Re-assessment Of Thomas Carlyle's History Of Thought

Thomas Carlyle was a great thinker of the Victoria era of Britain in the 19th century. His thought included such all respects as history, philosophy and literature, etc. From the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century, Romantic Movement was fashionable in all the European countries. Carlyle' thought was affected by romanticism deeply. He was a spokesman of the romanticism in Britain. His criticism and introspection to the capital industrial society, to the industrial civilization and to science and ration transcended that era, and his thought had surprising similarity and resonance with some thoughts of postmodernism. This thesis attempts to arrange, analyze, summarize and appraise Carlyle' thoughts in terms of history.The entire dissertation consists of five parts as follows.The preface is mainly the retrospect of the academic history. The author attempts to investigate and generalize the remarks to Carlyle and his thought in the recent 100 years since his death, and points out the research direction and the meaning of the thesis.Part Ⅰ expounds the early historical thoughts of Carlyle, describing his people history view, moral history view, mysterious history view and romantic historiography view mainly.Part Ⅱ describes the later historical thought of Carlyle , mainly his heroism history view.Part Ⅲ analyzes the reason why Carlyle's historical thought came into being, especially its transformation from the early thoughts to the later thoughts, and why Carlyle concentrated on various kinds of contradictions of his era? At the time, the author explains why he dissociated from Britain's liberalism historiography? The reasons include personal and social factors, national cultural tradition and the influence of Germany thought circle, etc.Part Ⅳ puts forward some new viewpoints and remarks of the author to Carlyle's historical thoughts, including his contributions to the western historiography, his theory's limitation, his status in the history of western historiography, and the connections of his thoughts with romanticism and postmodernism, and points out the meaning of Carlyle's thought nowadays and the deep enlightenment it gives us as well.