Laurence Sterne - some notes

 From the Short Oxford Companion to English Literature:

 

STERNE, Laurence (1713-68), educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he embraced the philosophy of *Locke and made a lifelong friend of *Hall-Stevenson, who was probably the model for *Eugenius. He took holy orders and obtained the living of the Yorkshire parish of Sutton-on-the-Forest in 1738. In 1741 he married Elizabeth Lumley. In 1759 he began *Tristram Shandy, Vols I and II being published in that year. This work brought him fame and success, although Dr. *Johnson, *Richardson, *Goldsmith, and others criticized it on both literary and moral grounds. He went to London and he was fêted by society, had his portrait painted by *Reynolds, was invited to Court. He published The Sermons of Mr Yorick (1760), a volume whose title caused some scandal, and in 1761 four more volumes of Tristram Shandy appeared. Meanwhile Sterne's health was deteriorating steadily. In 1762 in the hope of improvement he and his wife and daughter left for France. Sterne returned alone to England in 1764, and in 1765 published Vol VII and VIII of Tristram Shandy; Vol IX  appeared in 1767. In 1765 he returned to France and undertook an eight-month tour of France and Italy, which clearly provided him with much of the material for *A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768). In 1766 he published two further volumes of sermons. In 1767 Sterne met and fell in love with Elizabeth *Draper, and began his Journal to *Eliza. He died of tuberculosis in London in March 1768. 

A spate of forgeries appeared after Sterne's death, including another volume of Tristram Shandy, Posthumous Works,  and a continuation by 'Eugenius' (an author whose identity is not known, but who was not Hall-Stevenson) of A Sentimental Journey. 

Sterne is generally acknowledged as an innovator of the highest originality, and has been seen as the chief begetter of a long line of writers interested in the *'stream-of-consciousness'. He acknowledges in Tristram Shandy his  own debt in this respect to *Locke. Throughout his work he parodies the developing conventions of the still-new 'novel', and its problems in presenting reality, space, and time. His sharp but often salacious wit is balanced by the affection he displays towards the delights and absurdities of life.

Tristram Shandy, The Life and Adventures of, by L. Sterne, published 1759-67.

This unique work, although itself the culmination of experiments by lesser authors, is generally regarded as the progenitor of the 20th-cent. *stream-of-consciousness novel. It owes much to *Rabelais, to Robert *Burton, and to Locke's *Essay concerning Human Understanding. The word 'shandy', of obscure origin, means 'crack-brained, half-crazy', and Tristram in Volume VI of his book declares that he is writing a 'civil, nonsensical, good humoured Shandean book'.

In spite of the title, the book gives us very little of the life, and nothing of the opinions, of the nominal hero, who is born only in Vol IV, and breeched in Vol. VI, and then disappears from the story. Instead we have a group of humorous figures: Walter Shandy of Shandy Hall, Tristram's father, 'my Uncle Toby', his brother, wounded in the groin at the siege of Namur, whose hobby is the science of attacking fortified towns, Corporal Trim, his servant, wounded in the knee at Landen, devoted to his master. Behind these three major figures the minor characters, Yorick the parson, Dr Slop, Mrs Shandy, and the Widow Wadman, play more elusive parts.

 

 

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(From the  

Concise Cambridge History of English Literature,  

by George Sampson, rev. R.C. Churchill, 1972):

THE AGE OF JOHNSON, III:

STERNE AND THE NOVEL OF HIS TIMES

During the twenty years that followed the death of Richardson new elements were added to the novel, and of these the chief is "sentiment" or "sensibility", the master in that kind being Sterne. Apart from him the writers of the time fall into three groups, (1) the novelists of sentiment and reflection, typified by Henry Mackenzie, (2) the novelists of home life, typified by Fanny Burney, and (3) the novelists of "Gothick" romance, typified by Horace Walpole and Clara Reeve.

Laurence Sterne (1713-68) was born at Clonmel, Tipperary [Ireland], the son of Ensign Roger Sterne and great-grandson of the Richard Sterne who was Archbishop of York 1664-83. He was educated at Cambridge, took holy orders and was made perpetual curate of Coxwold in Yorkshire in 1760. He was not the kind of priest in whom the Anglican Church can feel any pride. Little is known about his life, and even that little is not very reputable. Our concern, however, is with the writer. The publication of Tristram Shandy was begun in 1760 (Vols. I and II), and continued at intervals until the year before the author's death. In 1762 Sterne's health broke down, and he began the travels of which A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy by Mr Yorick (1768) is the delightful literary product. Save that Sterne died in London and not abroad, it will be noticed that his life roughly follows the Fielding-Smollett pattern. The author of Tristram Shandy, cool copyst of other men as he was, must be accepted as an original and originating power in literature. He showed that there were untried possibilities in the novel. He opened new fields of of humour. He created a style more subtle and a form more flexible than any found before him. The novel, as left by Fielding and Smollett, might have settled into a chronicle of contemporary life and manners. Richardson had struck memorably into tragedy, but his one great story stood alone. Sterne invented for English literature the fantasia-novel, which could be a channel for the outporing of the author's own personality, idiosyncrasy, humours and opinions. Instead of form, there was apparently formlessness; but only apparently, for Sterne was the master of his own improvisations. Sterne may therefore be called a liberator—even the first of the "expressionists". His success left the novel the most flexible of all literary forms. 

Sterne's odd humour appears in the very title of his book, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman; for it has been truly remarked that the "life" is that of the gentleman's uncle and the "opinions" those of the gentleman's father. Tristram, titular hero and narrator, remains unborn during much of the story and plays no part in the rest. The undying trio, Walter Shandy, My Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim are humorous both in the narrow or Jonsonian sense, and in the larger or Shakespearean sense. My Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim are variations of genius upon Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. They are on a lower plane, but the relation between them is full of beauty, as well as of humour.

Of Sterne's indecency too much can be made. That he has not the broad humour of his other master, Rabelais—that his fun in this kind provokes the snigger rather than the hearty laugh, can be at once admitted. What is unfortunate about Sterne is that much of his own personal life seems to give unpleasant point to the least pleasant parts of his writing. We should like a priest to be more priestly. But actually the most offensive quality in Sterne is the new "sensibility" or "sentimentalism". When the "spot-lights" are manipulated with design so palpable as in the death of Le Fever or in the story of the dead ass, the author goes far to defeat his own purpose; for he at once calls in question his own artistic sincerity. The pathos of Dickens is naturally poured out; the pathos of Sterne is unnaturally put on. But his artistic sins can be forgiven for the sake of an insinuating, irresistible humour in which no English writer has excelled him. His Sermons of Mr Yorick (1760-9) and Letters from Yorick to Eliza (1775) have a biographical rather than a literary importance.