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Laurence Sterne

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"Laurence Stern" redirects here. For the American journalist, seeLaurence Stern (journalist).

The Reverend

Laurence Sterne
Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1760
Portrait bySir Joshua Reynolds,1760
Born(1713-11-24)24 November 1713
Clonmel,Ireland
Died18 March 1768(1768-03-18)(aged 54)
London,England
OccupationNovelist, clergyman
NationalityBritish
Alma materJesus College, Cambridge
Notable worksThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy
A Political Romance
SpouseElizabeth Lumley

Laurence Sterne(24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768) was anAnglo-IrishnovelistandAnglican clericwho wrote the novelsThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, GentlemanandA Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy,publishedsermonsand memoirs, and indulged in local politics. He grew up in a military family, travelling mainly in Ireland but briefly in England. An uncle paid for Sterne to attendHipperholme Grammar Schoolin theWest Riding of Yorkshire,as Sterne's father was ordered to Jamaica, where he died of malaria some years later. He attendedJesus College, Cambridgeon asizarship,gaining bachelor's and master's degrees. While Vicar ofSutton-on-the-Forest,Yorkshire, he married Elizabeth Lumley in 1741. His ecclesiasticalsatireA Political Romanceinfuriated the church and was burnt.

With his new talent for writing, he published early volumes of his best-known novel,The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.Sterne travelled to France to find relief from persistent tuberculosis, documenting his travels inA Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy,published weeks before his death. His posthumousJournal to ElizaaddressesEliza Draper,for whom he had romantic feelings. Sterne died in 1768 and was buried in the yard ofSt George's, Hanover Square.His body was said to have been stolen after burial and sold toanatomistsatCambridge University,but was recognised and reinterred. His ostensible skull was found in the churchyard and transferred toCoxwoldin 1969 by the Laurence Sterne Trust.

Biography[edit]

Early life and education[edit]

Plaque in memory of Sterne in thetown wallsofClonmel
Laurence Sterne byJoseph Nollekens,1766, National Portrait Gallery, London

Sterne was born inClonmel,County Tipperary,on 24 November 1713.[1]His father, Roger Sterne, was anensignin a British regiment recently returned fromDunkirk.[2]His great-grandfatherRichard Sternehad been the Master ofJesus College, Cambridge,as well as theArchbishop of York.[3]Roger Sterne was the youngest son of Richard Sterne's youngest son, and consequently, Roger Sterne inherited little of Richard Sterne's wealth.[3]Roger Sterne left his family and enlisted in the army at the age of 25; he enlisted uncommissioned, which was unusual for someone from a family of high social position. Despite being promoted to an officer, he was of the lowest commission and lacked financial resources.[4]Roger Sterne married Agnes Hobert, the widow of a military captain.[5]Agnes was "born in Flanders but...was in fact Anglo-Irish and lived for much of her life in Ireland".[6]

The first decade of Laurence Sterne's life was spent from place to place, as his father was regularly reassigned to a new (usually Irish) garrison. "Other than a three-year stint in a Dublin townhouse, the Sternes never lived anywhere for more than a year between Laurence's birth and his departure for boarding school in England a few months shy of his eleventh birthday. Besides Clonmel and Dublin, the Sternes also lived inWicklowTown;Annamoe,County Wicklow;Drogheda,County Louth;Castlepollard,County Westmeath;Carrickfergus,County Antrim; andDerryCity. "[7]In 1724, "shortly before the family's arrival in Derry",[8]Roger took Sterne to his wealthy brother, Richard, so that Laurence could attendHipperholme Grammar SchoolnearHalifax.[9]Laurence never saw his father again as Roger was ordered toJamaicawhere he died of malaria in 1731.[10]Laurence was admitted to asizarshipat Jesus College, in July 1733 at the age of 20.[11]He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in January 1737 and returned in the summer of 1740 to be awarded hisMaster of Arts.[12]

Early career[edit]

