Classics and the Western Canon discussion
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The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Sterne, 'Tristram Shandy
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Background, context and other related comments
I've almost finished reading How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer by Sarah Bakewell. As I was reading it, I kept thinking Montaigne's ideas and approach to life sound so much like Tristram Shandy. And lo and behold, in Chapter 16 where Bakewell discusses Montaigne's popularity in England and his influence on English writers, she says this:
Of all Montaigne's cross-Chanel heirs, the one who deserves the last word is an Anglo-Irishman, Laurence Sterne, eighteenth-century author of Tristram Shandy. His great novel, if it can be so classified, is an exaggerated Montaignesque ramble, containing several explicit nods to its French predecessor, and filled with games, paradoxes, and digressions.
Later, she describes TS as "Montaigne on speed." And she compares it to Montaigne's meanderings in Italy:
Like Montaigne on his Italian trip, Sterne cannot be accused of straying from his path, for his path is the digression. His route lies, by definition, in whichever direction he happens to stray.
I had no idea when I picked up this book that it would shed light on TS. A case of serendipity, and one I thought I should share.
I watched 2005's Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story with its own digressions and side trips about a crew making a film of Tristram Shandy. Stephen Fry has a very small part in the movie playing an actor playing the part of the curator of Shandy Hall, there is a real Shandy Hall with a real curator, who sums up the story this way, Life is chaotic. It’s amorphous. No matter how hard you try, you can’t actually make it fit any shape.I had been thinking of posting something about the Rube Goldberg-like chain of events that result in some hopefully humorous outcome and how small some of those benign or critical those events can be, such as the low pockets and trying to reach into the one on the opposite side or tying too many knots.
Now I am wondering if life is really out of one's hands and does Sterne ever cross over from his attitudes of live and let live and not taking things too seriously into some sort of fatalism?
Per our brief discussion of architecture, here is Shandy Hall
https://www.laurencesternetrust.org.uk/
Note: The online shop indicates all of the Christmas Candlelight tours have been sold out. How cool would that be?
That looks amazing. I especially love the garden. Thank you for sharing that.
For those wondering about Lillibullero and what it sounds like. . .http://www.tristramshandyweb.it/sezio...
One of the best-known Irish tunes of all time. It has been around since at least the early days of the 17th century, when it was the tune of an Irish nursery song. It was used later on that century as a marching song by soldiers, and also as a tune for political songs in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its attribution to the English composer Henry Purcell, who published "Lillibullero" in his compilation Music's Handmaid of 1689 as a "new Irish tune", is doubtful. Purcell probably hijacked the tune as his own, a common practice in the musical world of that time. In later years the BBC has used "Lillibullero" as its signature tune for its World Service broadcasts. The spelling of the tune's name varies. Common variants are "Lillburlero" and "Lilliburilero".
Thanks for this, David! And I've heard good things about Sarah Bakewell's book on Montaigne, Tamara, but had no idea there was a Shandy connection.
Susan wrote: "Thanks for this, David! And I've heard good things about Sarah Bakewell's book on Montaigne, Tamara, but had no idea there was a Shandy connection."It came as a surprise to me, too!
And here’s Lillibullero from YouTube: https://youtu.be/kjqR7OOPNmQThe military sound and repetition really do seem to fit Uncle Toby
David wrote: "For those wondering about Lillibullero and what it sounds like. . .http://www.tristramshandyweb.it/sezio...
One of the best-known Irish tunes of all time. It has..."
Thx for this link, David. The comments under it are fun, including this one: "The album 1691 from which this version is taken reworks a number of Irish songs from the wars of the period and uses the fiddles to represent the Irish and the horns to represent the English."
And this one: Sebastian Ford (1 year ago): "Great tune to whistle when no other argument comes to mind...."
Could this book be considered a frame narrative that combines all of the different stories, opinions, and digressions inside the frame of TS writing the book? Is this frame exposed when he talks about matters relating to the writing of the book, like what he has planned in the 20th volume, the preface, etc.?It seems a little like Don Quixote in the way in seems to include so much seemingly extraneous material and stories other than those that directly propel DQ and Sancho through the book, only to a greater extreme.
Would TS consider the person who wonders if his book is a frame narratives a connoisseur?
