ИСТИНА

The aim of the paper is to contribute to the debate about the literary sublime by bringing it into focus together with its seeming antagonist, irony. While the one is associated with the sweeping powers of transformative experience and the other is concerned with the ability to see shrewdly through any kind of pathos, both seek to enlarge the boundaries of individual consciousness at the same time verging on the brink of self-destruction. The same paradox underlies their controversial relations with language since both the ironic and the sublime types of rhetoric point to the deficiency and/or excess of verbal expression. Departing from certain points made in theoretic discussions (e.g. Booth 1974, Shaw 2006), the primary concern of the paper is to look at Thomas Carlyle as an outstanding example of double engagement with the ironic and the sublime discourse. Special attention will be given to a rich interplay of prophetic, visionary, grotesque and satirical figures in “Sartor Resartus” and “On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History”.