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    work words life

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    13 views14 pages

    Laurence Sterne

    Uploaded by

    Marija2803
    work words life

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPS, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 14

    Laurence Sterne

    (1713 - 1768)

    1. Intro
    Anachronistic figure in English lit.
    Important for 20th century lit.
    Situation in English novelistic lit. at the
    time :
    1.Serious, didactic, sentimental novel
    e.g. Richardson, Fieldings Amelia
    2. Humoristic novel
    e.g. Fieldings Shamela, Joseph Andrews

    Sterne brought together those 2


    streams
    Reactions: audience approved, critics
    partly negative, authors immitated (the
    Continent)
    Sternes target audience: higher
    intellectual and educational level
    Revolution: the technique, the form, the
    concept of novel

    2. Bio
    Author & clergyman
    November 24, 1713, Ireland
    Father poor regiment officer, dictated
    the family lifestyle
    First 10 years of life moving around
    10 years old school, Halifax
    18 years old, father dies, financial
    troubles

    Jesus college, Cambridge (greatgrandfather Master of the College,


    scholarship)
    B.A. & M.A.
    Clergyman out of necessity:
    1.Deacon
    2.Vicar (vicarship in Yorkshire)
    Politics: the Whig (influence of uncle),
    political journalism (supporting Robert
    Walpole), then quits, falling out with uncle

    Marriage: loyal but not very intellectual


    wife, both ill with consumption
    2 daughters, one died, other
    progressive imbecility
    Living a bit dull life in his parish for 20
    years (reading, painting, violin,
    hunting, petty events)
    The Demoniacks club

    3. Career
    Started writing late & by chance
    1759 A Political Romance (story, a
    Swiftian satire, local success)
    (supporting his dean in a church
    squabble)
    January 1, 1760 Tristram Shandy (2
    volumes, written in 6 months)
    The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy,
    Gentleman
    published in York, selling also in London
    London (hoping for success)

    4. Success

    Immediate hit
    Sterne = fashionable author
    Literary circles, high society
    neglects boring wife, numerous
    sentimental (platonic?) affairs
    Mrs Draper Eliza in A Sentimental
    Journey
    1775 Letters of Yorick to Eliza

    1760 Sermons Propovedi (2 volumes)


    Regularly publishes Tristram Shandy
    total of 9 volumes, last in January 1767
    1762 acute tuberculosis South France,
    Paris, Italy
    1766 Sermons (2 more volumes)
    1768 A Sentimental Journey through
    France and Italy (2 volumes out of 4
    intended)
    1768 dies (less than 2 months later)

    5. Tristram Shandy
    Parody of accepted novel conventions
    Eccentric characters: Walter Shandy,
    Mrs Shandy, uncle Toby, widow
    Wadman, Yorick
    Ab ovo opening of the novel
    No plot, no chronology, subjective vs.
    objective time
    Kaleidoscopic structure (collage)

    Conversational style, different


    treatment of reality (impressions)
    Episodes & digressions
    Association of ideas (John Locke)
    creative continuum
    Educational novel Tristrapaedia

    6. A Sentimental Journey
    Parody of a travelogue
    Toying with genre, readers expectations
    In medias res beginning (parody)
    Revolution in attitude towards:
    1.Characters (partially defined, implicitly
    characterized, laughed at)
    2.Novel form (no plot, disrupted chronology,
    dual time, episodes, digressions,
    intertextuality)
    3.Reader (defying conventions, chatting,
    more active)

    7. Sterne & 20th century


    Samuel Johnson: Nothing odd will do
    long. Tristram Shandy did not last.
    Goethe: The most beautiful spirit that
    ever lived.
    Innovator
    Free novel form, freedom in writing
    Interested in , introspection
    Stream-of-consciousness / interior
    monologue

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