On Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic in History

The text is taken from the printed "Sterling Edition" of Carlyle'sComplete Works, in 20 volumes, with the following modifications made inthe etext version: Italicized text is delimited by underscores, thusly. Thefootnote (there is only one) has been embedded directly into text, inbrackets, [thusly]. Greek text has been transliterated into Latin characterswith the notation [Gr.] juxtaposed. Otherwise, the punctuation andspelling of the print version have been retained. Based on a series of lectures delivered in 1840, Thomas Carlyle’s On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History considers the creation of heroes and the ways they exert heroic leadership. From the divine and prophetic (Odin and Muhammad) to the poetic (Dante and Shakespeare) to the religious (Luther and Knox) to the political (Cromwell and Napoleon), Carlyle investigates the mysterious qualities that elevate humans to cultural significance.