10.13125/2039-6597/474
Thomas Carlyle was among the most influential writers in the English language during the 19th century, but is now ostensibly absent from cultural memory. Nevertheless, his ideas may be seen to live on indirectly in the works of the writers he influenced, one of whom is Elizabeth Gaskell. The 2004 adaptation of Gaskell&rsquo;s North and South provides an instance of a modern approach to Carlylean ideas embodied in the source text. The adaptation finds itself in dialogue with Carlylean notions of heroism and leadership, modifying these notions for acceptance with a 21st century audience. The treatment of the Carlylean content of Gaskell&rsquo;s novel is both revealing of socio-political ideals latent in modern audiences and a demonstration of the transmission and transmutation of ideologies through narrative and across media.
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Mark Wallace
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Towards a Wise Despotism: Traces of Thomas Carlyle in the BBC <i>North and South</i> (2004)
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Mark Wallace
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Towards a Wise Despotism: Traces of Thomas Carlyle in the BBC <i>North and South</i> (2004)
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2
      Towards a Wise Despotism:
  Traces of Thomas Carlyle in the BBC
          North & South (2004)

                                Mark Wallace


      Mid-Victorian novelists such as Elizabeth Gaskell were saturated
in the words and works of Thomas Carlyle. The most respected social
critic of his day, he set the terms for discussion of the Condition-of-
England question – coining that very term in his 1840 pamphlet
Chartism. Engels asserted that Carlyle had «sounded the social disorder
more deeply than any other English bourgeois» (2008: 328), and all the
novelists who later took up the issue created works shadowed by
Carlylean language and ideology. The decline in Carlyle’s reputation
after his death was sudden and precipitate, and he is ostensibly absent
from late-20th/early 21st-century cultural memory, yet the writers he
inspired are seemingly as popular as ever, still read and now
experienced through film and television adaptations. Gaskell, in
particular, has been given a new lease of cultural life by recent
adaptations, most notably, perhaps, the 2004 BBC serial based on her
1855 industrial novel North and South. An underappreciated aspect of
that novel is its debt to Carlyle’s writings, and its basic adherence to a
Carlylean ideology. Adapting Gaskell, then, is to wrestle with the
ghost of Carlyle, a social commentator now generally discredited,
where not forgotten, but one whose influence permeated class
discourse in Victorian England far too much for him to be entirely
eradicated.




Between, vol. II , 4. (Dicembre / December 2012)
Mark Wallace, Towards a Wise Despotism                                        2



     Among his contemporaries, Carlyle’s place as one of the foremost
men of letters of the age was never doubted. Walt Whitman predicted
in 1881, just after Carlyle’s death, that

         It will be difficult for the future to account for the deep hold
      this author has taken on the present age, and the way he has
      color’d its method and thought. I am certainly at a loss to account
      for it as regarding myself. But there could be no view, or even
      partial picture, of the nineteenth century, that did not markedly
      include Thomas Carlyle. (1971: 459)

Carlyle’s influence, as Whitman appreciated, defied calculation and
estimation, and was not limitable to the concrete ideas derived from
his teachings, but also coloured the method and thought of the age in
its entirety. Similarly, George Eliot, writing in 1855 (the year of North
and South’s publication), averred that:

         It is an idle question to ask whether his books will be read a
      century hence; if they were all burnt as the grandest of Suttees on
      his funeral pile, it would be only like cutting down an oak after its
      acorns have sown a forest. For there is hardly a superior or active
      mind of this generation that has not been modified by Carlyle’s
      writings; there has hardly been an English book written for the
      last ten or twelve years that would not have been different if
      Carlyle had not lived. (Eliot 2000: 187)

More than a century and a half hence, Carlyle’s books are indeed no
longer read, but to read any of his contemporaries, including George
Eliot herself, is to read Carlyle, an intertextual presence identifiable to
the Victorians without having to be expressly invoked but existing to
our culture only as an unnamed and perhaps unnoted colour in these
books.
     The point of departure for Carlyle’s social doctrine, as set out in
the seminal tracts Chartism (1840) and Past and Present (1843), was his
conviction that England was in a state of unprecedented turmoil, and
must be set right or face oblivion: «England is full of wealth, of


