The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Encyclopedia
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (or, more briefly, Tristram Shandy) is a novel by Laurence Sterne
. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next 10 years.
As its title suggests, the book is ostensibly Tristram's narration of his life story. But it is one of the central jokes of the novel that he cannot explain anything simply, that he must make explanatory diversions to add context and colour to his tale, to the extent that Tristram's own birth is not even reached until Volume III.
Consequently, apart from Tristram as narrator, the most familiar and important characters in the book are his father Walter, his mother, his Uncle Toby, Toby's servant Trim, and a supporting cast of popular minor characters, including the chambermaid, Susannah, Doctor Slop
, and the parson, Yorick.
Most of the action is concerned with domestic upsets or misunderstandings, which find humour in the opposing temperaments of Walter—splenetic, rational, and somewhat sarcastic—and Uncle Toby, who is gentle, uncomplicated, and a lover of his fellow man.
In between such events, Tristram as narrator finds himself discoursing at length on sexual practices, insults, the influence of one's name, and noses as well as explorations of obstetrics
, siege warfare, and philosophy
as he struggles to marshal his material and finish the story of his life.
Though Tristram is always present as narrator and commentator, the book contains little of his life, only the story of a trip through France and accounts of the four comical mishaps which shaped the course of his life from an early age:
's The Anatomy of Melancholy
, Francis Bacon
's Of Death
, Rabelais
and many more, and rearranged them to serve the new meaning intended in Tristram Shandy. Tristram Shandy was highly praised for its originality, and nobody noticed until years after Sterne's death. The first to note them was physician and poet John Ferriar
, who did not see them negatively and commented:
Critics of the 19th century, who were hostile to Sterne for other reasons, used Ferriar's findings to defame Sterne, claim that he was artistically dishonest, and almost unanimously accuse him of mindless plagiarism
. Scholar Graham Petrie closely analyzed the alleged passages in 1970; he observed that while more recent commentators now agree that Sterne "rearranged what he took to make it more humorous, or more sentimental, or more rhythmical," none of them "seems to have wondered whether Sterne had any further, more purely artistic, purpose." Studying a passage in Volume V, chapter 3, Petrie observes: "such passage... reveals that Sterne's copying was far more from purely mechanical, and that his rearrangements go far beyond what would be necessary for merely stylistic ends."
's Gargantua and Pantagruel
. Rabelais was by far Sterne's favourite author, and in his correspondence he made clear that he considered himself Rabelais's successor in humour
writing. One passage Sterne incorporated pertains to "the length and goodness of the nose". The first scene in Tristram Shandy, where Tristram's mother interrupts his father during the sex that leads to Tristram's conception, testifies to Sterne's debt to Rabelais.
Sterne had written an earlier piece called A Rabelaisian Fragment that indicates his familiarity with the work of the French Monk and practicing Doctor. But the earlier work is not needed to see the influence of Rabelais on Tristram Shandy, which is evident by the generally implausible story line and pervasive satirical, comedic portrayals of everyday life.
.
One of the subjects of such ridicule were some of the opinions contained in Robert Burton
's The Anatomy of Melancholy
, a book that mentioned sermon
s as the most respectable type of writing, and that was favoured by the learned; Burton's attitude was to try to prove indisputable facts by weighty quotations; his book consisted mostly of a collection of the opinions of a multitude of writers, to which Burton often modestly refrained to add his own, divided into quaint and old-fashioned categories; it discussed and determined everything from the doctrines of religion to military discipline, from inland navigation to the morality of dancing-schools.
Much of the singularity of Tristram Shandy's characters is drawn from Burton. Burton's introductory address to the reader, where he indulges himself in a Utopian sketch of a perfect government, form the basis of Tristram Shandys notions on the subject. Burton's quaint and old fashioned categories inspired many of Sterne's ludicrous chapter titles. And Sterne parodies Burton's use of weighty quotations. The first four chapters of Tristram Shandy are also founded on some passages in Burton.
