The redemptive power of violence? Carlyle, Marx and Dickens

Abstract

Nineteenth century commentators were agreed upon the momentous importance of the French Revolution, whether because of its cumulatively irreversible political and social results (the replacement of sacral monarchy by representative government, the ending of serfdom in the countryside) or else because of the unprecedented extent to which 'the people' as a collective entity had shaped the direction of revolutionary events. But how could the (generally agreed) achievements of the Revolution be detached from the popular violence which had at every stage had accompanied it. What prompted this violence' Could it be excused' How important was it in driving the Revolution forward' This essay analyses the responses to these questions by three London-based mid-nineteenth century writers - Thomas Carlyle, Karl Marx (and Friedrich Engels) and Charles Dickens. It stresses the formative importance of the association of the Revolution with violence and 'Sansculottism' found in Carlyle's The French Revolution (1837), and examines the impact of Carlyle's writings upon the treatment of violence found in Engels writings of 1844-5, and to a lesser extent, Marx. Finally it compares the interpretation of revolutionary violence found in Dickens' Tale of Two Cities with Carlyle's History. It argues that despite Dickens - outspoken admiration for Carlyle, Dickens does not follow Carlyle's irrationalist approach connecting violence with the loss of faith (deriving in part from Herder and German proto-romanticism, in part from French theocrats and Saint-Simonians); instead, he reiterated the themes and arguments of 1790s Whigs and Radicals (whether Mary Wollstonecraft or Arthur Young), who, despite Burke, associated the violence of the Revolution primarily with the previous injustice done to the French people by the Ancien Regime. © The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of History Workshop Journal, all rights reserved.