The hero as woman of vocation: Thomas Carlyle's transatlantic influence on nineteenth-century women writers

The Hero as Woman of Vocation examines the ways in which Carlyles development of the notion of the Romantic individual (or hero) in Sartor Resartus influenced Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Augusta Jane Evans (Wilson), Louisa May Alcott, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (Ward) in their versions of the female Bildungsroman: Aurora Leigh, St. Elmo, Little Women, and The Story of Avis. I contend that Carlyles definition of the individual and his vocation becomesperhaps unexpectedlyliberatory and useful for these women, and that Diogenes Teufelsdrckh serves as a model for the exceptional female characters they develop. Aurora Leigh, Beulah Benton, Edna Earl, Jo March, and Avis Dobell are ideal visionaries, and though the authors rely on their own experiences to depict them, their status as characters in their own right offers much in the way of theorizing about the position of the woman intellectual/artist. This study provides a better understanding of the impact of Carlylean thought and offers a new approach to reading the figure of the woman artist and her vocation.