In Carlyle's Sartor Resartus , a world-weary editor grapples with the manuscript remains of an eccentric professor. Slowly, he unearths an idealistic creed, the “Philosophy of Clothes,” product of a fascinating amalgam of diverse German thinkers—Kant, Goethe, Fichte, Novalis. Carlyle's procedure is frenzied: a metaphysical treatise becomes a comedy of manners becomes a bildungsroman becomes a sociological critique becomes a mystic vision. Moreover, the editorial comment, alwa

Reality presents itself as relentless movement. The accents of growth and decay leave an indelible imprint in their wake. Artistic and...

After the hostile and profoundly dispiriting reception of Pierre , a crooked genuflection to fashionable romances, Melville sought refuge in the magazines. Once he gained back a measure of confidence through this more amenable ecosystem, there arose the idea of a serialized novel about a revolutionary. As things stood, no excuses were left for Melville to indulge his metaphysical bent and his subversive inquiries—under all their guises the public had been able to spot them an