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                                 Between, vol. II, n. 4 (December/ Decembre 2012)



multifarious produce, supply for human want in every kind; yet
England is dying of inanition» (Carlyle 1965: 7). The blame for this he
laid squarely at the feet of the laissez-faire economy, which had given
rise to rampant materialism and extinguished spirituality. He famously
proclaimed that «Cash Payment has become the sole nexus of man to
man» (Carlyle 1840: 61). Carlyle’s solution to this was that his society
must learn the value of reverence: «[W]hoso cannot obey cannot be
free […] [O]nly in reverently bowing down before the Higher does
[man] feel himself exalted» (Carlyle 1999: 189-190). This reverence was
to have a basis in religion, but was also to be directed towards the most
fitting members of the human species:

        Find in any country the Ablest Man that exists there; raise him
     to the supreme place, and loyally reverence him: you have a
     perfect government for the country; no ballot-box, parliamentary
     eloquence, voting, constitution-building, or other machinery
     whatsoever can improve it a whit. (Carlyle 1841: 196-197)

The identification of the Hero was society’s greatest challenge. Once
this was accomplished, all that remained was to demonstrate total
submission to this individual, and to refrain from obstructing him with
red tape, acts of parliament or the clattering of ballot-boxes. The result
would be despotism, but, so long as the despot was a true Hero, it
would be a just, if rigorous, despotism, and, as Carlyle argued:
«Despotism is essential in most enterprises» (Carlyle 1965: 278).
     The Hero could take many forms: Divinity, Prophet, Poet, Priest,
Man of Letters and King, are the six categories allowed by Carlyle in
On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (1841). His inherent
Heroism would express itself in the mode most suited to the society in
which he found himself. In Carlyle’s own society, he sought a new set
of Heroes, an Aristocracy of Talent to supersede the idle ruling classes.
In Past and Present he specifically called on the factory owners, The
Captains of Industry, to transcend narrowly pecuniary motivations
and provide the strong and moral leadership that was needed to quell



                                                                                    3
Mark Wallace, Towards a Wise Despotism                                         4



workers’ disquiet. The search for a true leader was, he felt, the motive
force for working-class agitation, contrary to its declared aims:

         Bellowings, inarticulate cries as of a dumb creature in rage and
      pain; to the ear of wisdom they are inarticulate prayers: ‘Guide
      me, Govern me! I am mad and miserable, and cannot guide
      myself.’ Surely of all ‘rights of man’, this right of the ignorant man
      to be guided by the wiser, to be, gently or forcibly, held in the true
      course by him, is the indisputablest. (Carlyle 1840: 52)

Firm guidance was Carlyle’s prescription, not excluding severity and
physical force. This guidance was to be characterized by strict justice:
«Pay to every man accurately what he has worked for […] to this man
broad lands and honours, to that man high gibbets and treadmills»
(Carlyle 1965: 25). The provision of such guidance, which would fulfil
the workers’ deepest desire and instil in them reverence and a sense of
obligation, was the province of the Aristocracy of Talent, the wisest
and best of the society. To a generation of novelists keenly aware of
social inequalities but uneasy about democracy, Carlyle’s writings
were eagerly received, providing them with a flattering mirror in
which to see themselves, as a socially-pioneering Aristocracy of Talent
with the means to create social justice without endangering their own
position of superiority. This sense of purpose and social vocation
found voice in many of the great novels of the 1840s and 50s, from
Kingsley’s Alton Locke (1850), which refers to Carlyle’s writings almost
continually and introduces him as a character, to Dickens’s Hard Times
(1854), which was inscribed to Carlyle.
      Elizabeth Gaskell’s first industrial novel, Mary Barton (1848), took
its epigraph from Carlyle and has been considered to be «written in his
spirit» (Cummings 1996: 419). Yet North and South more clearly
embodies Carlylean ideas of leadership and patriarchy. John
Thornton’s philosophy as expounded in the book’s early sections is
derived from Carlyle:




