Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne

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(Clonmel, 24th November 1713 – London, 18th March 1768)

Index

life

1

TRISTRAM SHANDY

2

Features of the novel

3

NOVELTY & ORIGINALITY

4

CONCLUSIONS

5

Pag. XX

Pag. XX

Pag. XX

Pag. XX

Pag. XX

he was born in Clonmel, Ireland, the son of an English army officer, Roger Sterne, and an Irish mother, Agnes.Most of his early childhood was spent in poverty, following the troops about Ireland.1723: after the family moved back to Yorkshire, he was sent to school near Halifax, where his wealthy uncleRichard Sterne, archbishop of York, whoseestate was nearby, supported his education.1731: he attended Jesus College, Cambridge, on a scholarship but during this period he had incurable tuberculosis. 1741: he fell in love with, and married, Elizabeth Lumley but the marriage was not a happy one.

-Life-

Unit 01

Unit 01

1759: he published the first two volumes of his experimental novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. It was an enormous success.1767: he published the final volume of Tristram Shandy and, shortly after, he fell in love with Eliza Draper, half his age and unhappily marrie.1768: when Eliza returned to her husband he finished, and published, his second great work, A Sentimental JourneyThrough France and Italy, by Mr. Yorick.He died in March of the same year and was buried at St. Michael’s Churchyard (Coxwold).

-Life-

 The narrator of the novel, Tristram Shandy, sets out to tell the story of his life: he begins with the account of his conception. He has so much to tell that he does not get to his birth until the third volume! Finally, reality dawns upon him: it takes more time to tell the story of his life than it does to live it. Despite the peculiar and rather baffling plot framework, there are two clearly discernible narrative lines:

Tristam Shandy

Unit 02

Tristam

Tristram’s Uncle Toby.

Unit 02

It has been defined as :• an anti novel because there is not a traditional plot: there is no linearity in the story but there are manytime-shifts (flashbacks and flashforwards) and many digressions.• A meta-novel: (= a novel about the novel), it is a reflection on the process of writing itself and on thenature of the novel.It doesn’t respect the conventions of the traditional novel.It makes the reader aware that a novel is a fictitious work, completely made up, which gives us an artificial illusion of realism.It reveals to the reader the mechanisms of writing (plot, chronology, the voice of the narrator etc..).It is an experimental novel for the particular use of time, the kind of narrator, the relationship between reader and narrator and the special typographical techniques.It was centuries ahead of his time and anticipated many modernist and post-modern writers (Calvino, for example)

Tristam Shandy

•TIME: it doesn’t proceed in a linear way, but it’s very often interrupted. There are many digressions and free association of ideas. The digressions about the making of the novel puzzle the reader and create a comical effect.

Unit 03

TYPOGRAPHICAL TECHNIQUES are used to make the reader aware of the artificiality of the book (blank page, black page, particular signs...)

NARRATOR: intrusive, he comments on the process of writing and on himself as a character.

THE READER: is very often addressed to and is directly involved in the making of the novel.

Features of the novel

The title makes the novel sound like a typical Bildungsroman, in which we follow the hero’s progress from childhood to maturity, but in fact Sterne subverts this idea in a postmodern fashion.The work, in fact, opens, with the account of Tristram’s interrupted conception after which Tristram jumps about in time only getting to his own birth in Volume 3.The focus shifts from the hero himselfto the nature of his family, environment,and heredity.

Unit 04

Novelty & Originality

Unit 04

The book playfully draws attention to the limitations of language and teases the reader by breaking all the rules of writing, thus raising questions about the nature of fiction and of reading: anecdotes are often left unfinished,words sometimes give way to squiggles, as when Corporal Trim swirls his stick in the air while making his argument for celibacy,events occur out of chronological order.

Novelty & Originality

Conclusions

Though he produced only two works of fiction, Sterne ranks as one of the major novelists of his time because of his experiments with the structure and organization of the novel.the work stands out as unique among 18th-century English novels and continues to please, puzzle, and attract readers.

The fortunes of Tristram’s Uncle Toby.

• Captain Toby Shandy receives a wound to the groin while in the army, and it takes him four years to recover.
• When he is able to move around again, he retires to the country to construct a scaled replica of the scene of the battle in which he was injured.
• Hebecomesobsessedwithre-enactingthosebattles,and the whole history and theory of fortification and defense.
• Slowed down by the Peace of Utrecht he falls under the spell of Widow Wadman. The novel ends with the account of their unfortunate affair.

Tristram’s

• conception (interrupted by his mother asking her husband if he has remembered to wind up the clock!),
• birth (during which his nose is accidentally flattened by the doctor’s use of the forceps!),
• christening (in which, due to a misunderstanding, he is given the wrong name!)
• circumcision (accidentally caused by a falling window sash in the nursery!). It takes six volumes to cover this chain of events.