
Whose Reading shall inflame
Men to seeke Fame,
And much commend
To after-Times thy Wit.

It mightbe worthwhileto searchforotherinstancesof Drayton's

ilndebtedness
to the Priniicipal
Navigations.3 Indeed the influence
of the literatureof the sea upon the Elizabethanpoets mightwell
constitutethe workof a doctoraldissertation.
Cornell Univer^sitpy.

RABELAISIANISMi

JOSEPH

QUINCY ADAMS.

IN CARLYLE

ProfessorBliss Perry'srecentstudyof Carlyle,1thoughwritten

primarilyfor the general reader, should commenditself to the
more carefulstudelnton accouintof the directnesswith which it
proceedsto its task alndthe vitalityit impartsto its subject. The
conceptionit presentsof the workilng
of Carlyle'smind and of the
doctrinesthereevolvedis in most respectscompleteelnough;btLt
olneside of his mentalactivity,and one in whichhe standsunique
in his generation,has receivedveryslightconsideration. No ac3 The list of borrowings in the poem just considered might be increased.
For the adjective " vse-full" as applied to sassafras, see page 355; and for
the lines:
And as there Plenty growes
Of Lawrell euery where
see page 304. The apostrophe " You braue Heroique minds " was possibly
addressed to those persons whose names are given on apage 317.
I Bliss Perry, Thomas
Carlyle: How to Know Himn. Indianapolis, The
Bobbs-MlerrillCo., 1915.

This content downloaded from 189.24.139.119 on Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:24:12 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

RABELAISIANISMi

IN CARLYLE

409

of
quaintancewith Carlyle is completewithoutdue con;sideration
inappronor
be neitherpresumptuous
his humor. Perhapsit wou-Lld
of this elementin his
priate to suggesta possibleinterpretation
work,employingin part ProfessorPerry'smethodof makingthe
subjectspeak forhimself.
at all times,"
Analyzing,or even describinghumor" is difficult
declares Carlyle in the second Richteressay. "It is like a fine
essence,like a soul," he explains; " we discoverit only in whole
worksand delineations,as the soul is only to be seen in the living,
body,not in detachedlimbs anidfragments." His various definitions of humor,in the Richter essays and elsewhere,are in
terms. Humoris " sensibility,"
generalanclconiventional
extremely
"the playfulteasing fondsensibility";
of
"sport
the
or rather
" gentle and genial," " full
It
is
child."
her
for
ness of a mother
up in the simple
be
to
suLmmed
yet ethereal." In fact,it appears
love.
and
sportfullness,
formula:sensibility,
To go fartherinto detail than this, one needs to have some
concretebasis for comparison,some suggestionat least of source
or inspirationby which to clarifythe problem. The humorous
turnof mind was nativewTithCarlvle. At the a(re of eighteenhe
(1814):
wroteto his friendRobertMAitchell
"N7Vapthe Mighty,who, but a few months ago, made the
sovereirnsof Europe trembleat his nod; who has trampledon
thronesancl sceptres,kings alnclpriests,and prineipalitiesand
powers, and carried ruin and bavoc and blood and fire,from
Gibraltarto Archangel-N7apthe Mighityis-gone to pot!!!"
Anotherletter,six monthslater,containedthis promise:
"After this long preamble,you are not to expect that I, all
jaded as I am, can even attemptto amnuse you thisbout,but,my
dear Bov, sencdme a letterinformingme that you are reconciled,
and I'll warrantyou recei-vea letter full of qairk and oddity,
wit,and theseveral
withmirth lhumor,
coveredthickand threefold
morceau
otherappendagesrequisiteforformingan unexceptionable
d'e'loquenceet d'esprit."
By the time Carlyle wroteof his Ge'rmans,fifteenyears after
he was able not only to repeatlearned comthis correspondenice,
monplacesabout humorin the abstract,but to illustratethesewith
in a familiar,well-aequaintedtone,to a conabundantreferences,
of
siderablebody humorists. These,it shouldbe noted,are English,
French,and Spanish,ratherthan Gernman.Humor meantto him,
but
sensibility,
of wholesonme
afterall, not merelythe sportfulness

This content downloaded from 189.24.139.119 on Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:24:12 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