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                                 Between, vol. II, n. 4 (December/ Decembre 2012)



        In our infancy we require a wise despotism to govern us.
     Indeed, long past infancy, children and young people are the
     happiest under the unfailing laws of a discreet, firm authority. I
     […] consider our people in the condition of children, while I deny
     that we, the masters, have anything to do with the making or
     keeping them so. I maintain that despotism is the best kind of
     government for them; so that in the hours in which I come in
     contact with them I must necessarily be something of an autocrat.
     (Gaskell 1994: 141)

Later in this exchange, Thornton confirms the Carlylean basis for his
thought when he remarks: «Cromwell would have made a capital mill-
owner, Miss Hale. I wish we had him to put down this strike for us»
(ibid: 145), invoking the quintessential Carlylean hero, lauded in On
Heroes and again in Carlyle’s introduction and elucidations to his
edition of Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches (1845) as his country’s
last great leader of men, «the last glimpse of the Godlike vanishing
from this England; conviction and veracity giving place to hollow cant
and formulism» (Heffer 1996: 248).
      Similarly Carlyle-inflected is Thornton’s disquisition on “Teutonic
blood” (Gaskell 1994: 398), incorporating a paean to the glory of work
and a statement of opposition to government interference and
imposition on the people of Milton of laws drafted from afar. For
Thornton, as for Carlyle, «Acts of Parliament are small,
notwithstanding the noise they make» (Carlyle 1841: 92). Rather,
Thornton as magistrate chooses to place himself above all codified law,
as he demonstrates when he closes the case on Leonards because it
may implicate Margaret: «[S]hame it would be to pledge [Margaret] to
lie in an open court, or otherwise to stand and acknowledge her reason
for desiring darkness rather than light» (Gaskell 1994: 332). In
according Thornton a supra-legal status, Gaskell again locates her
ideology in the realms of the Carlylean, wherein laws are good, but the
guidance and decision of superior men is better.
      But it is in Thornton’s demeanour that the force of the Hero is
most clearly present: «He was regarded by [his fellow factory owners


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Mark Wallace, Towards a Wise Despotism                                          6



or “masters”] as a man of great force of character; of power in many
ways. There was no need to struggle for their respect» (ibid: 192). The
inherent power and mastery of Thornton is insisted on throughout; like
the Carlylean Hero, his superiority pre-exists any heroic actions, it is
simply there, and by its undeniabilty allows him to control any social or
interpersonal situation. This is most important in the climactic riot
scene, wherein he fearlessly confronts the rioters, standing before them
“still as a statue” and telling them in no uncertain terms that he has no
intention of acceding to their demands. «Now kill me, if it is your
brutal will» (ibid: 213), he concludes, and walks down the steps into
their midst, still with his arms folded in a gesture of defiance, but at
that moment they begin to disperse, finally overpowered by his show
of will1.
      At this point, the strike breaks down and the workers return to
their positions. Thereafter the master-worker relationship at
Marlborough Mill is entirely harmonious as compromise is made on
both sides. Thornton’s attitude is represented as having altered: «My
only wish is to have the opportunity of cultivating some intercourse
with the hands beyond the mere ‘cash nexus’» (ibid: 515). He is still, as
his use of the term cash nexus indicates, following a Carlylean model of
thought. The mill has in no sense been democratized, and the new
regime in no way conflicts with Thornton’s earlier ideal of the “wise
despotism”. When Thornton re-hires Nicholas Higgins, the failed



      1
        The dispersal is narrated as recurring precisely at the moment
Thornton descends to the crowd, certainly implying that he has mastered the
“demoniac” (Gaskell 1994: 209) will of the rioters, but Gaskell is purposely
vague as to its motivation, speculating that it may be «the idea of the ap-
proach of the soldiers», the sight of Margaret Hale’s face as she lies uncon-
scious having been hit by a pebble, or else it began «as unreasoningly […] as
the simultaneous anger» (ibid: 213). It seems that the attribution of the retreat
to Thornton’s actions would have been too ludicrous to suggest outright, so
Gaskell merely juxtaposed the two events to create the impression of
Thornton’s power without committing to such an improbability.


