(De-)Authorising Eloquence: Carlyle and Transatlantic Public Speech

Abstract

This chapter concentrates on Carlyle’s early activity as a lecturer as well as on his later commentary on the relationship between intellectual labour and the public sphere. It begins by looking at his (never realised) plans for a lecture tour of the United States in the 1830s, demonstrating that Carlyle consistently associated the lecturing profession with the charismatic authority of the religious prophet. These plans are then contextualised through a brief account of the motivations behind his advocacy of British emigration to North America during the same period. Following a discussion of the transatlantic themes and the American newspaper reprinting of the lectures Carlyle delivered in London between 1837 and 1840, the chapter’s final two parts cover his increasing disillusion with public performance from the later 1840s through the 1860s. A reading of some of his most controversial writings – including the ‘Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question’ and Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850) –, reveals that Carlyle’s critique of eloquence ultimately derived from his growing concern about the waning authority of the writer as public intellectual. The chapter’s conclusion analyses the extended transatlantic debate Carlyle’s late writings sparked off about the political and cultural impact of American democracy.