In Chapter 3, Volume 5, Sterne makes a parody of the Consolatio Literary Genre
, mixing and reworking passages from three "widely separated sections" of Burton's Anatomy, including a parody of Burton's "grave and sober account" of Cicero's grief for the death of his daughter Tullia.
and 18th
centuries. Pope
, Locke
, and Swift
were all major influences on Sterne and Tristram Shandy. Satires of Pope and Swift formed much of the humour of Tristram Shandy, but Swift's sermons and Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding contributed ideas and frameworks that Sterne explored throughout his novel. Other major influences are Cervantes
, Montaigne's Essays
, and John Locke
. It also owes a significant inter-textual debt to Burton
's The Anatomy of Melancholy
, Swift
's Battle of the Books, and the Scriblerian
collaborative work, The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus.
The shade of Cervantes is similarly present throughout Sterne's novel. The frequent references to Rocinante
, the character of Uncle Toby (who resembles Don Quixote
in many ways) and Sterne's own description of his characters' "Cervantic
humour", along with the genre-defying
structure of Tristram Shandy, which owes much to the second part of Cervantes' novel, all demonstrate the influence of Cervantes.
The novel also makes use of John Locke's theories of empiricism
, or the way we assemble what we know of ourselves and our world from the "association of ideas" that come to us from our five senses. Sterne is by turns respectful and satirical of Locke's theories, using the association of ideas to construct characters' "hobby-horses", or whimsical obsessions, that both order and disorder their lives in different ways.
Sterne's engagement with the science and philosophy of his day was extensive, however, and the sections on obstetrics
and fortifications, for instance, indicate that he had a grasp of the main issues then current in those fields.
Today, the novel is commonly seen as a forerunner of later novels' use of stream of consciousness and self-reflexive writing. However, current critical opinion is divided on this question. There is a significant body of critical opinion that argues that Tristram Shandy is better understood as an example of an obsolescent literary tradition of "Learned Wit", partly following the contribution of D.W. Jefferson.
Samuel Johnson
famously commented, "Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last." Schopenhauer privately rebutted to Samuel Johnson saying "The man Sterne is worth 1000 Pedants and commonplace-fellows like Dr.J."
[...] Not only are the two longest chapters in the novel (Trim's sermon and Slawkenbergius's tale) concerned with the bigotry of the orthodox clergy, but, even more significantly, the whole novel, which breathes tolerance, is implicitly concerned with the same thing. And the bigotry of the orthodox (Anglican) clergy was as much Schopenhauer's hobby-horse as the arts of fortification were Uncle Toby's. He was obsessed by it, as his vitriolic comments on Samuel Johnson -- and on the Anglican clergy -- show. Lichtenberg condemned Sterne as a 'scandalum ecclesiae'; no doubt it was precisely this that Schopenhauer appreciated. He also shared, to a marked degree, Sterne's delight in ridiculing pedantry.}} A young Karl Marx
was a devotee of Tristram Shandy, and wrote a short humorous novel, Scorpion and Felix
, which remained unpublished, that was obviously influenced by it. Goethe praised Sterne in Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years
, which in turn influenced Nietzsche.
Tristram Shandy has also been seen as a forerunner for many modern narrative devices and styles, such as visual writing.
For the novel wit on the bigotry
of the clergy
, in his two longest chapters Slawkenbergius's Tale and Trim's Sermon, as well as in the book as a whole, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
condemned Sterne as a scandalum ecclesiae (a scandal for the Church).
The success of Sterne's novel got him an appointment as curate of St. Michael's Church by Lord Fauconberg in Coxwold
, Yorkshire
, which included the living at (what Sterne called) Shandy Hall
. The medieval structure still stands today under the care of the Laurence Sterne Trust http://www.shandean.org/trust.html after its acquisition in the 1960s. The gardens, which Sterne tended to during his time there, are daily open to visitors.
Tristram Shandy has been adapted as a graphic novel
by cartoonist
Martin Rowson
.
Michael Nyman
has been working off and on Tristram Shandy
as an opera
since 1981. At least five portions of the opera have been publicly performed and one, "Nose-List Song", was recorded in 1985 on the album, The Kiss and Other Movements
.
The book was adapted on film in 2006 as A Cock and Bull Story
, directed by Michael Winterbottom
, written by Frank Cottrell Boyce
(credited as Martin Hardy, in a complicated metafictional twist), and starring Steve Coogan
, Rob Brydon
, Keeley Hawes
, Kelly Macdonald
, Naomie Harris
, and Gillian Anderson
. The movie plays with metatextual levels, showing both scenes from the novel itself and fictionalized behind-the-scenes footage of the adaptation process, even employing some of the actors to play themselves. It is often mislabeled as a mockumentary
, when in fact there are no documentary elements at play, mocking or otherwise.
