This will be a guide to Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution, which you can find here.
Contents
About Carlyle’s French Revolution
Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution: A History, published in 1837, is a complex, epic work of literature that, while a definitive account of the Revolution, is not simply a work of narrative history.
It is a daunting book. It at times feels like Carlyle is alluding to rather than explaining the events of the French Revolution. This, in combination with the vast number of his other allusions — to medieval history, Greek mythology, etc. — has made it so that this great work is less read and more poorly understood than it should be.
While not as famous today as many people who were below him while he lived, Carlyle's influence and importance cannot be overstated. One feels clearly his influence on Melville. Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities was inspired by and based upon this book. Stylistically, Carlyle anticipates Joyce. George Eliot, speaking of her time, famously said that “there is hardly a superior and active mind of this generation that has not been modified by Carlyle’s writing.”
His greatest work is an epic poem of modernity, written not in poetry for an age of song, but in prose for an age of speeches and rationality that the French Revolution helped create. This world is very much the one we find ourselves in today.
Structure
The work is composed of three Volumes broken first into Books and then Chapters. At the beginning of each, I will provide a brief overview of the events covered if necessary. Then, I will provide notes and definitions for the allusions and references that Carlyle makes.
I will follow the numbering conventions of the Project Gutenberg edition, with Volume and Book numbers as arabic numerals and Chapters as roman numerals, so that “Volume One, Book One, Chapter One” is written as Chapter 1.1.I.
I am doing the research in real time, and it is likely that I will make some basic mistakes, while also overemphasizing some things and underemphasizing others. This is a work in progress and will be updated as frequently as I am able.
I find hyperlinks and citations annoying and there will be relatively few.
Comments, suggestions, and corrections are welcome.