410

-MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES

ofRabelaisand Cervantes,
and utteralnces
themlloods
moreconcretely
and Sterne,and finally
of Samuel Butler,Dean Swift,Arbuthnot,
of Richter.
Trhathe had been readingtheseauthorsand had learnedto love
themis wellestablished. He has mentionedHudibrasand Tristram
Shandy as his earliest favorites. His universitycorrespondence
to Swift,Sterne,and Cervantes,one friend
has frequentreferences
and "Doctor."
addressinghim variouslyas " Dean," " Jonathanl,"
He insistedin his lettersthat tfohnCarlyle,his brother,should
read the Tale of a Tub and Don Quixote. It is hardlychancethat
duringhis courtshipJane Welsh owned a dog named " Shandy,"
or that olnhis firstvisit to France the partyin whichhe traveled
used the SentimentalJourneyas a Baedeker. The same group of
and allusionsstrewn
in the references
authorsis richlyrepreselnted
in the lead, and
Sterne
so plentifullyamong his essays, with
Cervantesa close second.
Taken as a basis for the considerationof Carlyle'sown humor,
this group is more uniifiedthan at firstit may appear. However
distinctin time and place and dominatingpurpose,these men
suggestedto the generalreaderof England or Scotlanda comparatively short period in English thought,the era of satire anid
burlesquethatfollowedclose upolnthe StuartRestoration.Literary
England at that timewas largelyunderforeigninfluence,particularly in the cultivationof the satiric forms,such as burlesque,
a clef,and the deviceof thenaive and detached
romnan
mock-heroic,
observer. Every E'nglishauthorin Carlyle'shumorgroupshared
largelyin the influenceof a great French masterof satire, and
theyapparentlyderivedfromhim muchthat made themstrongest
and mostsympathetic-much,indeed,of what Carlylehimselfcan
be shown to possess,whethernative in his genius or derivedat
is that this authoris the
firstor secondhand. The only difficulty
one mentionedleast of the whole group by Carlyle himselfFranigoisRabelais.
In actual practicethe influenceof Rabelais and that of Ceirvantes
permeatedEngland together. But wvhilethe popularityof Don
as a formand
Quixotegave decidedimpulseto prose mock-heroic
of good
the
limits
within
imitations
various
to
restraini
operated
strange
of
a
storehouse
marvels
Lucianic
provided
taste,Rabelais's
almost
of
characters
and adaptablethings. Giantsby generations,
seas,
on
uncharted
adventures
astoundinig
obtrusivepersolnalities,

This content downloaded from 189.24.139.119 on Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:24:12 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

RABELAISIANISM

IN CARLYLE

411

keen satile of such familiarsubjects as law courts and religious

of a new style,
ceremonyand scholarship:add to thesethe elemelnt
and the result is a literarytemptationentirelytoo strongto be
resisted by U rquhart,the Scottish translator;by Butler, Swift,
Ailbuthnot,aind Sterlne;andl probablyby theirlineal descendant
Carlyle.
It cainnotbe far amiss, then,to considerin Carlyle's writings
to modern
traitsof Rabelaisian stylethus tralnsmitted
the obviouts
times. MIoredirectanalogies betweenRabelais and Carlyle need
not be surprising. As noted above, we findCarlyle,early in life,
in
cultivatinga rhapsodicalor dithyrambicsort of extravaganlce
passages of satire,whichlaterhe was to extendto longerorganized
discourses,at least approachingthe scope of the Gargantua or
Pantagruel. The outburstregarding" Nap the mighty" may be
paralleled in countless paragraphs,particularlyin the French
Revolution,while the entireessays on Count Cagliostroand The
Diamond Necklace are admirable specimens of mock-ronmance
entirelyin this same vein. Fundamentally,of course,Rabelais's
and was projectedlike Don
great workis only a mock-romance,
Hence it is interesting
type.
Quixoteas a burlesqueof the popular
to note in Carlyle's Sartor Resartus the furtherappearance of
romanticconventions. Herr Teufelsdrockh,for all his bachelor
seclusionand clouds of tobaccosmoke,suggestsa heroof romance
in the mysterythat enshroudshis parentage,his birth,and his
supposed" passing." The experiencesof his youth,carefullyoutlined, serveas travestyto the enfancesof many such heroes. He
magnanimous,and in his obseris experiencedin love,far-traveled,
vationand judgmentalmostsuperhuman. His aeryabove the city,
fromwhichhe overlooksthe teeminglife of streetand tenement,
suggestsat once Le Sage's Diable Boiteutx. Teufelsdr6ckhlikewisehas his fidusAchatesin thepersonof theHofrathHeuschrecke,
to the Sancho Panza of Quixote,the Ralpho of Sir
corresponding
Hudibras, and-at a veryconsiderabledistance-the Panurge of
Pantagruel. One may wonder too how far the wanderingsof
Teufelsdr6ckhtowardthe "Everlasting Yeg" correspondto the
search of these last two for the Oracle of the Bottle. But the
were
analogyweakensat this point. Goetheand his WVanderjahre
toocloseat hand.
Carlyle has a peculiar appreciationfor the giganticor Titanic
figuresin historyandlliterature. His spiritualgiants loom quite