Sterne was ordained as adeaconon 6 March 1737[13]and as a priest on 20 August 1738.[14]His religion is said to have been the "centrist Anglicanism of his time", known as "latitudinarianism".[15]A few days after his ordination as a priest, Sterne was awarded the vicarage living ofSutton-on-the-Forestin Yorkshire.[16]Sterne married Elizabeth Lumley on 30 March 1741, despite both being ill withconsumption.[17]In 1743, he was presented to the neighbouringlivingofStillingtonby Reverend RichardLevett,Prebendary of Stillington, who was patron of the living. Subsequently, Sterne did duty both there and at Sutton.[18]He was also aprebendaryofYork Minster.[19]Sterne's life at this time was closely tied with his uncle, Jaques Sterne, theArchdeaconofClevelandandPrecentorof York Minster. Sterne's uncle was an ardentWhig,[20]and urged Sterne to begin a career ofpolitical journalism,which resulted in some scandal for Sterne and a terminal falling-out between the two men.[21]This falling out occurred after Laurence ended his political career in 1742. He had previously written anonymouspropagandafor theYork Gazetteerfrom 1741 to 1742.[22]Sterne lived in Sutton for 20 years, during which time he kept up an intimacy that had begun at Cambridge withJohn Hall-Stevenson,a witty and accomplishedbon vivant,owner ofSkelton Hallin the Cleveland district of Yorkshire.[23]

Writing[edit]

Shandy Hall,Sterne's home inCoxwold,North Yorkshire

Sterne wrote a religious satire work calledA Political Romancein 1759. Many copies of his work were destroyed.[24]According to a 1760 anonymous letter, Sterne "hardly knew that he could write at all, much less with humour so as to make his reader laugh".[25]At the age of 46, Sterne dedicated himself to writing for the rest of his life. It was while living in the countryside, failing in his attempts to supplement his income as a farmer and struggling with tuberculosis, that Sterne began work on his best-known novel,The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,the first volumes of which were published in 1759. Sterne was at work on his celebrated comic novel during the year that his mother died, his wife was seriously ill, and his daughter was also taken ill with a fever.[26]He wrote as fast as he possibly could, composing the first 18 chapters between January and March of 1759.[27]Due to his poor financial position, Sterne was forced to borrow money for the printing of his novel, suggesting that Sterne was confident in the prospective commercial success of his work and that the local critical reception of the novel was favourable enough to justify the loan.[28]

The publication ofTristram Shandymade Sterne famous in London and on the continent. He was delighted by the attention, famously saying, "I wrote not [to] befedbut to befamous."[29]He spent part of each year in London, being fêted as new volumes appeared. Even after the publication of volumes three and four ofTristram Shandy,his love of attention (especially as related to financial success) remained undiminished. In one letter, he wrote, "One half of the town abuse my book as bitterly, as the other half cry it up to the skies — the best is, they abuse it and buy it, and at such a rate, that we are going on with a second edition, as fast as possible."[30]Baron Fauconbergrewarded Sterne by appointing him as the perpetualcurateofCoxwold,North Yorkshire in March 1760.[31]

In 1766, at the height of the debate about slavery, the composer and former slaveIgnatius Sanchowrote to Sterne,[32]encouraging him to use his pen to lobby for the abolition of the slave trade.[33]In July 1766, Sterne received Sancho's letter shortly after he had finished writing a conversation between his fictional characters Corporal Trim and his brother Tom inTristram Shandy,wherein Tom described the oppression of a black servant in a sausage shop in Lisbon that he had visited.[34]Sterne's widely publicised response to Sancho's letter became an integral part of 18th-century abolitionist literature.[34]

Foreign travel[edit]

Further information:Great Britain in the Seven Years' WarandFrance in the Seven Years' War
Sterne painted inwatercolourby French artistLouis Carrogis Carmontelle,c. 1762

Sterne continued to struggle with his illness and departed England for France in 1762 in an effort to find a climate that would alleviate his suffering. Sterne attached himself to a diplomatic party bound forTurin,as England and France were still adversaries in theSeven Years' War.Sterne was gratified by his reception in France, where reports of the genius ofTristram Shandymade him a celebrity. Aspects of this trip to France were incorporated into Sterne's second novel,A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.[35]

Eliza[edit]

Early in 1767, Sterne metEliza Draper,the wife of an official of theEast India Company,while she was staying on her own in London.[36]He was quickly captivated by Eliza's charm, vivacity, and intelligence, and she did little to discourage his attentions.[37][38]They met frequently and exchanged miniature portraits. Sterne's admiration turned into an obsession, which he took no trouble to conceal. To his great distress, Eliza had to return to India three months after their first meeting, and he died from consumption a year later without seeing her again.