Spanish writer Javier Marías
translated the novel into Spanish. In the prologue he stated his enthusiasm for the novel and deemed his translation "my best novel, by far". It was translated into Italian in 1958 by Antonio Meo, under the title of "La vita e le opinioni di Tristram Shandy, gentiluomo", with a foreword by Carlo Levi. It was translated into Hungarian in 1956 by Győző Határ under the title of "Tristram Shandy úr élete és gondolatai".
Misc
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican 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 many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...
. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next 10 years.
Synopsis and style
Consequently, apart from Tristram as narrator, the most familiar and important characters in the book are his father Walter, his mother, his Uncle Toby, Toby's servant Trim, and a supporting cast of popular minor characters, including the chambermaid, Susannah, Doctor Slop
Doctor Slop
Dr Slop is a choleric physician and in Laurence Sterne's novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman .The doctor is summoned by Tristram Shandy's father to attend his son's imminent birth...
, and the parson, Yorick.
Most of the action is concerned with domestic upsets or misunderstandings, which find humour in the opposing temperaments of Walter—splenetic, rational, and somewhat sarcastic—and Uncle Toby, who is gentle, uncomplicated, and a lover of his fellow man.
Obstetrics
Obstetrics is the medical specialty dealing with the care of all women's reproductive tracts and their children during pregnancy , childbirth and the postnatal period...
, siege warfare, and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
as he struggles to marshal his material and finish the story of his life.
Though Tristram is always present as narrator and commentator, the book contains little of his life, only the story of a trip through France and accounts of the four comical mishaps which shaped the course of his life from an early age:
- Tristram's implantation within his mother's womb was disturbed. At the very moment of procreation, his mother asked his father if he had remembered to wind the clock. The distraction and annoyance led to the disruption of the proper balance of humoursHumorismHumorism, or humoralism, is a now discredited theory of the makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers, positing that an excess or deficiency of any of four distinct bodily fluids in a person directly influences their temperament and health...
necessary to conceive a well-favoured child. - One of his father's pet theories was that a large and attractive nose was important to a man making his way in life. In a difficult birth, Tristram's nose was crushed by Dr. Slop's forceps.
- A second theory of his father was that a person's name exerted enormous influence over that person's nature and fortunes, with the worst possible name being Tristram. In view of the previous accidents, Tristram's father decreed that the boy would receive an especially auspicious name, Trismegistus. Susannah mangled the name in conveying it to the curate, and the child was christened Tristram. According to his father's theory, his name, being a portmanteau-like conflation of "Trismegistus" (after the esoteric mysticMysticismMysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
Hermes TrismegistusHermes TrismegistusHermes Trismegistus is the eponymous author of the Hermetic Corpus, a sacred text belonging to the genre of divine revelation.-Origin and identity:...
) and "TristanTristan (name)Tristan or Tristram is a given name of Welsh origin. It originates from the Brythonic name Drust or Drustanus. It derives from a stem meaning "noise", seen in the modern Welsh noun trwst "noise" and the verb trystio "to clatter".It became popularized through the character of Tristan, one of the...
" (whose connotation bore the influence through folk etymology of Latin tristis, "sorrowful"), both doomed him to a life of woe and cursed him with the inability to comprehendHermeticismHermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...
the causes of his misfortune. - As a toddler, Tristram suffered an accidental circumcisionCircumcisionMale circumcision is the surgical removal of some or all of the foreskin from the penis. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin and ....
when Susannah let a window sash fall as he urinated out of the window because his chamberpot was missing.
Artistic incorporation and accusations of plagiarism
Sterne incorporated into Tristram Shandy many passages taken almost word for word from Robert BurtonRobert Burton (scholar)
Robert Burton was an English scholar at Oxford University, best known for the classic The Anatomy of Melancholy. He was also the incumbent of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford, and of Segrave in Leicestershire.-Life:...
's The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy The Anatomy of Melancholy The Anatomy of Melancholy (Full title: The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections...
, Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
's Of Death
Essays (Francis Bacon)
Essayes: Religious Meditations. Places of Perswasion and Disswasion. Seene and Allowed was the first published book by the philosopher, statesman and jurist Francis Bacon. The Essays are written in a wide range of styles, from the plain and unadorned to the epigrammatic...
, Rabelais
François Rabelais
François Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs...
and many more, and rearranged them to serve the new meaning intended in Tristram Shandy. Tristram Shandy was highly praised for its originality, and nobody noticed until years after Sterne's death. The first to note them was physician and poet John Ferriar
John Ferriar
John Ferriar , was a Scottish physician and a poet, most noted for his leadership of the Manchester Infirmary, and his studies of the causes of diseases such as typhoid. M.D...
, who did not see them negatively and commented:
Critics of the 19th century, who were hostile to Sterne for other reasons, used Ferriar's findings to defame Sterne, claim that he was artistically dishonest, and almost unanimously accuse him of mindless plagiarism
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
. Scholar Graham Petrie closely analyzed the alleged passages in 1970; he observed that while more recent commentators now agree that Sterne "rearranged what he took to make it more humorous, or more sentimental, or more rhythmical," none of them "seems to have wondered whether Sterne had any further, more purely artistic, purpose." Studying a passage in Volume V, chapter 3, Petrie observes: "such passage... reveals that Sterne's copying was far more from purely mechanical, and that his rearrangements go far beyond what would be necessary for merely stylistic ends."
Rabelais
A major influence on Tristram Shandy is RabelaisFrançois Rabelais
François Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs...
's Gargantua and Pantagruel
Gargantua and Pantagruel
The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel is a connected series of five novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It is the story of two giants, a father and his son and their adventures, written in an amusing, extravagant, satirical vein...
. Rabelais was by far Sterne's favourite author, and in his correspondence he made clear that he considered himself Rabelais's successor in humour
Humour
Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement...
writing. One passage Sterne incorporated pertains to "the length and goodness of the nose". The first scene in Tristram Shandy, where Tristram's mother interrupts his father during the sex that leads to Tristram's conception, testifies to Sterne's debt to Rabelais.
Sterne had written an earlier piece called A Rabelaisian Fragment that indicates his familiarity with the work of the French Monk and practicing Doctor. But the earlier work is not needed to see the influence of Rabelais on Tristram Shandy, which is evident by the generally implausible story line and pervasive satirical, comedic portrayals of everyday life.
Ridiculing solemnity
Sterne was no friend of gravity, a quality which excited his disgust; Tristram Shandy gave a ludicrous turn to solemn passages from respected authors that it incorporated, as well as to the Consolatio Literary GenreConsolatio Literary Genre
The Consolatio or consolatory oration is a type of ceremonial oratory, typically used rhetorically to comfort mourners at funerals. It was one of the most popular classical rhetoric topics, and received new impetus under Renaissance humanism....
.
One of the subjects of such ridicule were some of the opinions contained in Robert Burton
Robert Burton (scholar)
Robert Burton was an English scholar at Oxford University, best known for the classic The Anatomy of Melancholy. He was also the incumbent of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford, and of Segrave in Leicestershire.-Life:...
's The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy The Anatomy of Melancholy The Anatomy of Melancholy (Full title: The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections...
, a book that mentioned sermon
Sermon
A sermon is an oration by a prophet or member of the clergy. Sermons address a Biblical, theological, religious, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law or behavior within both past and present contexts...
s as the most respectable type of writing, and that was favoured by the learned; Burton's attitude was to try to prove indisputable facts by weighty quotations; his book consisted mostly of a collection of the opinions of a multitude of writers, to which Burton often modestly refrained to add his own, divided into quaint and old-fashioned categories; it discussed and determined everything from the doctrines of religion to military discipline, from inland navigation to the morality of dancing-schools.
Much of the singularity of Tristram Shandy's characters is drawn from Burton. Burton's introductory address to the reader, where he indulges himself in a Utopian sketch of a perfect government, form the basis of Tristram Shandys notions on the subject. Burton's quaint and old fashioned categories inspired many of Sterne's ludicrous chapter titles. And Sterne parodies Burton's use of weighty quotations. The first four chapters of Tristram Shandy are also founded on some passages in Burton.
