Laurence Sterne

Tristram Shandy

The Age of Sensibility 1745-98

Broad definition: the entire complex of thoughts, feelings and suppositions characteristic of an individual or an age

Narrow definition: a fashionable literary mode in the 18th c. to refer to a susceptibility of fine and tender feelings

(sorrow and sympathy) Sentimentality (pejorative): excess of emotions Intense personal feelings v social morals

Sensibility

Source of great imaginative powers Source of inspiration

‘Dear sensibility! Source inexhausted of all that’s precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! Thou chaniest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw – and ‘tis thou who liftest him up to Heaven – eternal fountain of our feelings!’ (Sterne)

Subjective idealism (trust in natural goodness of human feelings): Kant, Rousseau

Sensibility

Melancholy (sweet sadness) Nostalgia Artist is an introspective confessor Fascination with death and mortality Interest in mental illness and eccentricity Art should be spontaneous Enjoyment of solitude Originality v imitation

Sensibility (def.)

Érzékenység Fogékonyság Érzékelő képesség Érzék (vmihez)

Sense (senses, pl.)

Érzék, érzékelő képesség (five senses) Józan ész (bring sy to his senses) (ön)tudat (come to one’s senses) Érzés, érzet (inward senses) Érzék (sense of beauty) Felfogás, vélemény (senses of the meeting Érzékiség (pleasures of the senses) Ítélőképesség (good sense) Jelentés, értelem (make sense of sg)

Association of ideas

John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)Understanding is a finction of reasonReason is guided by

Conscience Social laws Universal laws

Association of ideas (cont)

No innate ideas > mind is a blank sheet (tabula rasa)

Experience Sense perception Simple ideas Ideas of growing complexity (association of

simple ideas) >Impressions >Importance of education

Association of ideas (cont)

Private train of associations Prisoners of consciousness Impossibility of mutual understanding

through communication Possibility of communication: through

conscious exertion of fellow feelings and sentiments (sympathy, sorrow, etc)

David Hume

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) Empiricism: impressions are the source of all ideas Cause and effect between impressions and ideas is a

property of the workings of the human mind; associations between ideas

we make moral judgments based on our sentiments > non-selfish ends

sympathy is a principle of communication sympathy-based moral sentimentalism

Laurence Sterne (1713-1768)

born in Ireland, graduated from Cambridge University, became a vicar while married to his first wife, began a number of relationships with other

women and frequently attended the meetings of an all male society called the Demoniacs

1750, a collection of sermons, which he incorporated into his main work, Tristram Shandy. Starts writing The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,

publishes the first two books in 1759, York assumes the role of the sentimental and witty parson (Parson Yorick), and

names his house Shandy Hall continues writing the book until the end of his life humorous characters, sentimental attitude, obscenity, shallowness of

philosophy, but praised for his ‘knowledge of the human heart’. 1762-64 visits France, and produces A Sentimental Journey (1768): Parson

Yorick’s sentimental tour through France

Critical opinion

Dr Johnson: ‘Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last.’

Romantic writers appreciated Sterne’s original and independent spirit that revolted against Neoclassical restrictions in literature (p. 8).

20 century Modernists (Joyce and Woolf) saw his associative narrative technique as a forerunner of their own style of writing.

Postmodernist and Post-structuralist writers: prefer the ludic, playful side and the experimental nature of his fiction

Plot?

Plot

The narrative focuses on the consciousness of Tristram and his relationship with the other members of his eccentric family. Tristram endeavours to write his own autobiography from the moment of his conception.

Tistram’s life Tristram’s efforts to write his autobiography

Characters?

Characters

Tristram Shandy: the main character, an anti-hero

Walter Shandy: of Shandy Hall, Tristram’s father Mrs Shandy: Tristram’s mother Uncle Toby: Walter’s brother, Tristram’s uncle Yorick: the local parson, a self-portrait of Sterne Dr Slop: a medical doctor

Sub-genre?

Sub-genre

a novel of sentiment in which the main character is sympathised with

a comic novel in which the main character is satirised as well as sympathised with: Cervantes, Don Quixote

the autobiography of Tristram / Sterne a medical comedy (Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, p. 54) a philosophical novel on sense perception and the nature of

understanding (John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy)

other genres involved: sermon (86), satire, Bildungsroman (novel of education) and its parody

First draft of a novel?