This content downloaded from 189.24.139.119 on Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:24:12 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

412

MODERN

LANGUAGE NO,TES

as large as the material ones in Rabelais. All his selectionsof

" Heroes" are Titans in theirway,and whentheyare treatedelsewherein his writingsthisgiganticqualityis sureto be emphasized,
as in the case of MIirabeauand Burns. Richter,who is Carlyle's
most" humorous" of Germans,he constantlypresentsas a spiritual
he oversteps
giant:-" A Titan in his sportas in his earnestness,
all boundand riotswithoutlaw or measure. He heapsPclion upon
Ossa, and hurls the universetogetherand asunderlike a case of
playthings." Even Teufelsdr6ckh'sunique laugh, as describedin
the firstbook of Sartor, has somethingof the colossal about it.
Dean Swifthad caughtfromRabelais a trickof presentinggiants,
and in the processhe providedCarlyle with a good mouth-filling
word to characterizethe immensitiesthat appealed to him. The
Norse myths,for example, show " huge untutoredBrobdignag
grinof truehumor"
genius"; thereis " a greatbroadBrobdignlag
in the god Skrymir;and the wholeScandinavianconceptionof the
business."
creationof cosmosis a " Hyper-Brobdignagian
"
" in Carlyle's
forthe sportfulness
One of the closestsynonyms
is "whimsicality,"and whimsicalityis clearly a
humor-program
feature of which he was very fond. In this regard Sterne
approached nearest to Rabelais, but Carlyle finds numerous
ilnstancesin all his favoriteauthors,again includingRichter. In
was chieflyin mattersof detail,though
Rabelais this whimsicality
it appearedas distinctlyin certainof the larg,econceptionsof his
work,such as the old conventionof dependingon a mysterious
manuscriptcuriouslvconcealedin a tomb,the wholenotionof the
essentialherb " pantagruelion,"and the fantasticjourney to the
equally fantasticOracle of the Bottle. Swift and Sterneparticularlyreveledin trickslike these. Carlyle'sbest knownapproximation of them is in Sartor, wherehe poses as merelythe English
editorof a Germanscholar,whosebiographycomesto him in " six
considerablePaper Bags, carefullysealed,and markedsuccessively
in gilt china-ink,with the symbolsof the Six SouthernZodiacal
at Libra."
signs,beg,inning
Carlyleis alwaystriflingwithhis reader'scredulityin this way.
is not the authorof Die Kleider-merely;but also of
Teufelsdrockh
a chapter on The Greatnessof Great Men, fromwhich Carlyle
quotes in his essay on Goetlhe'sWorks. Herr ProfessorSauerteig
is a favoriteauthorof his, whose mysteriousworksappear again
and again in his pages. Twice at least he reworkshis own critical

This content downloaded from 189.24.139.119 on Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:24:12 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

