Customer Reviews

Sartor Resartus (Oxford World's Classics)

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The greatest neglected book in cultural history, endlessly complex, subtle, always self-critical, ironic, mysterious, beautiful and powerful. Not a book to read through from beginning to end, but one to dip into, explore, examine from different angles. As in the book itself, the so-called Editor attempts to piece together the shards of the hero Teufelsdrockh's identity, so the reader needs to enter this book in-medias-res, striking into its magical maze of ideas.

From the correspondance of T.H. Huxley:

"...when I look back, what do I find to have been the agents of my redemption? The hope of immortality or of future reward? I can honestly say that for these fourteen years such a consideration has not entered my head. No, I can tell you exactly what has been at work. Sartor Resartus led me to know that a deep sense of religion was compatible with the entire absence of theology. Secondly, science and her methods gave me a resting-place independent of authority and tradition. Thirdly, love opened up to me a view of the sanctity of human nature, and impressed me with a deep sense of responsibility."

I couldn't put it better. This is one of the books that makes life worth living.

The basis of SARTOR RESARTUS is Carlyle's profound disgust with the materialism of his age. He also mistrusted science as he makes clear with his barbs at science. His hostility to what he considered the soul-destroying forces abroad in his age makes him seem quite like an Old Testament prophet of doom. The book is a disguised spiritual autobiography, whose title he took from a line in Swift's "Tale of a Tub.' (What is man himself but a microcoat?) Carlyle pretends to be the commentator on and the expositor of the philosophy of an eccentric German professor, Diogenes Teufelsdrockh (Devil's Dung), who is concerned with the philosophy of `clothes, their origin and influence.' Under this guise, he points out the difference between things as they seem and things as they are. The book is a denial of corporal reality and an exposition on the falsity of appearances of things. The shams of civilized life are the decorated robes with which the world conceals its soul. The divine principle is hidden. His purpose is to whisk away this robe to reveal the divinity of God. Those who deny God and who have no faith in the spirit, give `the Everlasting NO' to life; those who accept God say `the Everlasting YEA.' From man, he carries the image of the clothes-sham to the larger meaning of the universe. Time and space are the clothes which hide from us the true meaning of the universe. Science is worse than useless to reveal divinity to man since it negates the existence of the miraculous by pretending that mere labeling and repetition can make a miracle seem ordinary.

Reading Carlyle today is no easy task, partly due to the stilted language he prefers, and partly to the metaphorical style of his clothes imagery. Yet, his assertion that all men must choose to confront the divinity of God or face what to Carlyle was the horror of nihilism still has relevance for the modern reader who may ponder the very same thing.

This is a powerful and profound book and even sort of funny (a professor of everything... c'mon!!!)

This is a difficult book. It has small print and is written in the sort of stilted style that one would expect for a book with a Latin name written by a Scot more than a century ago. Carlyle was one of the most brilliant men of his time and in this book you can see hints of Goethe and Novalis and the other German romantic types..... which makes it sort of worthwhile....

But this was a really tough book for me to get through. Normally, I can plow through about anything.... but this took an awful lot of work....

I recommend it, though, with that qualification.... it is one of the "best" books ever written....!

This great work lays the foundation for correcting the ills of our society today. Many great lessons are to be learned. The minnow theory and the lessions learned from the Everlasting Yea are timeless. Must read and reread to gain fully understanding.

In Book 1, the narrator presents to British readers German professor Diogenes Teufelsdrockh and his "Philosophy of Clothes". Book 2 describes Teufelsdrockh's childhood, education, first love, heartbreak, sad wanderings, loss and rediscovery of faith. Book 3 expands the philosophy. Only seeing through "clothes" (anything - notably rationalism -masking man's true nature as "spirit") can we understand life : education & art (flamelike, a spirit grows when kindled by another, not composted) the symbiosis of religion & society, science's limitations.Like the ramblings of a half-mad saint (sweetened by storyline only in Book 2) moments of beauty hide within thick stylistic jungle.

Humour (2) Readability (3) Characterisation (4) Structure (4)Beauty (6) Thematic unity (6) Literary style (6) Profundity (7) Significance (7)

Rating 50%

I may have an original copy of Sartor Resartus, and would love someone's opinion. This hardcover book was published by James Miller in 1866. The title page has: "FROM THE LAST LONDON EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED BY THE AUTHOR."