Narrator?

Narrator

First person singular Limited perspective Naive Fusion of viewpoints

Style

easy, conversational style, addressing th reader (350 times): 5, 7, 9, 15, 19, 20, 27, 31, 32, 37-38, 40, 41

Addressing a female readership: 9, 36, 41 Asides: 41 but the reader is constantly reminded that writing

is not the same as conversation: 8, 15, 22, 25 and that there is a difference between life and

art and that he is reading a book: 41

Style (cont)

Anecdotes, jokes, parody and self-parody. But also: pedantry, footnotes (41),

documentation (42), references, providing evidence.

To ‘impose literary form on insignificant experience’

Style (cont)

But: how can you ‘read’ the typographical devices? the black page (25), the empty page (157) the marble page

(158), the typographical eccentricities (28-29, 74, 426, 332) The reader is invited to fill in the gaps in the narrative or

in the description of the various characters. Communicative style: the reader is often involved in the

creation of the text. Aim:

to achieve communication with the reader To determine an unknown readership

Organisation

loose chronology: from conception 7, ab ovo (7) Progress is digressive rather than linear, often going backwards All ingredients of the novel are there but the order is mixed up Frequent digression from chronology (Cervantes):

chapters 7-12 (mother-midwife-Yorick-midwife-mother) Chapter 14 p. 27 Chapter 15: the marriage settlement 42: doctors of the Sorbonne Chapter 22 p. 50 Preface: III. 21 Diagrams: 332-33 Missing chapters: 438-39

Organisation (cont)

Everything is connected with everything else

Every idea leads to another idea, and the narrator has to explain all those other ideas too to make his narrative clear and to make the context of his story complete.

Organisation (cont)

Aim: to be exact, and particular, and to be objective and credible. All that serves better communication and better understanding between the writer and the reader.

Search for completeness and accuracy: Tristram starts his autobiography with the story of his conception. He goes back in time because the past exists in the present consciousness (Locke), the present consciousness is made up of the impressions received by the mind in the past. (p. 7)

the exploration of the nature of truth, search for completeness. When the more accurate you want to be, the more vague and

incomprehensible your style will become Leisure (‘in short’)

Subject matters

Originality: 8 Difference between art and life: Yorick The book as an object: 8, 15, 22, 25, 40, 41, 329 Combination of ideas (Locke): 8 Misfortunes / sympathy: 9, 10, Yorick (ch. 10-

11), 30, 40, 198-99 Hobby-horses/eccentric opinions: 12, 38, 65-66 Character studies: Yorick (ch 10-12), father (ch

16), Uncle Toby (47, ch 25)

Sentimentalism

hobbyhorses: fixed perspectives through which the characters interpret the world

Uncle Toby is interested in warfare and he interprets everything around him according to this perspective. He is interested in the theory and practice of fortification and siege warfare.

Walter Shandy: theory of names.

Sentimentalism (cont)

sympathy between the characters, and also between the writer and the reader.

sympathy leads to their cooperation in the creation of the novel. The reader is asked to make his own contribution to the novel.

Tristram needs communication because he wants to escape the prison of his private self and he wants to make contact with other people (including the reader).

Sentimentalism (cont)

Sterne’s aim: ‘to teach readers to love the world and our fellow creatures better than we do’ (A Sentimental Journey).

Self-referentiality

Chapter 6 Dedication: chapters 8, 9 27, 33, 36 the conception of Tristram leads to the conception of the book. Tristrapaedia (‘The Education of Tristram’), written by Tristram’s

father is a brother to Tristram Shandy (the book); it’s a child of the mind of Tristram’s father.

With the help of metafictional devices Sterne constantly reminds us that we are reading a book and that life is different from fiction.

Metafiction: a fiction about fiction, a key term in Postmodernism.

Self-referentiality (cont)

Problems: where to begin the story? How far do you have to go back in the past? Where should we start a story to make it complete?

The narrator (Tristram) wants to know everything about the circumstances of his conception, birth, and education but he is unable to know every detail.

The omniscience of the narrator (and the writer) is questioned.

Other question: is there a true story at all? (The main concern of 20th century fiction.)