David wrote: "Could this book be considered a frame narrative that combines all of the different stories, opinions, and digressions inside the frame of TS writing the book? Is this frame exposed when he talks ab..."That's an interesting way of looking at it.
I normally think of a frame narrative as something along the lines of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales or Boccacio's The Decameron or Tales from the Thousand and One Nights. The frame is more structured in the sense that the stories have a theme and at the end of each tale/story we go back to the "frame" which acts as a sort of bridge between stories.
TS seems more haphazard and chaotic. It has something in common with a frame narrative in that there is a skeleton or frame--the life and opinions of TS. But I think that is where the similarity ends. The plethora of opinions and digressions strip it of coherence. I see it more as stream of consciousness than anything else.
I first became acquainted with Sterne through my study of Thomas Jefferson. It has been often cited that Jefferson and his wife both enjoyed reading from TS to each other, and Sterne also appears in several lists of recommended reading to several correspondents. Here is a brief article you may find interesting as a brief introduction to Jefferson's admiration for Sterne as a novelist and a moralist.Rev. Laurence Sterne was Jefferson’s favorite novelist, and even moralist. Jefferson read often Sterne’s novels “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman”,and “A Sentimental Journey”.
Holowchak M., Andrew, and Amy J. Barbee. “Why Have Jefferson’s Biographers Largely Overlooked His Love Affair with the Work of Laurence Sterne? | History News Network,” August 14, 2016.
https://historynewsnetwork.org/articl....
Does Sentimental Journey have the same kind of wacky storyline that TS does? I don't hear as much about that one
Wikipedia says this about Sentimental Journey. . .A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy is a novel by Laurence Sterne, written and first published in 1768, as Sterne was facing death. In 1765, Sterne travelled through France and Italy as far south as Naples, and after returning determined to describe his travels from a sentimental point of view. The novel can be seen as an epilogue to the possibly unfinished work The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and also as an answer to Tobias Smollett's decidedly unsentimental Travels Through France and Italy. Sterne had met Smollett during his travels in Europe, and strongly objected to his spleen, acerbity and quarrelsomeness. He modeled the character of Smelfungus on him.
The novel was extremely popular and influential and helped establish travel writing as the dominant genre of the second half of the 18th century. Unlike prior travel accounts which stressed classical learning and objective non-personal points of view, A Sentimental Journey emphasized the subjective discussions of personal taste and sentiments, of manners and morals over classical learning. Throughout the 1770s female travel writers began publishing significant numbers of sentimental travel accounts. Sentiment also became a favorite style among those expressing non-mainstream views, including political radicalism.
The narrator is the Reverend Mr. Yorick, who is slyly represented to guileless readers as Sterne's barely disguised alter ego. The book recounts his various adventures, usually of the amorous type, in a series of self-contained episodes. The book is less eccentric and more elegant in style than Tristram Shandy and was better received by contemporary critics. It was published on 27 February, and on 18 March Sterne died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Senti...
Thanks, David. It sounds interesting. I made it a cardinal rule a long time ago that I had to read any book with a character named Smelfungus in it, so this one will have to go on my list. I'll have to look for Smollett's account of his travels for days when I'm feeling especially ascerbic and quarrelsome. It might cheer me up.
Bryan wrote: "I'll have to look for Smollett's account of his travels for days when I'm feeling especially ascerbic and quarrelsome. It might cheer me up. ..."LOL! I had a similar reaction to the description of Spike Gomes for this one tonight: Saki's The Complete Saki . I must have been elsewhere when it was used on this board back in 2014.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Happy New Year, Bryan, and everyone...!
David wrote: " ... we might want to keep a sharp lookout for morals. Some of Sterne's contemporary readers considered his writing some of the best when it comes to comments on morality ... I am not sure how much morality there is to be found in this work specifically ..."With David's opening remarks in mind, I've been broadly open to moral themes/messages in TS. Perhaps others have found moral themes, but at least so far, I have not. That's why I so appreciate the link David supplied at #14. If you haven't read the piece, I encourage you to do so. It provides a wholly different perspective on Sterne; it notes that Thomas Jefferson wrote “The writings of Sterne particularly form the best course of morality that ever was written.”
