On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History Paperback – December 19, 2017

This is a fairly unfashionable book by today's standards. Don't let that put you off--Carlyle is an original thinker, one with whom we still haven't quite caught up.

He's also a master prose stylist, but the style is a little dusty for modern readers. You might sneeze once or twice. This is perfectly natural; your sinuses have been clogged with Enlightenment gunk for a long time now, and Carlyle is a full nasal rinse. With carbonic acid. Once a few layers have been stripped away and the healthy, living tissue is exposed, it actually feels great, like aloe vera on a sunburn. How that got up your nose, I'm not sure. How this metaphor got extended this far, I can't say.

In "On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History," Carlyle sketches out for us exactly what the title promises. Isn't that nice? I love it when that happens. The heroes in question take various forms: prophets, poets, priests, men of letters, kings, revolutionaries... and even a god. Taking on this variety of form, it's hard to see at first what these heroes all have in common, but Carlyle tells us that there's something quite straightforward at the root of what they share: sincerity. Each of the figures discussed here is unswervingly earnest. What you see is what you get. Oh, there's more to it than that; the hero is also unfailingly natural, he often (though not necessarily) lacks ambition, he knows how to be silent.

These are of course not very modern traits. The hero might as well practice chastity and self-flagellation. We in our wisdom now recognize the "argument from nature" as fallacious; Carlyle presents the hero as such an argument made flesh. Our modern world can hardly be called "silent" (watch the recent US election coverage), nor does it seem to appreciate the virtue thereof. And while nobody actually dislikes sincerity, it has a bit of a quaint, naive tinge to it, now doesn't it? Considering that the chief conceit or expressive mode of modernity is irony, the truly genuine man seems a touch anachronistic.

But Carlyle presents him as the hero par excellence. And he makes a great case for this. Much to our reading pleasure, he does so in winning style; I've highlighted more Carlyle passages on my Kindle for sheer rhetorical brilliance than I have even of Chesterton. In this way Carlyle was a rare bird in his day, one who has become more fashionable rather than less: he's the historian who's a pleasure to read. He prefigures Nietzsche in this way, and in other important ways that I'll leave for you to discover.

He's also the precursor of a school of thought called "neoreaction." Without going into what neoreaction is (LMGTFY), the fountainhead of the movement is one Curtis Yarvin. This being my maiden Carlyle voyage, I found interestingly that Yarvin is not a particularly good Carlylean, though he styles himself as such--in fact somewhere he has said something to the effect that all he does is just point people to Carlyle. I wish they would listen; anyone who has any sympathy with neoreaction really needs to go to the source. They will find not only a superior writer (though Yarvin is no slouch), but someone who is at odds with the self-proclaimed Carlylean--I refer you to the last two chapters in particular.

This is an excellent book, worth picking up. In it you'll find a giant intellect trying his level-best to do justice to those greater than he. And this is, in it's own way, an act of heroism.

This book was a source of inspiration to Frederick Law Olmsted, so I read it to better understand his genius. I wasn't disappointed, as Carlyle and Olmsted both bring a bigger and broader perspective on being in this world than anyone else I've read. Wikipedia describes Sartor Resartus as a "19th Century comic novel" and a philosophical treatise. It is written from the perspective of an editor writing an extensive "summary" of a manuscript on the Philosophy of Clothes written by a Professor of Things in General. Subsequent reviews after the "book" was published are included at the end. I loved the old style of writing and the many words I had to look up (e.g., "corascations," "anidiluvian," "drossy"), although at times, this made for a tough read. I am neither a philosopher nor scholar, and I'm not sure if you can love a book you don't always understand, but I had a great time finding my way through Sartor Resartus. Its wit provides many LOL moments. One of the "reviewers" suggested you could read the sentences in the Professor's book, "either backwards or forwards, for it is equally intelligible either way." I know I will re-read this book in the future, but will still need to do so forwards to back. Reading the Wikipedia summary of Sartor Resartus before getting started with this book gave me a useful orientation. My favorite quotation for the book is: "Thought without Reverence is barren, perhaps poisonous . . . " Enjoy!

Highly suggested.

Amazing book and very interesting.

Should be required reading for those who ascribe to collectivism theories. The integrity, ethics, drive, stamina, intelligence, vision, and morals of individuals are what have shaped history, not governments or the masses.

a great classic

A Magnificent Classic - it can't be duplicated.

Classical insights to our fascination with heros