Thomas Carlyle

Carlyle’s major work, Sartor Resartus (meaning ‘The tailor re-tailored’), purported to be a commentary on the thought and early life of a German philosopher called Diogenes Teufelsdröckh (which translates as ‘god-born devil-shit’), author of a tome entitled “Clothes: their Origin and Influence.” Teufelsdröckh’s Transcendentalist musings are mulled over by a skeptical English editor who also provides fragmentary biographical material on the philosopher.

Sartor Resartus, published in 1833, was intended to be a new kind of book: simultaneously factual and fictional, serious and satirical, speculative and historical. It ironically commented on its own formal structure (as Tristram Shandy had, long before), while forcing the reader to confront the problem of where ‘truth’ is to be found. The imaginary “Philosophy of Clothes” holds that meaning is to be derived from phenomena, continually shifting over history, as cultures reconstruct themselves in changing fashions, power-structures, and faith-systems.

A few names to associate with the work:

Blumine
Dumbdrudge
Hofrath Heuschrecke
Weissnichtwo