David notes that he's not sure how moral themes play out in TS itself. Whether or not, the link referenced above adds an important layer to understanding Sterne as a writer.
Gary,I am glad you found the article helpful. I have found a couple of sentiments expressed in TS that I felt both lean strongly towards morality and those I think Jefferson may have been quite in line with.
First it was the comment on hobby-horses, or an individual passions. TS seems to think it is wrong to molest a person over their ruling passions as long as it does not cause harm to others. This put me in mind of Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia" where he states:
But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.Of course it was this kind of thinking that prompted Jefferson to create documents like Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and help define freedom of religion for his times, and ours, and conceptualize things like the "wall of separation".
Second, and in line with the first, is that Uncle Toby appears to be the poster boy for "the meek who shall inherit the earth". Courteous to all, never insulting anyone, at least on purpose, and even allowing flies to live because there is enough room on earth for them both. Maybe Uncle Toby takes it too far at times, but there are much worse role models to choose from.
I believe there are probably many other things Jefferson found morally appealing in Sterne, beauty for one, which was part of the moral debates of the time. Sterne makes comments on beauty and references to painting, and Sterne was apparently a painter as well, that were in line with Jefferson's feelings on the subject.
I'm curious. For how many of you, is this a re-read of Tristram?I finished a "first" listening this morning. Now it will be time to go back and read along as we make our way through this thing. I will say that I wish I had read this many years ago. As a very novice writer (for self and family, participating in a few writing groups), I have deeply enjoyed many of the implications, statements, and examples about writing embedded in the text, as well as the enjoying the anecdotes and antics of the Shandy family and its associates.
Lily wrote: "I'm curious. For how many of you, is this a re-read of Tristram?"I read TS many years ago in college and it did not go well. It seemed quite mad to me then, which is why I vividly remember it. We were reading a novel a week then which probably had a lot to do with my experience. I have actively dissuaded friends from reading TS, and I would not be re-reading it except that this group, which I respect, selected it.
To my surprise I am more or less enjoying and discovering new perspectives in TS this time around. It takes more time and attention than I was able to give it before, along with side trips to the dictionary and reference sources (thank you, internet). I find it challenging in that my practiced ways of reading don't apply; I've trying to get past that and go with the flow ... which isn't all that easy.
This is a first read for me. I bought a copy back in college many moons ago because a friend who was an English major read it and loved it, and I always assumed that I would love it too based on the first few pages. A couple years ago I bought another copy with more readable print still hoping to get to it one day so I’m happy to be finally reading it, and to find that yes, I am enjoying it.
First, Gary and Susan, thank you for your comments. I did post my first review tonight, which I will almost certainly go back and modify. It does reflect a bit my wrestling with reading this thing.Afterwards I did a bit of digging and found a page, apparently from Glasgow, with this delightful Hogarth drawing of Dr. Slop with Corporal Trim! https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/libra...
"William Hogarth (1697-1764), the artist now chiefly remembered for his satiric engravings, was commissioned to design two plates to be used as frontispieces in two of the volumes. One depicts Corporal Trim reading a sermon on conscience to the sleeping Dr Slop, Uncle Toby, and Walter Shandy, and the other (shown to the left), the baptism of Tristram."
I just realized TS was discussed on the Brain Pain board back in 2015. I have now enjoyed perusing the 35 comments for the first 111 pages. Several useful, but what especially surprised me among them was the comparison of the Shandy living room conversations with the those of the residents of a senior park, same topics, similar oblivion to satire? -- @34&35! [g]https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Lily wrote: "First, Gary and Susan, thank you for your comments. I did post my first review tonight, which I will almost certainly go back and modify. It does reflect a bit my wrestling with reading this thing...."Thanks for sharing this, Lily. It’s also interesting to see examples of pages from the original printings with the explanations. And imagine signing your name 12,000+ times to avoid plagiarism
After looking at these pictures of the first edition, one of the questions I find myself asking is: would I have bought the next volume? And the next? And how would it have been to read with breaks in time between the volumes? I guess you would have just had to go with the flow. I’ll be paying a little more attention to the volume endings now. [comment moved to right thread]
SIDEBAR - Sandy is an old North Yorkshire dialect word meaning "odd," "slightly odd," or "crack brained." As Curate of Coxwold in North Yorkshire, Sterne was provided with a residence that his friends called Sandy Hall and the name stuck. He lived there from 1860-68. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddes...Originally Shandygaff, a Shandy is beer mixed with a lighter beverage, originally ginger beer or ale, now lemonade or lemon soda. The first printed appearance of "Shandy" as the abbreviated name for this drink was in 1888. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words...