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                                Between, vol. II, n. 4 (December/ Decembre 2012)



Union leader, he does so in terms that sharply emphasize his
continuing autocracy:

       “So, measter, I’ll come; [says Higgins] and what’s more, I’ll
    thank yo’; and that’s a deal fro’ me […]
       “And this is a deal from me,” said Mr Thornton, giving
    Higgins’s hand a good grip. “Now mind you come sharp to your
    time,” continued he, resuming the master. “I’ll have no laggards at
    my mill. What fines we have, we keep pretty sharply. And the first
    time I catch you making mischief, off you go. So now you know
    where you are.” (Ibid.: 389)

After his magnanimous offer of employment to the blacklisted
Higgins, Thornton quickly and pointedly “resumes the master”,
indicated by his stern warning and his firm handshake, lest Higgins or
the reader be under any misapprehension as to the nature of industrial
relations in Marlborough Mill. Thornton remains in every sense the
master, with the difference that the workers are now happy to work
under his guidance, though they have achieved none of the aims of
their strike. Aside from a general air of harmony, Thornton has helped
the workers set up a food kitchen, though it is to be worker-funded: «I
don’t want it to fall into a charity», insists Thornton (ibid: 433).
Systematic changes are absent at Marlborough Mills, but the spirit of
co-operation is borne of Thornton’s wish to go beyond the cash-nexus
in his attitude toward his workers. He is a prototype of Heroic
leadership, having fulfilled Carlyle’s prediction: «Ye shall reduce them
to order, begin reducing them. To order, to just subordination; noble
loyalty in return for noble guidance. Their souls are driven nigh mad;
let yours be sane and ever saner» (Carlyle 1870: 272). At the moment
when the working-class mob threatened to lapse into full lawlessness
and riot, only Thornton kept a cool head, and placed before them the
image of a leader and a Hero to be followed, and thereafter
Marlborough Mills becomes Gaskell’s vision of a model workplace,
featuring heroic leadership and a docile workforce.



                                                                                   7
Mark Wallace, Towards a Wise Despotism                                  8



      When North and South came to be serialized by the BBC in 2004, it
was less with an eye to its social relevance than as a pseudo-Austen
romance, one whose similarities to Pride and Prejudice were an
important selling point. For all its social realism, Gaskell’s novel was
structured around a romance highly reminiscent of Pride and Prejudice,
though the author never acknowledged a debt (Barchas). The serial can
perhaps be included in the class of “De(Re)composing Adaptations”
posited by Kamilla Elliott, a class which decomposes the source and
redistributes its elements, favouring certain aspects of the text and
placing others in the background. In this case, the romantic elements of
North and South are given precedence and the politico-social elements
are not rejected, but subordinated. Accordingly, the DVD cover billed
North & South (the serial took the ampersand) as a «passionate tale of
love across the social divide», and reproduced a quote from the Sunday
Express calling the adaptation «Pride and Prejudice with a social
conscience». Viewer reaction among the 250-odd reviewers on Amazon
UK would appear to confirm that the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and
Prejudice (dir. Simon Langton, scr. Andrew Davies) was the primary
point of comparison: «It has even eclipsed the BBC P&P in my heart
[…] forget Darcy, Thornton is so much better»; «Truly I can safely say
that it is better than the acclaimed Pride and Prejudice and is now
officially my favourite book and drama of all time.»; «Forget Pride and
Prejudice, it has nothing on North and [sic] South»; «Rivals Pride and
Prejudice with both main characters being every bit as endearing as
Darcy and Elizabeth»; «If you like Pride and Prejudice or if you’re just
looking for a period drama, I highly recommend this one» (“Customer
Reviews: North & South”). Rather than using customary “fidelity”
considerations wherein the source novel becomes the idealized point of
comparison, reviewers consistently invoked Pride and Prejudice, a
comparison which suggests that North & South functioned primarily as
a romance rather than an investigation into class relations – except
insofar as these class relations provided a barrier to the love of the
central figures, a “social divide” which love must cross.
      Yet the inherent power that is such a defining feature of Gaskell’s
Thornton and is seen to be necessary to the creation of class harmony,