In 1768, Sterne published hisSentimental Journey,which contains some extravagant references to her, and the relationship, though platonic, aroused considerable interest. He also wrote hisJournal to Eliza,part of which he sent to her, and the rest of which came to light when it was presented to theBritish Museumin 1894. After Sterne's death, Eliza allowed ten of his letters to be published under the titleLetters from Yorick to Elizaand succeeded in suppressing her letters to him, though some blatant forgeries were produced in a volume ofEliza's Letters to Yorick.[39]

Death[edit]

Less than a month afterSentimental Journeywas published, Sterne died in his lodgings at 41Old Bond Streeton 18 March 1768, at the age of 54.[40]He was buried in the churchyard ofSt George's, Hanover Squareon 22 March.[41]It was rumoured that Sterne's body was stolen shortly after it was interred and sold toanatomistsat Cambridge University. Circumstantially, it was said that his body was recognised byCharles Collignon,who knew him[42][43]and discreetly reinterred him back in St George's, in an unknown plot. A year later a group ofFreemasonserected a memorial stone with a rhyming epitaph near to his original burial place. A second stone was erected in 1893, correcting some factual errors on the memorial stone. When thechurchyardof St. George's was redeveloped in 1969, amongst 11,500 skulls disinterred, several were identified with drastic cuts from anatomising or a post-mortem examination. One was identified to be of a size that matched a bust of Sterne made by Nollekens.[44][45]

The skull was held up to be his, albeit with "a certain area of doubt".[46]Along with nearby skeletal bones, these remains were transferred toCoxwoldchurchyardin 1969 by the Laurence Sterne Trust.[47][48][49]The story of the reinterment of Sterne's skull in Coxwold is alluded to inMalcolm Bradbury's novelTo the Hermitage.[50]

Works[edit]

First editions ofTristram Shandy,part of the collection of the Laurence Sterne Trust atShandy Hall

The works of Laurence Sterne are few in comparison to other eighteenth-century authors of comparable stature.[51]Sterne's early works were letters; he had two sermons published (in 1747 and 1750) and tried his hand at satire.[52]He was involved in and wrote about local politics in 1742.[52]His major publication prior toTristram Shandywas the satireA Political Romance(1759), aimed at conflicts of interest withinYork Minster.[52]A posthumously published piece on the art of preaching,A Fragment in the Manner of Rabelais,appears to have been written in 1759.[53]Rabelaiswas by far Sterne's favourite author, and in his correspondence, he made clear that he considered himself as Rabelais' successor in humour writing, distancing himself fromJonathan Swift.[54][55]

Sterne's novelThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemansold widely in England and throughout Europe.[56]Translations of the work began to appear in all the major European languages almost immediately upon its publication, and Sterne influenced European writers as diverse asDenis Diderot[57]and theGerman Romanticists.[58]His work also had noticeable influence overBrazilianauthorMachado de Assis,who made use of the digressive technique in the novelThe Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas.[59]

English writer andliterary criticSamuel Johnson's verdict in 1776 was that "Nothing odd will do long.Tristram Shandydid not last. "[60]This is strikingly different from the views of European critics of the day, who praised Sterne andTristram Shandyas innovative and superior.Voltairecalled it "clearly superior toRabelais",and laterGoethepraised Sterne as "the most beautiful spirit that ever lived".[52]Swedish translator Johan Rundahl described Sterne as anarch-sentimentalist.[61]The title page to volume one includes a short Greek epigraph, which in English reads: "Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men."[62]Before the novel properly begins, Sterne also offers a dedication to Lord William Pitt.[63]He urges Pitt to retreat with the book from the cares of statecraft.[64]

The novel itself starts with the narration, by Tristram, of his own conception. It proceeds mostly by what Sterne calls "progressive digressions" so that we do not reach Tristram's birth before the third volume.[65][66]The novel is rich in characters and humour, and the influences ofRabelaisandMiguel de Cervantesare present throughout. The novel ends after 9 volumes, published over a decade, but without anything that might be considered a traditional conclusion. Sterne inserts sermons, essays and legal documents into the pages of his novel; and he explores the limits of typography and print design by including marbled pages and an entirely black page within the narrative.[52]Many of the innovations that Sterne introduced, adaptations in form that were an exploration of what constitutes the novel, were highly influential toModernistwriters likeJames JoyceandVirginia Woolf,and more contemporary writers such asThomas PynchonandDavid Foster Wallace.[67]Italo Calvinoreferred toTristram Shandyas the "undoubted progenitor of all avant-garde novels of our century".[67]TheRussian FormalistwriterViktor ShklovskyregardedTristram Shandyas the archetypal, quintessential novel, "the most typical novel of world literature."[68]