Do we think it is fair or appropriate to consider Lawrence Sterne an iconoclast? If so, in what respects, literary, political, religious, social?By Iconoclast I mean a person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions.
David wrote: "Do we think it is fair or appropriate to consider Lawrence Sterne an iconoclast? If so, in what respects, literary, political, religious, social?By Iconoclast I mean a person who attacks cherishe..."
Sterne doesn't come across to me as an "attacker", per se, although he certainly challenges "accepted wisdom," whether through the character of the father Walter or the caricature of Dr. Slop or through Tristram's many (wonderful?! - my imposed value judgement) comments about writing and about critics -- and probably via a dozen other techniques I haven't identified yet. I continue to be fascinated -- and too unknowledgeable to define -- his relationship with the philosophy of John Locke.
I find myself asking who would I be willing to label as "iconoclasts" and would I include Sterne among them. No "answers" yet.
David wrote: "Do we think it is fair or appropriate to consider Lawrence Sterne an iconoclast? If so, in what respects, literary, political, religious, social?By Iconoclast I mean a person who attacks cherishe..."
In terms of what a novel is, seems to me Sterne is attacking the status quo with his whole modus operandi. This is very different from a romance, Tom Jones, Robinson Crusoe or Clarissa...or Don Quixote
The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, otherwise known as frequency illusion or recency illusion. This phenomenon occurs when the thing you've just noticed, experienced or been told about suddenly crops up constantly.I am listening to the Audible Original Treasure Island Dramatized. In one scene the pirates were singing a rousing version of Lillibullero. They did not seem too worried. . .
That's really cool--I'd never heard of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon before, but I expect to hear a lot more about it soon.
Now that there is a name for the phenomenon, we will probably notice it occurring more often. Usually when I move into a different car, I begin noticing that model everywhere.
When my wife was expecting, we suddenly saw pregnant women wherever we went.
Finally, after weeks of sporadically searching for translations of the non-English words and phrases that Sterne peppered TS with, I have found a nice place with a great number of them in one place. It does not have the translations of the larger pieces, such as the "Learned Doctors of the Sorbonne" or the "Slawkenbergii Fabella", but it does contain the smaller foreign phrases, including those on the volume front pieces.Sterne's multivoiced-discourse
http://www.tristramshandyweb.it/sezio...
With all of these different languages being used: Guascoigne, French, Greek, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, I never heard of Guascoigne before, it is difficult for me to completely drop the feeling that I am a victim of the Argumentum ad ignorantiam for the simple realization that Sterne was an extraordinarily intelligent, sharp, shockingly well-read, and educated person.
David wrote: "Finally, after weeks of sporadically searching for translations of the non-English words and phrases that Sterne peppered TS with, I have found a nice place with a great number of them in one place..."On behalf of everyone reading TS in an edition without notes, thank you!
David wrote: "Finally, after weeks of sporadically searching for translations of the non-English words and phrases that Sterne peppered TS with, I have found a nice place with a great number of them in one place..."This is great. Thanks for sharing
David wrote: "Finally, after weeks of sporadically searching for translations of the non-English words and phrases that Sterne peppered TS with, I have found a nice place with a great number of them in one place..."Thank you! I should have visited this thread more often.
With the recent death of Terry Jones I found myself reminiscing on YouTube. While I could sing the entire song since high school, in my own head of course, I never connected the dots until now. The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon strikes again.Bruces' Philosophers Song' by Monty Python
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9SqQ...
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel
There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya
'bout the raising of the wrist
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill
Plato, they say, could stick it away
Half a crate of whiskey every day
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle
And Hobbes was fond of his dram
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart
"I drink, therefore I am."
If you've a moment for a bit of fun, take a look at these early prints of four incidents we're already covered.https://www.loc.gov/photos/?fa=subjec...
