Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh
1833
Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh
1833
Sartor Resartus is either the most brilliant philosophical joke in English literature or an elaborate hoax on the reader, and the ambiguity is precisely the point. Carlyle constructs an endless Chinese box of commentary on the supposed writings of the fictional German professor Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, whose 'philosophy of clothes' is really an excuse to excavate everything from the nature of identity to the spiritual crisis of modernity. The book follows Teufelsdröckh through despair, doubt, and what Carlyle calls the 'Everlasting Yea', a kind of existential resurrection achieved through embracing life in all its absurdity. It is dense, chaotic, frequently contradictory, and often seemingly mocking the reader's attempts to extract a coherent meaning. Yet within this labyrinth lies one of the nineteenth century's most radical explorations of how we construct ourselves, how societies fabricate their truths, and whether genuine faith is possible after Enlightenment. Not for the patient alone, but for readers who delight in being challenged, perplexed, and ultimately transformed.
X-Ray
