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2. Laurence Sterne
(1713-1768)
Life
 Laurence
Sterne, a sentimentalist, was born in Ireland of an English father and an
Irish mother. Because his father was a Lieutenant in a marching regiment,
the family had to move from one place to another, facing the exhaustion and
discomfort of the journey. Sterne studied at Halifax in Yorkshire from 1723
to 1731. After his father’s death, Jamaica, Sterne’s cousin supported him to
go on further study in Cambridge University from 1733 to 1736. After leaving
university, Sterne became a vicar of Sutton-in-the-forest and lived there.
In 1741, he served on the editorial staff of “The York Gazetteer” for Whigs.
However he ended his political life with the downfall of the Walpole
government. Only a pamphlet named “Query upon Query”(1741) was written by
Sterne in that paper. Sterne mainly lived a leisurely and comfortable life.
At the age of 46, Sterne began his writing career. Among his works, the two
representatives are Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey.
In 1768, he died of pleurisy in London
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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
 Sterne
wrote Tristram Shandy between 1759 and 1767. The book was published
in five separate installments, each containing two volumes except the last,
which included only the final Volume 9. The numerous cliffhangers and
anticipations Sterne put in the closing chapters of each installment are
conventional features of serially published works, meant to arouse curiosity
and maintain interest in the volumes to come. Tristram Shandy was
enthusiastically received from the beginning, though it was also criticized
for being bawdy and indecent in its frank treatment of sexual themes.
For its time, the novel is highly unconventional in its
narrative technique--even though it also incorporates a vast number of
references and allusions to more traditional works. The title itself is a
play on a novelistic formula that would have been familiar to Sterne's
contemporary readers; instead of giving us the "life and adventures" of his
hero, Sterne promises us his "life and opinions." What sounds like a minor
difference actually unfolds into a radically new kind of narrative.
Tristram Shandy bears little resemblance to the orderly and structurally
unified novels (of which Fielding's Tom Jones was considered to be
the model) that were popular in Sterne's day. The questions Sterne's novel
raises about the nature of fiction and of reading have given Tristram
Shandy a particular relevance for twentieth century writers like
Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, and James Joyce.
The action covered in Tristram Shandy spans the years
1680-1766. Sterne obscures the story's underlying chronology, however, by
rearranging the order of the various pieces of his tale. He also
subordinates the basic plot framework by weaving together a number of
different stories, as well as such disparate materials as essays, sermons,
and legal documents. There are, nevertheless, two clearly discernible
narrative lines in the book.
The first is the plot sequence that includes Tristram's
conception, birth, christening, and accidental circumcision. (This sequence
extends somewhat further in Tristram's treatment of his "breeching," the
problem of his education, and his first and second tours of France, but
these events are handled less extensively and are not as central to the
text.) It takes six volumes to cover this chain of events, although
comparatively few pages are spent in actually advancing such a simple plot.
The story occurs as a series of accidents, all of which seem calculated to
confound Walter Shandy's hopes and expectations for his son. The manner of
his conception is the first disaster, followed by the flattening of his nose
at birth, a misunderstanding in which he is given the wrong name, and an
accidental run-in with a falling window-sash. The catastrophes that befall
Tristram are actually relatively trivial; only in the context of Walter
Shandy's eccentric, pseudo-scientific theories do they become calamities.
The second major plot consists of the fortunes of Tristram's
Uncle Toby. Most of the details of this story are concentrated in the final
third of the novel, although they are alluded to and developed in piecemeal
fashion from the very beginning. Toby 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 with the idea of constructing a
scaled replica of the scene of the battle in which he was injured. He
becomes obsessed with re-enacting those battles, as well as with the whole
history and theory of fortification and defense. The Peace of Utrecht slows
him down in these "hobby-horsical" activities, however, and it is during
this lull that he falls under the spell of Widow Wadman. The novel ends with
the long-promised account of their unfortunate affair.
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