Carlyle and the French Enlightenment: Transitional Readings of Voltaire and Diderot

Thomas Carlyle’s writings are an important conduit for thetransmission of French and German ideas into England duringthe nineteenth century – and Carlyle’s antagonistic relationshipwith the French Enlightenment would have a significant anddurable effect upon Victorian attitudes to French thought. Butalthough his antagonism was assumed to be inveterate, in fact, avariety of opinions can be isolated in his writings which indicate amore nuanced reading. This is especially the case in early essayson Voltaire and Diderot, which reveal a much more positive set ofinterpretations that are never refuted in his subsequent writings,even though later Victorian writers took their intellectual bearingsfrom Carlyle’s later works. The reintegration of these texts allowsfor a better understanding both of the growth of Carlyle’sadmiration of late-eighteenth century German culture and hisvexed and contradictory relationship with its French counterpart.[...]