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                                   Between, vol. II, n. 4 (December/ Decembre 2012)



is stressed equally strongly in the adaptation. Thornton’s first
appearance, early in Episode 1, is particularly notable, coming in a
scene not derived in any particular from the source novel. In this scene
Margaret Hale enters Marlborough Mills, and her attention is drawn to
Thornton, a tall, dark figure, standing on a raised platform looking out
over the mill-workers. After a few seconds of stillness, Thornton breaks
suddenly into action, shouting «Stephens!» (North & South Ep. 1), and
sprinting down from the platform in pursuit of the character of that
name, catching him and charging him with lighting a pipe in the mill.
He then administers to Stephens a severe beating involving kicks to the
stomach and punches to the face, leaving him bleeding and gasping for
breath. Thornton’s power in this scene is most dramatically expressed
by, but not limited to his physical strength; even earlier than this it is
acknowledged by Margaret Hale, whose gaze alights on Thornton
among all those in the factory, and fixes on him with evident
admiration, remaining so fixed for some seconds before he has
performed any action that could render him of interest. The black suit
he wears also clearly marks him out from the workers clad in dull
greys and browns, as does his calm, watchful stillness in the midst of
the bustle going on around him, and his positioning physically above
the workers is another signifier of his relation to them. The mise-en-
scène works to create a sense of Thornton’s personal magnetism, and
of the untrammelled power he wields in Marlborough Mills,
unquestioned (except by Margaret herself, before he has her escorted
from the premises) even when wielded with great violence.
     Thornton’s beating of Stephens provides a demonstration of one
available mode of reducing the workers to order. Thornton’s action is
carefully rationalized later in the episode; he has recently witnessed the
aftermath of a factory fire: «Three hundred corpses laid out on a
Yorkshire hillside […] Many of them were children, and that was an
accidental flame» (North & South Ep. 1). The strength of the alibi2 that

     2
        Used in a sense similar to that employed by Peter Gay in The Cultiva-
tion of Hatred. His “alibi” denotes: «beliefs, principles, rhetorical platitudes
that legitimated verbal or physical militancy on religious, political or, best of

                                                                                      9
Mark Wallace, Towards a Wise Despotism                                       10



is provided for Thornton’s actions indicates a desire to condone his use
of violence, especially when Union leader Nicholas Higgins admits:
«He was right to do it» (ibid). Thornton’s response to Stephens’s
transgression also brings him further towards the Carlylean ideal of
leadership than even Gaskell’s portrayal, and is a wholly appropriate
response to Stephens’ action by Carlylean standards:

        Every stupid, every cowardly and foolish man is but a less
      palpable madman; his true liberty were that a wiser man, that any
      and every wiser man, could, by brass collars, or in whatever
      milder or sharper way, lay hold of him when he was going wrong,
      and order and compel him to go a little righter. (Carlyle 1965: 212)

In these early sequences of North & South, Thornton is established as an
individual supremely endowed with personal power in many ways,
and able to bring it to bear on his inferiors, to make them go “a little
righter”; not only has he an inherent authority immediately noted by
Margaret, but he is able to wield physical power over his workforce,
and is prepared to do so, though only where strong justification exists.
     The adaptation also makes copious visual use of the textual detail
of Thornton and his mother and sister living within the mill. Their
living-room window overlooks the yard, allowing Thornton and on
occasion Mrs Thornton to keep up surveillance of activities, arrivals
and departures. Margaret Hale herself is frequently seen by Thornton
or Mrs Thornton at moments when she is acting equivocally: when she
is questioning workers in the yard about their conditions, Thornton
materializes silently behind her, discomfiting her by the force of his
silent disapproval; on leaving the mill after the Stephens incident, she
glances back to find herself watched by Mrs Thornton from the
overlooking window; Thornton is looking down from a window when
the workers enter the hall for their Union meeting, and sees Margaret

all, scientific grounds» (1995: 6). In the case under discussion, I will argue
that Thornton’s physical militancy is implicitly legitimated on grounds relat-
ed to Carlylean views of socio-industrial dynamics.