However, the leading critical opinions ofTristram Shandytend to be markedly polarised in their evaluations of its significance. Since the 1950s, following the lead of D. W. Jefferson, there are those who argue that, whatever its legacy of influence may be,Tristram Shandyin its original context actually represents a resurgence of a much older,Renaissancetradition of "Learned Wit" – owing a debt to such influences as theScriblerianapproach.[69]A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italyhas many stylistic parallels withTristram Shandy,and the narrator is one of the minor characters from the earlier novel.[70]Although the story is more straightforward,A Sentimental Journeyis interpreted by critics as part of the same artistic project to whichTristram Shandybelongs.[71]Two volumes of Sterne'sSermonswere published during his lifetime; more copies of hisSermonswere sold in his lifetime than copies ofTristram Shandy.[72]The sermons, however, are conventional in substance.[73]Several volumes of letters were published after his death, as wasJournal to Eliza.[74]These collections of letters, more sentimental than humorous, tell of Sterne's relationship with Eliza Draper.[75]

Publications[edit]

  • 1743 –The Unknown World: Verses Occasioned by Hearing a Pass-Bell(disputed, possibly written byHubert Stogdon)[76]
  • 1747 –The Case of Elijah and the Widow of Zerephath
  • 1750 –The Abuses of Conscience
  • 1759 –A Political Romance
  • 1759 –Tristram Shandyvols. 1 and 2
  • 1760 –The Sermons of Mr. Yorickvol. 1 and 2
  • 1761 –Tristram Shandyvols. 3–6
  • 1765 –Tristram Shandyvols. 7 and 8
  • 1766 –The Sermons of Mr. Yorickvols. 3 and 4
  • 1767 –Tristram Shandyvol. 9
  • 1768 –A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy
  • 1769 –Sermons by the Late Rev. Mr. Sternevols. 5–7 (a continuation ofThe Sermons of Mr. Yorick)[77]