RABELAISIANISM

IN CARLYLE

413

obligationto "a writeron this subject" and

dicta,acknowledging
to " one of Richter'sEnglish critics." In The Diamond Necklace
he introducesa long burlesqueaddressby Count Cagliostroto his
faithfulfollowers. The fantastic titles of various of Richter's
and he notes of that authorwith
booksplease Carlyleimmensely,
great satisfactionthat he "has a whole imaginarygeographyof
Europe in his novels."
WithvisualizingsuchgeographyCarlylewas muchless concerned
than Rabelais or Swift,but at timeswhenhe set his mind upon it
he producedbits of fantasticdescriptionquite on a par witheither
of these. Witnessthe ratherextensivepicturesof South American
portrayalofEnglish
life in Dr. Francia, or the vivid,naively-drawn
dandiesand Irish Poor Slaves at the end of Saitor. Carlyle'sreal
interestlay in depictingnot peoplesbut people that were unusual
the " bag-cheeked,
to thepointof fantasy,fromRichardArkwright,
barber" of Chartism,
much-inventing
pot-bellied,much-enduring,
of Deputies.
to sea-greenRobespierreand therestof the Processioln
Moreover,Carlyleappearsto have had faithin the powerof names
equalled only by that of Pantagruel and Walter Shandy. Every
Germanpropername in SartorResartusrepaysclose scrutiny,but
the author's possibilitiesin his owu language are equally large.
Sansculottistand Sanspotato,gigman and Soap-bubbleguild, MT.
and Mrs. Rigmaroleand Don FatpaunchoUsandwontotake second
place to nothingmet by Pantagruelon his wanderings.
depends
Carlyle,like Rabelais and othersof the humor-group,
that is
of
detail
a
on
realism
for much of his pictorial effect
at
is
arrived
this
grotesqueand oftena triflerough. Frequently
colloof
in the manner of genuine burlesque-by a vocabulary
quialism. The Cagliostroessay, appropriatelyenough,is packed
withexpressionsof this kind. Elesewherethe readermay happen
at any turn upon descriptionslike that in Dr. Francia of the
weariedsoldierswho " sank soon enoughinto steadynose-melody,
into the foolishestrough colt-danceof unimaginabledreams."
One of the most conspicuousfeaturesof Rabelaisian style was
the fondnessfor accumulatingexpressionsin long and utterly
uselessprocessions. Sometimestherewas a commonendingforall
these,but more oftentheir effectdepended upon the hopelessly
miscellaneouscharacterof the series. Urquhartenjoyedthis device
and managedto lengthenmostof theseprocessionsstill
thoroughly
fartherin translation. Sternefoundit easy to imitateand worked

This content downloaded from 189.24.139.119 on Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:24:12 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

414

MODERN

LANGUAGE NOTES

it habituallv. Carlile adoptedit earlyand made it verymuchhis

own, producingeffects to use his own words of poor Teufelsdr6ckh'sbook " like some mad banquet,whereinall courseshad
been confounded,alndfishand flesh,soup and solid, oyster-sauce,
lettuces,Rhine wine and French mustard,were hurled into one
huge tureen or ti'ough,and the hungrypublic invited to help
itself." As earlyas 1822 he was writingto his brother:" I have
illwrittenin a strangehumourtonight,Jack: melancholickish,
naturedish,affectionatish-allin ish-for I am very weak and
weary." Even the " Nap the mighty" passage, indeed, shows
tendenciesthis way. Of all his workthe essays on Diderot and
CoulntCagliostroare perhapsthe richestin these effects. Sartor
Resartushas one famouspassage, in which "kings and beggars,
" are " chaand angelsand demons,and starsand street-sweepings
in the
and
movement
of
the life
oticallywhirled." Part at least
of
skillful
manipulation this
French Revolutionis secured by a
same device.
It may be objectedthat the qualities enumeratedhere are concernedwithoily one phase of Carlyle'shumor its sportfulnessand thus fairlybeg,the questionin favorof Rabelais. They are,
is the tangiblethingabout humor,
and theydo. But sportfulness
sensibilityand love are " the fineessencelike a soul"' that Carlyle
himselfadvisesus not to seek in " detachedlimbs and fragments."
Hence sportfulnessis the only imitable thing about humor;
sensibilityand love-or a genuinelyresponsivesympathy,which
embracesthemboth-must be soughtin the core *ofa man's own
in Carlyle
iiature. It remainsonlyto poilntout thattheseelemiients
are analogous in degree and kind to those in the hearts of the
English Rabelaisiansand theirFrenchmaster. Cervantes,Carlyle
confesses,is in a class by himself.
highermoral purposeand tone than
Carlylehad a consistently
Rabelais,or severalof his English imitators. He was not so readily
maovedto emotionas Sterne and lnotnearlyso fond of the expeand many timesunfairin
rience. Like Swifthe was inconasistent
his sympathyand severity. But as a man and a scholar,with a
man's reactionson life and an appreciationof passionsbecausehe
had feltthemand wrestledwiththemtime out of mind,he shows
strikingkinshipwiththe secularBenedictineof France, who loved
mankindwhilehe shookhis sides in laughterat it.
sity.
Miami Univer

A. H. UPHAMr.

This content downloaded from 189.24.139.119 on Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:24:12 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions