Trying the stuff of language: stylistic experimentation in the early works of Thomas Carlyle and Robert Browning.

Abstract

This study contends that Thomas Carlyle and Robert Browning shared a philosophy of the use of literary language. This shared philosophy is best exemplified in Carlyle's Sartor Resartus (1833-34) and Browning's Sordello (1840). A close examination of these works shows that both artists were experimenting with language and with genre, both were working, as were their heroes, to define themselves as artists. Their common aims become clear within a cultural (rhetorical/literary historical) framework. Historical literary forces and the dominant rhetorical tradition from the eighteenth century provides the background to demonstrate why and how Carlyle and Browning wrote as they did. The similarities between the two works is striking, even though Sartor is a prose work and Sordello a poem. The most obvious similarity is the stylistic obscurity and difficulty of both works, but there are similarities as well in narrative form, autobiographical elements, foreign influence, and narrative technique. In addition, close examination of the review essays published in Victorian periodicals suggests that reviewers of Sartor Resartus and Sordello, although seven years separates their publications, objected to the same type of stylistic innovation. The work first identifies the literary atmosphere of early Victorian England and indicates that a definite literary "aesthetic theory" was in place when these two innovative works were published. A close study of Sartor Resartus and Sordello integrates the aesthetic theories of Victorian England and the philosophies of both writers. What Carlyle and Browning said about the use of language in the works themselves and in their letters and journals, as well as their response to contemporary reviews, all indicate a shared attitude in their developing philosophies of literary language.