10
                               Between, vol. II, n. 4 (December/ Decembre 2012)



enter behind them, in search of her father, and she sees that she is
being seen; when Margaret is with Frederick at the railway station – a
most compromising situation as she cannot divulge that he is her
brother – Thornton is again watching from the shadows. Similarly,
Thornton is the first to become informed when a fellow master plans to
deviate from general policy, knowledge of which intention he reveals
is his because «I overheard some of my men talking» (North & South
Ep. 1). These and other incidences combine to create a feeling of
claustrophobia in Milton, and an impression that everything that is
done, is done under the gaze of Thornton. Milton works, because
Thornton watches. As Carlyle noted: «All men, if they work not as in a
Great Taskmaster’s eye, will work wrong, work unhappily for
themselves and you» (Carlyle 1870: 207). Thornton functions as the
Great Taskmaster’s eye, the panoptic eye, and it is seen to control
Milton society; though in the Austenized adaptation of North & South,
the focus is more on Margaret Hale’s experience of Thornton’s power,
whether as exercised on herself, or as she sees it exercised on others.
      As the series approaches its denouement, the importance of
politico-social elements becomes less. The harmony between worker
and master has been established, and the series does not have the
novel’s tension of Thornton remaining masterful over his workers
while extending his relationship with them beyond the cash-nexus; for
Gaskell he was to remain «strong and tender, and yet a master»
(Uglow 1994: 366), but for the adapters, his continued masterfulness is
less important. In a late scene after the mill has closed down, Thornton
responds to Higgins addressing him as master with «I’m nobody’s
master now», and so Higgins takes to calling him “Thornton” (North &
South Ep. 4). Thus Thornton has willingly relinquished his mastery
rather than retained the acute consciousness of it that Gaskell’s
character exhibits, and this relaxed attitude towards class relations
permeates the latter part of the series. Instead, the final episode shows
Thornton preparing himself for domestication. Several scenes are
included involving Thornton and young Tom Boucher, the working-
class orphan, wherein Thornton’s fatherly tenderness is indexed.


                                                                                  11
Mark Wallace, Towards a Wise Despotism                                  12



     The ultimate recomposition of North & South to entirely divorce
the romantic plot from its wider social setting takes place in the closing
scene. Rather than the notably restrained scene in which Gaskell brings
Thornton and Margaret together, the adaptation allows for the
complete transcendence of romantic love over social concerns by
depicting a public kiss between them, taking place in a crowded
railway station, and in the presence of Margaret’s travelling
companion and suitor Henry Lennox. All of Margaret and Thornton’s
social history evaporates at this moment, as meaning is impoverished
to make way for the mythologized image of the kiss (see Barthes 1972).
This image makes no compromises with social realism or other
concerns external to that precise image and that precise moment; rather
the prior presence of these concerns is revealed to have performed a
catalyzing function around this ultimate and climactic nucleus. It is
Margaret and Thornton’s unsocialized selves that take over at the
climax, performing an act for which there is no social alibi.
     The Hero-figure posited by Carlyle retains his power as an
idealized image in the adaptation of North and South, and much of the
adaptation is concerned with bearing witness to his methods of
employing his inherent superiority; however, the wider social
application of his powers is ultimately a secondary consideration, and
important mainly in how it is displayed to Margaret Hale. The Hero
has outlived his social usefulness, or has an attraction not contingent
on his social usefulness. While for Carlyle and Gaskell in the mid-19th
century, the ability to bring the workers to order, and ideally “noble
order”, was a live and pressing concern, for the 21 st century adapter
Thornton’s power is attractive without being as obviously necessary.
Having demonstrated his Heroic personality, Thornton is not called
upon to continually exercise the discipline of a leader of men; rather, it
is the tempering of his power with domesticity and romantic
sensitivity that provides the best application of the Heroic personality.
The station the Hero held was always, for Carlyle, contingent on the
circumstances in which he found himself:




12
                                 Between, vol. II, n. 4 (December/ Decembre 2012)



        The Hero can be Poet, Prophet, King, Priest or what you will,
     according to the kind of world he finds himself born into. […] The
     grand fundamental character is that of the Great Man; that the
     man be great. Napoleon has words in him which are like
     Austerlitz battles. (Carlyle 1841: 94)

Carlyle felt that as civilization progressed the station in which the Hero
was found became progressively less exalted. Where once the world
had Heroes as Divinities (Carlyle’s example was Odin), then as
Prophets (Mohammed), in Carlyle’s time the Hero was, he considered,
more likely to be a man of letters. Gaskell’s Hero was a Captain of
Industry; in the 21st century adaptation of Gaskell, the Hero undergoes
a process of domestication, a partial turn away from social duties
towards the family. That he is a great leader of men is clear, but this is
far from his whole duty. Ultimately, the modern adaptation of North
and South finds that heroism is best expressed in the private sphere; it
is a quality whose expression is not owed to the world or to history,
but to those few who have the greatest call on the Hero’s affections.




                                                                                    13
Mark Wallace, Towards a Wise Despotism                                14




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Carlyle, Thomas, Chartism, Boston, Little & Brown, 1840.
Id., On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, New York,
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Id., Past and Present, New York University Press, 1965.
Id., Sartor Resartus, Eds. Kerry McSweeney – Peter Sabor, OUP, 1999.
Cummings, Mark (ed.), The Carlyle Encyclopedia, Cranbury, NJ;
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Eliot, George, “Thomas Carlyle”, Selected Critical Writings, Oxford
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Elliott, Kamilla, Rethinking the Novel/Film Debate, Cambridge University
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Engels, Friedrich, “The Condition of the Working Class in England”,
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Foucault, Michel, Surveiller et Punir (1975), Eng. tr. Discipline and
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Furbank, R. N, "Mendacity in Mrs Gaskell", Encounter (June 1973): 51-
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     Phoenix-Orion, 1996.



14
                                Between, vol. II, n. 4 (December/ Decembre 2012)



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                             Sitography
“Customer Reviews: North & South (complete BBC Series) [DVD]”,
   Amazon            UK,           http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-
   reviews/B0007N1BBC/ref=cm_cr_dp_see_all_top?ie=UTF8&showVi
   ewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending,          web  (last
   accessed 12/03/2012).
"North        &      South",       Richard       Armitage     Online
   http://richardarmitageonline.com/north-and-south/north-south-
   introduction.html, web (last accessed 23/03/2012).




                            Filmography
North & South, Dir. Brian Percival, Scr. Sandy Welch, DVD, BBC, 2005
   [BBCDVD 1695].



                                                                                   15
Mark Wallace, Towards a Wise Despotism                             16



Pride and Prejudice, Dir. Simon Langton, Scr. Andrew Davies, DVD,
    BBC, 2009 [BBCDVD2796].



                                   The Author
Mark Wallace

Mark Wallace is a PhD researcher in the School of Applied Language
and Intercultural Studies in Dublin City University. His research is
supported by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social
Sciences (IRCHSS).
      Email: mark.wallace5@mail.dcu.ie




                                    The Paper
Date sent: 30/08/2012
Date accepted: 20/10/2012
Date published: 30/11/2012



                         How to quote this paper
Wallace, Mark, “Towards a Wise Despotism: Traces of Thomas Carlyle
in the BBC North & South (2004)”, Between, Vol. II.4 (2012),
http://www.Between-journal.it/




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