Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne (November 24, 1713 - March 18, 1768) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics. Sterne died in London after years of fighting tuberculosis.

Works

Sterne’s early writing life was unremarkable. He wrote letters, had two ordinary sermons published (in 1747 & 1750), and tried his hand at satire. He was involved in, and wrote about, local politics in 1742. His major publication prior to Tristram Shandy was the satire, A Political Romance, from 1759, aimed at conflicts of interest within York Minster. A posthumously published piece on the art of preaching, A Fragment in the Manner of Rabelais, appears to have been written in 1759. Sterne did not begin work on Tristram Shandy until he was 46 years old.

Related Topics:
Satire - A Political Romance - York Minster - A Fragment in the Manner of Rabelais

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Sterne is best known for his novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, for which he became famous not only in England, but throughout Europe. Translations of the work began to appear in all the major European languages almost upon its publication, and Sterne influenced European writers as diverse as Diderot and the German Romanticists. Indeed, the novel, in which Sterne manipulates narrative time and voice, parodies accepted narrative form, and includes a healthy dose of ‘bawdy’ humor, was largely dismissed in England as being too corrupt. Samuel Johnson’s critique from 1776 was that, ‘Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy will not last.’ This is strikingly different from the views of European critics of the day, who praised Sterne and Tristram Shandy as innovative and superior. Voltaire called it ‘clearly superior to Rabelais,’and later, Goethe praised Sterne as ‘the most beautiful spirit that ever lived.’

Related Topics:
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Diderot - German Romanticists - Parodies - Samuel Johnson - Voltaire - Rabelais - Goethe

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The novel itself is difficult to describe. The story starts with the narration, by Tristram, of his own conception. It proceeds by fits and starts, but mostly by what Sterne calls ‘progressive digressions’ so that we do not reach Tristram’s birth before the third volume. The novel is rich in characters and humor, and the influences of Rabelais and Cervantes are present throughout the work. The novel ends after 9 volumes, published over a decade, but without anything that might be considered a traditional conclusion. Sterne inserts sermons, essays and legal documents into the pages of his novel; and he explores the limits of typography and print design by including marbled and blackened pages within the narrative. Many of the innovations that Sterne introduced, adaptations in form that should be understood as an exploration of what constitutes the novel, were highly influential to Modernist writers like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, and more contemporary writers like Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace. Italo Calvino referred to Tristram Shandy as the ‘undoubted progenitor of all avant-garde novels of our century.’

Related Topics:
Modernist - James Joyce - Virginia Woolf - Thomas Pynchon - David Foster Wallace - Italo Calvino

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A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy is a less influential book, although it was better received by English critics of the day. The book has many stylistic parallels with Tristram Shandy, and indeed, the narrator is one of the minor characters from the earlier novel. Although the story is more straight-forward, A Sentimental Journey can be understood to be part of the same artistic project to which Tristram Shandy belongs.

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Two volumes of Sterne’s Sermons were published during his lifetime, but they are not marked by anything extraordinary in either their style or their substance. Several volumes of letters were published after his death, as was Journal to Eliza, a more sentimental than humorous love-letter to a woman Sterne was courting during the final years of his life. Compared to many eighteenth century authors Sterne’s body of work is quite small.

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Sterne, who used his wife very ill, was one day talking to Garrick in a fine sentimental manner, in praise of conjugal love and fidelity. "The husband," said Sterne, "who behaves unkindly to his wife, deserves to have his house burnt over his head." "If you think so," said Garrick, "I hope your house is insured."

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