Gary wrote: "If you've a moment for a bit of fun, take a look at these early prints of four incidents we're already covered.https://www.loc.gov/photos/?fa=subjec..."
These are a delight. I think my favorite is The Overthrow of Dr. Slop. I love all the curvy lines and the pudginess of the characters. The drawings capture the wonkiness of the novel.
Thanks for sharing this.
I'm making my way very slowly through Balzac's La Comédie Humaine, and last night was reading La Bourse (The Purse). The hero is in love with a young girl who has an unknown past. She lives with her mother, and both are visited by two upper-class men every evening who play cards with the mother--evidently a remnant of some older period of the mother's life when she was still a member of society. The hero racks his brains to try and figure out what these two men (one of whom never speaks) represent to each other.Here's my bad translation:
"The chevalier, he was a chevalier, did not speak, and no one spoke to him. Was he a friend? a poor relation? a man who remained in the company of an old gallant as a lady-in-waiting remained near her dame? Was he a mixture of faithful dog, parrot and friend? Had he saved his benefactor's fortune or his life? Was he the Trim for another Captain Toby?"
Bryan wrote: "Was he the Trim for another Captain Toby?..."Thanks, Bryan! I have had the feeling such allusions might be one of the fall-outs of reading Sterne.
I just thought it was interesting that it already had continental cultural cachet by Balzac's time.
or meme status
Okay, I returned Richard A. Lanham's
Tristram Shandy: The Games Of Pleasure
(~1973) and
Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy
(1987), the Modern Critical Interpretations collection of essays edited by Harold Bloom, to the library today, three times renewed, still two days overdue, and with about 40 pages copied from the two volumes.Both were practically worthless to me in the early days of wrestling with Tristram (and Sterne). But once I had given up reading carefully and perused the book for its overall arc, I found each of them fascinating in their own way. Perhaps my favorite was by Martin Battestin, who wrote commentary like this: "If language traditionally is the medium of rational discourse, through words appealing to the judgement, Sterne had doubts about its efficacy. Like Locke in book 3 of the Essay, he regarded words as imprecise and treacherous; refracted through the distorting lens of our preconceptions and prejudices, they tend to inhibit communication and to confirm us in our private systems of self-enclosure. Unlike Locke, he preferred imagination to judgement as the agency of understanding. Though novels must of course be written in words and appeal to the judgements of their readers, Sterne strives to overcome the inherent limitations of the form by deliberately exploiting the ambiguities of language so as to engage the reader's imagination...." Battestin goes on to provide an example from the text where Tristram says he will: "...do all that lies in my power to keep his {the reader's} imagination as busy as my own."
But what at this point I have found most useful from these viewpoints is the positioning of T.S. among the intellectual fervent of the Enlightenment -- sort of where it emerged in relationship to writings that preceded it, like those of Swift and Pope, as well, of course, of Rabelais and Cervantes, but also Fielding and Bunyan and even Bacon. (Then throw in a bit of Hobbes and ... and ....) I'm no scholar of this stuff, I can't pretend that I have absorbed all what I have encountered on this little side trip, but it has been fun, one of those Shandy-like digressions that felt like it moved forward for me this "great conversation" in which we indulge ourselves here.
Lily wrote: "Okay, I returned Richard A. Lanham's Tristram Shandy: The Games Of Pleasure (~1973) and Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy(1987), the Modern Critical Inte..."******
Thank you, Lily, for sharing. I’m impressed by your library as I’m sure mine would have neither of these books on its shelves. I appreciate the wealth of material shared by you and everyone else, all the more since I am foolishly reading TS in a book with no notes at all. This has worked fine for other 18th century novels, but for Tristram S., not so much. .
Classics and the Western Canon
Books mentioned in this topic
A Tale of a Tub (other topics)The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (other topics)
Gulliver’s Travels (other topics)
Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (other topics)
Tristram Shandy: the games of pleasure (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Richard A. Lanham (other topics)Richard A. Lanham (other topics)
Saki (other topics)
I will try and start by saying we might want to keep a sharp lookout for morals. Some of Sterne's contemporary readers considered his writing some of the best when it comes to comments on morality. Sterne was also a clergyman who wrote quite a few well regarded sermons so I am not sure how much morality there is to be found in this work specifically, but I suspect there will be some to be found.