See also[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^Keymer 2009,p. xii.
  2. ^Ross 2001,pp. 20–21.
  3. ^abRoss 2001,pp. 22–23.
  4. ^Ross 2001,pp. 23–24.
  5. ^Ross 2001,p. 24.
  6. ^Clare 2016,pp. 16.
  7. ^Clare 2016,pp. 16–17.
  8. ^Clare 2016,pp. 17.
  9. ^Ross 2001,p. 33.
  10. ^Ross 2001,pp. 29–30.
  11. ^Ross 2001,pp. 36–37.
  12. ^Ross 2001,pp. 43–44.
  13. ^"Laurence Sterne's holy orders".British Library.Retrieved7 February2020.
  14. ^Sichel 1971,p. 27.
  15. ^"Laurence Sterne".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26412.Retrieved28 March2017.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  16. ^Ross 2001,pp. 48–49.
  17. ^Ross 2001,pp. 58–60.
  18. ^Cross 1909,p. 54.
  19. ^Cross 1909,p. 37.
  20. ^Ross 2001,pp. 45–47.
  21. ^Ross 2001,pp. 64–70, 168–174.
  22. ^Keymer 2009,pp. 6–7.
  23. ^Ross 2001,pp. 41–42;Vapereau 1876,p. 1915
  24. ^Ross 2001,pp. 190–196.
  25. ^Howes 1971,p. 60.
  26. ^"Cross (1908), chap. 8, The Publication of Tristram Shandy: Volumes I and II, p.197
  27. ^Cross (1908), chap. 8,The Publication of Tristram Shandy: Volumes I and II,p. 178.
  28. ^Ross 2001,p. 213.
  29. ^Fanning, Christopher. "Sterne and print culture".The Cambridge Companion to Laurence Sterne:125–141.
  30. ^The Letters of Laurence Sterne: Part One, 1739–1764.University Press of Florida. 2009. pp. 129–130.ISBN978-0813032368.
  31. ^Howes 1971,p. 55.
  32. ^Carey, Brycchan (March 2003)."The extraordinary Negro': Ignatius Sancho, Joseph Jekyll, and the Problem of Biography"(PDF).Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies.26(1): 1–13.doi:10.1111/j.1754-0208.2003.tb00257.x.Retrieved8 January2013.
  33. ^Phillips, Caryl (December 1996). "Director's Forward".Ignatius Sancho: an African Man of Letters.London: National Portrait Gallery. p. 12.
  34. ^ab"Ignatius Sancho and Laurence Sterne"(PDF).Norton.
  35. ^The New Encyclopaedia Britannica.Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica. 1985. pp. 256–257.ISBN0852294239.
  36. ^Ross 2001,p. 360.
  37. ^Ross 2001,p. 361
  38. ^Sterne, Laurence."The Project Gutenberg EBook of the Journal to Eliza and Various letters".Project Gutenberg.Retrieved10 February2020.
  39. ^Sclater, William Lutley (1922).Sterne's Eliza; some account of her life in India: with her letters written between 1757 and 1774.London: W. Heinemann. pp. 45–58.
  40. ^Ross 2001,p. 415.
  41. ^Ross 2001,p. 419.
  42. ^Arnold, Catherine (2008).Necropolis: London and Its Dead.Simon and Schuster. p. contents.ISBN978-1847394934.Retrieved11 November2014– via Google Books.
  43. ^Ross 2001,pp. 419–420
  44. ^"Is this the skull of Sterne?".The Times.5 June 1969.
  45. ^Loftis, Kellar & Ulevich 2018,pp. 220, 227
  46. ^Loftis, Kellar & Ulevich 2018,p. 220.
  47. ^Green, Carole (13 March 2009)."Laurence Sterne".BBC.Retrieved4 March2020.
  48. ^"Laurence Sterne and the Laurence Sterne Trust".The Laurence Sterne Trust.Laurence Sterne Trust.Retrieved4 March2020.
  49. ^Alas, Poor Yorick,Letters, The Times, 16 June 1969, Kenneth Monkman, Laurence Sterne Trust. "If we have reburied the wrong one, nobody, I feel beyond reasonable doubt, would enjoy the situation more than Sterne"
  50. ^Suciu, Andreia Irina (2009). "The Sense of History in Malcolm Bradbury's Work".Economy Transdisciplinarity Cognition(2): 152–160.ProQuest757935757.
  51. ^New 1972,p. 1083.
  52. ^abcdeWashington 2017,p. 333.
  53. ^New 1972,pp. 1083–1091.
  54. ^Huntington Brown (1967),Rabelais in English literaturepp. 190–191.
  55. ^Cross (1908), chap. 8,The Publication of Tristram Shandy: Volumes I and II,p. 179.
  56. ^Cash 1975,p. 296.
  57. ^Cash 1975,p. 139.
  58. ^Large 2017,p. 294.
  59. ^Barbosa 1992,p. 28.
  60. ^James Boswell,The Life of Samuel Johnson…,ed. Malone, vol. II (London: 1824) p. 422.
  61. ^de Voogd & Neubauer 2004,p. 118.
  62. ^Pierce & de Voogd 1996,p. 15.
  63. ^King 1995,p. 293.
  64. ^Havard 2014,p. 586.
  65. ^Descargues-Grant 2006
  66. ^Graham, Thomas (17 June 2019)."The best comic novel ever written?".BBC.Retrieved26 February2020.
  67. ^abWashington 2017,p. 334.
  68. ^Gratchev & Mancing 2019,p. 139.
  69. ^Jefferson 1951;Keymer 2002,pp. 4–11
  70. ^Viviès 1994,pp. 246–247.
  71. ^Line, Anne."Two Englishmen in France: A Comparison of Laurence Sterne's Book 7 of" Tristram Shandy "and" A Sentimental Journey "".University of Oslo Research Archive.University of Oslo.Retrieved28 February2020.
  72. ^Ross 2001,p. 245.
  73. ^Pfister 2001,p. 26.
  74. ^Keymer 2009,p. xv.
  75. ^Pfister 2001,p. 15.
  76. ^New, Melvyn (2011). "'The Unknown World': The Poem Laurence Sterne Did Not Write ".Huntington Library Quarterly.74(1): 85–98.doi:10.1525/hlq.2011.74.1.85.JSTOR10.1525/hlq.2011.74.1.85.
  77. ^Sterne, Laurence (1851).Works of Laurence Sterne.Bohn.

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

  • René Bosch,Labyrinth of Digressions: Tristram Shandy as Perceived and Influenced by Sterne's Early Imitators(Amsterdam, 2007)
  • W. M. Thackeray,inEnglish Humourists of the Eighteenth Century(London, 1853; new edition, New York, 1911)
  • Percy Fitzgerald,Life of Laurence Sterne(London, 1864; second edition, London, 1896)
  • Paul Stapfer,Laurence Sterne, sa personne et ses ouvrages(second edition, Paris, 1882)
  • H. D. Traill,Laurence Sterne,"English Men of Letters",(London, 1882)
  • H. D. Traill."Sterne".Harper & Brothers Publishers.Retrieved22 March2018– via Internet Archive.
  • Texte,Rousseau et le cosmopolitisme littôraire au XVIIIème siècle(Paris, 1895)
  • H. W. Thayer,Laurence Sterne in Germany(New York, 1905)
  • P. E. More,Shelburne Essays(third series, New York, 1905)
  • L. S. Benjamin,Life and Letters(two volumes, 1912)
  • Rousseau, George S. (2004).Nervous Acts: Essays on Literature, Culture and Sensibility.Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN1-4039-3454-1

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