In Chapter 3, Volume 5, Sterne makes a parody of the Consolatio Literary Genre
Consolatio Literary Genre
The Consolatio or consolatory oration is a type of ceremonial oratory, typically used rhetorically to comfort mourners at funerals. It was one of the most popular classical rhetoric topics, and received new impetus under Renaissance humanism....
, mixing and reworking passages from three "widely separated sections" of Burton's Anatomy, including a parody of Burton's "grave and sober account" of Cicero's grief for the death of his daughter Tullia.
Other techniques and influences
His text is filled with allusions and references to the leading thinkers and writers of the 17th17th century
The 17th century was the century which lasted from 1601 to 1700 in the Gregorian calendar.The 17th century falls into the Early Modern period of Europe and in that continent was characterized by the Dutch Golden Age, the Baroque cultural movement, the French Grand Siècle dominated by Louis XIV, the...
and 18th
18th century
The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar.During the 18th century, the Enlightenment culminated in the French and American revolutions. Philosophy and science increased in prominence. Philosophers were dreaming about a better age without the Christian fundamentalism of...
centuries. Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
, Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
, and Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
were all major influences on Sterne and Tristram Shandy. Satires of Pope and Swift formed much of the humour of Tristram Shandy, but Swift's sermons and Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding contributed ideas and frameworks that Sterne explored throughout his novel. Other major influences are Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
, Montaigne's Essays
Essays (Montaigne)
Essays is the title given to a collection of 107 essays written by Michel de Montaigne that was first published in 1580. Montaigne essentially invented the literary form of essay, a short subjective treatment of a given topic, of which the book contains a large number...
, and John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
. It also owes a significant inter-textual debt to Burton
Robert Burton (scholar)
Robert Burton was an English scholar at Oxford University, best known for the classic The Anatomy of Melancholy. He was also the incumbent of St Thomas the Martyr, Oxford, and of Segrave in Leicestershire.-Life:...
's The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy The Anatomy of Melancholy The Anatomy of Melancholy (Full title: The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections...
, Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
's Battle of the Books, and the Scriblerian
Scriblerus Club
The Scriblerus Club was an informal group of friends that included Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, John Gay, John Arbuthnot, Henry St. John and Thomas Parnell. The group was founded in 1712 and lasted until the death of the founders, starting in 1732 and ending in 1745, with Pope and Swift being...
collaborative work, The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus.
Rocinante
Rocinante is the name of Don Quixote's horse, in the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.-Etymology: in Spanish means work-horse or low-quality horse , but also illiterate or rough man. There are similar words in French , Portuguese and Italian . The etymology is uncertain. The name is,...
, the character of Uncle Toby (who resembles Don Quixote
Don Quixote (ballet)
Don Quixote is a ballet originally staged in four acts and eight scenes, based on an episode taken from the famous novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. It was originally choreographed by Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus and was first presented by the Ballet of the...
in many ways) and Sterne's own description of his characters' "Cervantic
Cervantes
-People:*Alfonso J. Cervantes , mayor of St. Louis, Missouri*Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, 16th-century man of letters*Ignacio Cervantes, Cuban composer*Jorge Cervantes, a world-renowned expert on indoor, outdoor, and greenhouse cannabis cultivation...
humour", along with the genre-defying
Sui generis
Sui generis is a Latin expression, literally meaning of its own kind/genus or unique in its characteristics. The expression is often used in analytic philosophy to indicate an idea, an entity, or a reality which cannot be included in a wider concept....
structure of Tristram Shandy, which owes much to the second part of Cervantes' novel, all demonstrate the influence of Cervantes.
The novel also makes use of John Locke's theories of empiricism
Empiricism
Empiricism is a theory of knowledge that asserts that knowledge comes only or primarily via sensory experience. One of several views of epistemology, the study of human knowledge, along with rationalism, idealism and historicism, empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and evidence,...
, or the way we assemble what we know of ourselves and our world from the "association of ideas" that come to us from our five senses. Sterne is by turns respectful and satirical of Locke's theories, using the association of ideas to construct characters' "hobby-horses", or whimsical obsessions, that both order and disorder their lives in different ways.
