Note 15 from Chapter One, "The Prophetic Pattern," of print edition of Elegant Jeremiahs: The Sage from Carlyle to Mailer. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Many students of the Victorian period have taken Arnold's own condescending remarks about Carlyle at face value and assumed that Carlyle's only important influence upon Arnold was to weaken his orthodox religious belief early in his career. But as R. H. super, Arnold's modern editor, points out, the Carlylean influence was pervasive, though I cannot agree with his conclusion that if Arnold spoke slightingly of Carlyle, "he is merely saying what is clearly enough perceived today Arnold has survived while Carlyle is unread" (5.414). David J. DeLaura, "Arnold and Carlyle," PMLA 79 (1964) 104-29, surveys the intellectual relationship between the two men. His classic study, Hebrew and Hellene in Victorian England: Newman, Arnold, and Pater (Austin, university of Texas Press, 1969), has demonstrated that Newman, with whom Arnold had a unique intellectual relationship, had by far the more important influence upon him, and I would not wish to deny that obvious fact.
What I do want to suggest, however, is that whether or not Arnold admitted or even recognized his debt to Carlyle, he drew upon him for both theme and technique. The following passage from Culture and Anarchy, for example, directly derives from Carlyle's redefinition of ideas as machines (because they represent means and not ends) in signs of the Times" and other works. Like Carlyle, Arnold also emphasizes the uniqueness of the speaker and the fact that only he possesses an authentic voice. "Faith in machinery is, I said, our besetting danger; often in machinery most absurdly disproportioned to the end which this machinery, if it is to do any good at all, is to serve; but always in machinery as if it had a value in and for itself. What is freedom but machinery? what is population but machinery? what is coal but machinery? what are railroads but machinery? what is wealth but machinery? what are, even, religious organisations but machinery? Now almost every voice in England is accustomed to speak of these things as if they were precious ends in themselves" (5.96).
