Sartor Resartus · Chapter
II: Editorial Difficulties explained
The Editor describes the arrival of Professor Teufelsdröckh's book on the Philosophy of Clothes, an extensive and formless volume that reveals a new branch of philosophy and a unique human individuality.
What happens
The Editor describes the arrival of Professor Teufelsdröckh's book on the Philosophy of Clothes, an extensive and formless volume that reveals a new branch of philosophy and a unique human individuality. Facing difficulties in publishing the work in existing journals due to its controversial nature and lack of biographical documents, the Editor is at an impasse until a letter from Herr Hofrath Heuschrecke offers to supply the necessary documents for a biography. This crystallizes the Editor's plan to produce 'Sartor Resartus', a work intended to defend ancestral institutions against innovation while presenting the philosophy and life of Teufelsdröckh.
Themes in this chapter
The Role of the Artist and Thinker
The Editor reflects on the challenge of presenting Teufelsdröckh's new philosophical ideas to the public, highlighting the thinker's role in disseminating truth amidst societal constraints.
Critique of Society and Materialism
The Editor criticizes the era's 'puffery and quackery' and the commercial pressures on editors, contrasting the pursuit of truth with the superficiality of contemporary publishing.
Characters to notice
- The Editor
The Editor grapples with the challenge of presenting Teufelsdröckh's Philosophy of Clothes to the English public, eventually deciding to compile a biography after receiving an offer of documents from Heuschrecke.
- Diogenes Teufelsdröckh
Teufelsdröckh is the author of the Philosophy of Clothes, a volume that reveals a new branch of philosophy and a unique personal character, though his biography remains enigmatic.
- Herr Hofrath Heuschrecke
Heuschrecke, Teufelsdröckh's friend and associate, writes to the Editor offering to provide the biographical documents necessary for a biography of Teufelsdröckh.
Key passages
“If for a speculative man, 'whose seedfield,' in the sublime words of the Poet, 'is Time,' no conquest is important but that of new ideas, then might the arrival of Professor Teufelsdröckh's Book be marked with chalk in the Editor's calendar.”
For a thinker whose domain is time itself, the only meaningful achievement is the acquisition of new ideas, so the arrival of Teufelsdröckh's book is a momentous event for the Editor.
The Editor emphasizes the significance of new philosophical ideas, comparing them to a conquest of time.
“Form rose out of void solution and discontinuity; like united itself with like in definite arrangement: and soon either in actual vision and possession, or in fixed reasonable hope, the image of the whole Enterprise had shaped itself, so to speak, into a solid mass.”
The Editor's vague plans crystallized into a coherent project once Heuschrecke offered the documents, much like a chemical solution suddenly forming crystals.
The Editor uses a chemical metaphor to describe how Heuschrecke's offer brought clarity and structure to his intentions.