LAURENCE STERNE

LAURENCE STERNE

Sterne was born in Ireland in 1713.

He was not a prolific writer. His works are:

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1760-1767) A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768) Tristram Shandy, which is very unconventional in

terms of style, anticipated in many ways the

experiments in fiction undertaken by many modern and contemporary writers (lack of a plot, digressions,

stylistic novelty)

The novel is separated into nine volumes, which were written over a period of seven years beginning in 1760.

It is narrated in the first person by Tristram Shandy himself.

The novel, as the title suggests, is about the life of

Tristram Shandy. Yet, there is very little conventional

detail regarding the life of Tristram. His birth is not

described until the third volume.

Therefore, it is hardly a bildungsroman = a novel about the moral, psychological and intellectual development of a youthful

protagonist.

Tristram Shandy is considered a comic masterpiece which consists of some of the finest and most memorable character portrayals (e.g. Tristram’s father Walter Shandy and Uncle Toby) in English

literature.

The characters also reveal a depth of feeling and psychological

understanding uncommon for literature of

the period.

What makes Tristram Shandy an experimental and

unconventional novel compared to the previous and subsequent fictional narratives could be listed as follows:

1) There is not an exact plot.

2) There is no chronological order. His narrative refuses to follow “a tolerable straight line”.

3) The author hinders all movement: just when we think a story is about to develop, Sterne introduces an incredible digression -

- a long piece of Latin (with translation on the opposite page)

- a blank sheet

- a page with a marbled design (a decorative pattern) on it.

4) The author breaks the rules of language and punctuation. He does not use speech marks (“…”),instead he uses (―), and

asterisks (*).

In Volume 1 Tristram states that “in writing what I have set about, I shall confine

myself neither to his rules, nor to any

man’s rules that ever lived”.

By presenting a narrative that is not

confined to any rules, Sterne in Tristram Shandy offers a graphic representation of the disordered workings of the mind.

Sterne was convinced that the mind’s

workings are essentially irrational.

Sterne suggested that human nature and the workings of the individual mind can never be fully known.

In writing a novel which challenges the conventional plot line, Sterne

acknowledges and shows the difficulty of representing the workings of inner

consciousness.

Chapter 21

— I WONDER what's all that noise, and running backwards and forwards for, above stairs, quoth my father, addressing himself, after an hour and a half's silence, to my uncle

Toby, — who, you must know, was sitting on the opposite side of the fire, smoking his social pipe all the time, in mute contemplation of a new pair of black plush breeches which

he had got on:

56 TRISTRAM SHANDY book i

began to patronize the notion, and more fully explained it

to the world in one or two of his Spectators; — but the dis- covery was not his. — Then, fourthly and lastly, that this

strange irregularity in our climate, producing so strange an irregularity in our characters, — doth thereby, in some sort, make us amends, by giving us somewhat to make us merry with when the weather will not suffer us to go out of doors,

— that observation is my own; — and was struck out by me this very rainy day, March 26, 1759, and betwixt the hours of nine and ten in the morning.

— What can they be doing, brother? — quoth my father, — we can scarce hear ourselves talk. my father, — we can scarce hear

ourselves talk. I think, replied my uncle Toby, taking his pipe from his mouth, and striking the head of it two or three times upon the nail of his left thumb, as he began his sentence, —

\ think, says he: — But to enter rightly into my uncle Toby's sentiments upon this matter, you must be made to enter first a little into his

character, the outlines of which I shall just

give you, and then the dialogue between him

and my father will go on as well again.

Pray what was that man's name, — for I write in such a hurry, I have no time to recollect or look for it, — who first made the observation,

"That there was great inconsistency in our air and climate"? Whoever he was, 'twas a just and good observation in him. — But the

corollary drawn from it, namely, "That it is this which has furnished us with such a variety of odd and whimsical characters"; — that was not his; — it was found out by another man, at least a century and a half after him: Then again, — that this copious store-house of

original materials, is the true and natural

cause that our Comedies are so much better than those of France, or any others that

either have, or can be wrote upon the

Continent: — that discovery was not fully made till about the middle of King William's reign, — when the great Dryden, in writing one of his long prefaces, (if I mistake not) most fortunately hit upon it. Indeed toward the latter end of Queen Anne, the great

Addison began to patronize the notion, and

more fully explained it to the world in one or

two of his Spectators; — but the discovery

was not his.

— Then, fourthly and lastly, that this

strange irregularity in our climate, producing so strange an irregularity in our characters,

— doth thereby, in some sort, make us

amends, by giving us somewhat to make us merry with when the weather will not suffer us to go out of doors, — that observation is my own; — and was struck out by me

this very rainy day, March 26, 1759, and

betwixt the hours of nine and ten in the

morning.