Sterne's engagement with the science and philosophy of his day was extensive, however, and the sections on obstetrics
Obstetrics
Obstetrics is the medical specialty dealing with the care of all women's reproductive tracts and their children during pregnancy , childbirth and the postnatal period...
and fortifications, for instance, indicate that he had a grasp of the main issues then current in those fields.
Today, the novel is commonly seen as a forerunner of later novels' use of stream of consciousness and self-reflexive writing. However, current critical opinion is divided on this question. There is a significant body of critical opinion that argues that Tristram Shandy is better understood as an example of an obsolescent literary tradition of "Learned Wit", partly following the contribution of D.W. Jefferson.
Reception and influence
Some of Sterne contemporaries did not hold it in high esteem, but its bawdy humour was popular with London society. Through time, it has come to be seen as one of the greatest comic novels in English. Schopenhauer in particular, considered it the acme and crowning of the novel form, one of the "four novels at the top of their class," along with Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, Rousseau's Nouvelle Héloïse, and Cervantes' Don Quixote.Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
famously commented, "Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last." Schopenhauer privately rebutted to Samuel Johnson saying "The man Sterne is worth 1000 Pedants and commonplace-fellows like Dr.J."
[...] Not only are the two longest chapters in the novel (Trim's sermon and Slawkenbergius's tale) concerned with the bigotry of the orthodox clergy, but, even more significantly, the whole novel, which breathes tolerance, is implicitly concerned with the same thing. And the bigotry of the orthodox (Anglican) clergy was as much Schopenhauer's hobby-horse as the arts of fortification were Uncle Toby's. He was obsessed by it, as his vitriolic comments on Samuel Johnson -- and on the Anglican clergy -- show. Lichtenberg condemned Sterne as a 'scandalum ecclesiae'; no doubt it was precisely this that Schopenhauer appreciated. He also shared, to a marked degree, Sterne's delight in ridiculing pedantry.}} A young Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
was a devotee of Tristram Shandy, and wrote a short humorous novel, Scorpion and Felix
Scorpion and Felix
Scorpion and Felix, A Humoristic Novel is the only comedic fictional story to have been written by Karl Marx, the founder of Marxism. Written in 1837 when he was 19 years old, it has remained unpublished...
, which remained unpublished, that was obviously influenced by it. Goethe praised Sterne in Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years
Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years
Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years, or the Renunciants, is the fourth novel by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and the sequel to the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship...
, which in turn influenced Nietzsche.
Tristram Shandy has also been seen as a forerunner for many modern narrative devices and styles, such as visual writing.
For the novel wit on the bigotry
Bigotry
A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one exhibiting intolerance, and animosity toward those of differing beliefs...
of the clergy
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....
, in his two longest chapters Slawkenbergius's Tale and Trim's Sermon, as well as in the book as a whole, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was a German scientist, satirist and Anglophile. As a scientist, he was the first to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics in Germany...
condemned Sterne as a scandalum ecclesiae (a scandal for the Church).
The success of Sterne's novel got him an appointment as curate of St. Michael's Church by Lord Fauconberg in Coxwold
Coxwold
Coxwold is a village and civil parish in the Hambleton district of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated 18 miles north of York and is where the Rev. Laurence Sterne wrote A Sentimental Journey....
, Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
, which included the living at (what Sterne called) Shandy Hall
Shandy Hall
Shandy Hall was the home of the Rev. Laurence Sterne who is famous for his novel Tristram Shandy in Coxwold, North Yorkshire, England. Sterne lived there from 1760 to 1768 as perpetual curate of Coxwold...
. The medieval structure still stands today under the care of the Laurence Sterne Trust http://www.shandean.org/trust.html after its acquisition in the 1960s. The gardens, which Sterne tended to during his time there, are daily open to visitors.
Adaptations
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
by cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
Martin Rowson
Martin Rowson
Martin George Edmund Rowson is a British cartoonist and novelist. His genre is political satire and his style is scathing and graphic. His work frequently appears in The Guardian and The Independent...
.
Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman
Michael Laurence Nyman, CBE is an English composer of minimalist music, pianist, librettist and musicologist, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy collaboration with the filmmaker Peter Greenaway, and his multi-platinum soundtrack album to Jane Campion's The Piano...
has been working off and on Tristram Shandy
Tristram Shandy (opera)
Tristram Shandy is an unfinished opera project by Michael Nyman based on his favorite novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne, begun in 1981...
as an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
since 1981. At least five portions of the opera have been publicly performed and one, "Nose-List Song", was recorded in 1985 on the album, The Kiss and Other Movements
The Kiss and Other Movements
The Kiss and Other Movements is the sixth album release by Michael Nyman, and the fifth recording with the Michael Nyman Band. The title track is an "operatic duet" between Dagmar Krause and Omar Ebrahim, based on a painting of the same title by Paul Richards, which is depicted on the cover, and...
.
The book was adapted on film in 2006 as A Cock and Bull Story
A Cock and Bull Story
A Cock and Bull Story is a 2006 British comedy film directed by Michael Winterbottom...
, directed by Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom is a prolific English filmmaker who has directed seventeen feature films in the past fifteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features...
, written by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Frank Cottrell Boyce
-Awards:*2004: Buch des Monats des Instituts für Jugendliteratur/Book of the Month by the Institute for Youth Literature , Millions*2004: Carnegie Medal, Millions*2004: Luchs des Jahres , Millions...
(credited as Martin Hardy, in a complicated metafictional twist), and starring Steve Coogan
Steve Coogan
Stephen John "Steve" Coogan is a British comedian, actor, writer and producer. Born in Manchester, he began his career as a standup comedian and impressionist, working as a voice artist throughout the 1980s on satirical puppet show Spitting Image. In the early nineties, Coogan began creating...
, Rob Brydon
Rob Brydon
Rob Brydon is a BAFTA-nominated Welsh actor, comedian, radio and television presenter, singer and impressionist...
, Keeley Hawes
Keeley Hawes
Keeley Hawes is an English actress and model, known for many television roles. She is best known for her roles as Zoe Reynolds in Spooks and Alex Drake in Ashes to Ashes and Lady Agnes in the remake of Upstairs, Downstairs...
, Kelly Macdonald
Kelly Macdonald
Kelly Macdonald is a Scottish actress, known for her role in the independent film Trainspotting and mainstream releases such as Nanny McPhee, Gosford Park, Intermission, No Country for Old Men and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2...
, Naomie Harris
Naomie Harris
Naomie Melanie Harris is an English screen actress. She is best known for her starring role as Selena in 28 Days Later, as well as her supporting turn as Tia Dalma/Calypso in the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films...
, and Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
. The movie plays with metatextual levels, showing both scenes from the novel itself and fictionalized behind-the-scenes footage of the adaptation process, even employing some of the actors to play themselves. It is often mislabeled as a mockumentary
Mockumentary
A mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...
, when in fact there are no documentary elements at play, mocking or otherwise.
Spanish writer Javier Marías
Javier Marías
Javier Marías is a Spanish novelist. He is also a translator and columnist.-Life:Javier Marías was born in Madrid. His father was the philosopher Julián Marías, who was briefly imprisoned and then banned from teaching for opposing Franco...
translated the novel into Spanish. In the prologue he stated his enthusiasm for the novel and deemed his translation "my best novel, by far". It was translated into Italian in 1958 by Antonio Meo, under the title of "La vita e le opinioni di Tristram Shandy, gentiluomo", with a foreword by Carlo Levi. It was translated into Hungarian in 1956 by Győző Határ under the title of "Tristram Shandy úr élete és gondolatai".
External links
Editions- Hypertext Tristram Shandy Web project, at University of MilanUniversity of MilanThe University of Milan is a higher education institution in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Europe, with about 62,801 students, a teaching and research staff of 2,455 and a non-teaching staff of 2,200....
- The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
and Google Books (scanned books original editions colour illustrated) (plain text, HTML and other) - The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman at LibriVoxLibriVoxLibriVox is an online digital library of free public domain audiobooks, read by volunteers and is probably, since 2007, the world's most prolific audiobook publisher...
(audio) - Laurence Sterne in Cyberspace, links to first editions online and other resources.
- The Laurence Sterne Trust collection- A collection of editions of Sterne's works housed in Shandy Hall, Coxwold, York.
Misc
- The Shandean—scholarly journal for the critical and historical investigation of all aspects of the work and life of Sterne
- Illustrated book exhibition—Glasgow University Library Special Collections Department
- An annotated bibliography, by Jack Lynch