Rethinking the Marriage Plot: Anti-Self-Consciousness and the Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle and Thomas Carlyle

Codr explores how Jane Baillie Welsh and Thomas Carlyle described the state of mutual self-abandon in their love letters in order to shed light on what John Stuart Mill later termed "Carlyle's theory of anti-self-consciousness," the metaphysical life philosophy delineated in two of th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Modern philology 2018-08, Vol.116 (1), p.45-67
Main Author: CODR, ARIANA REILLY
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carlyle, Thomas (1795-1881)
Letters
Literary criticism
Love
Marriage
Welsh, Jane Baillie
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Summary:Codr explores how Jane Baillie Welsh and Thomas Carlyle described the state of mutual self-abandon in their love letters in order to shed light on what John Stuart Mill later termed "Carlyle's theory of anti-self-consciousness," the metaphysical life philosophy delineated in two of the founding texts of Victorianism, Carlyle's "Characteristics" (1831) and Sartor Resartus (1833-34). Without discounting the very real suffering that the Carlyles inflicted upon one another, the Reminiscences demonstrates, as do the love letters, the potency of the idea of marriage as a motivating and consolatory force. The Carlyles held to their ideal of marriage with all the stubbornness of a generic convention.
ISSN:0026-8232
1545-6951
DOI:10.1086/697601