Laurence Sterne

Critique • Works

Our most influential unread author

Laurence Sterne is one of those acclaimed, classic authors of British literature whom no one reads.

No, that's not quite true. English literature majors have to read his masterpiece, Tristram Shandy (1759–1767). Hundreds of PhD dissertations analyze this work. And someone must have read that novel to write the screenplay for the movie based on it. Maybe even a few people who saw the film were led to start reading the novel (though how many got past the first ten pages, I can't imagine).

And there are all those modern literary figures, like James Joyce and Flann O'Brien, said to have been influenced by this centuries-previous writer.

But have you ever met a non-academic, non-literary-genius who has read any work of Sterne's from start to finish? Not likely.

Which is too bad really. Sterne seems to have had a lot of fun with his writing. Once the reader gets past the surface difficulties, his work can be bawdy, incredibly witty, devastatingly insightful and—most of all—uproariously funny.

Losing the way

Those surface difficulties though. Bizarre and obscure philosophical, political and historical references, many of them bogus. Sentences that keep interrupting themselves. A plot that inches ahead, when it is not falling backwards. A reader could lose the way very quickly.

Sterne came to his calling as a writer relatively late in life. Born in Ireland into a British soldier's family, he was a clergyman in northern England for many years and even tried his hand at farming, despite suffering from tuberculosis.

In 1759, Sterne wrote a short novel, A Political Romance, a satire on ecclesiastical politics intended to support his dean in a church struggle. It was immediately suppressed, although it was later republished after Sterne's death as The History of a Good Warm Watch-Coat.

But his writing appetite had been whetted and he started on Tristram Shandy. The first couple of parts (or "books", as they were called) were published also in 1759 and won him quick fame. He continued to add new volumes to the work for the next eight years.

To ease his tuberculosis, Sterne left England for a trip through Europe, where he was also celebrated. This resulted in A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768), an unfinished novel that satirizes travel writing. The tour is related in diary format by Yorick, a kind-hearted but bumbling Don Quixote-style character previously referenced in Tristram Shandy.

When Sterne died in London shortly after the first of the intended volumes of A Sentimental Journey was published, this was immediately the work for which he was best known. It remained so into the nineteenth century, a period during which sensibility of feeling was prized in literature. The vulgar humour and mind-games of Tristram Shandy were out of fashion and nearly forgotten.

 It wasn't until well into the twentieth century that Sterne's experimentation with the novel form began to be appreciated, especially among the more experimental writers. Critically, Tristram Shandy grew in importance. It became accepted as one of English literature's greatest and most interesting works, a forerunner of postmodern literature. Where it stands today.

Of course this could change radically once more. Sterne's reputation, based mainly on that longer work, has been volatile. Even in my readings of his work, I've been alternately enthralled and appalled. Some day I'll make up my mind.

Or maybe not. Perhaps the point of such literature is to keep stirring up questions about the point of creative writing.

— Eric

 

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