Laurence Sterne
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Biography
Laurence Sterne was born November 24, 1713 in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland. His father was an Ensign in a British regiment recently returned from Dunkirk. Sterne’s father’s regiment was disbanded on the day of Sterne’s birth, and within six months the family had returned to Yorkshire in northern England.
The first decade of Sterne’s life was spent moving from place to place as his father was reassigned throughout England and Ireland. During this period Sterne never lived in one place for more than a year. Sterne was sent to school near Halifax when he was ten years old; he never saw his father again. Sterne was admitted to a sizarship at Jesus College, Cambridge, in July 1733 at the age of 20. His great-Grandfather, who was made Archbishop of York in 1664, had been the Master of Jesus College, twice, earlier in the seventeenth century. Sterne graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Arts in January 1737; and returned in the summer of 1740 to be awarded his Master of Arts degree.
Sterne seems to have been destined to become a clergyman, and was ordained as a deacon in March of 1737 and as a priest in August, 1738. Shortly thereafter Sterne was awarded the living at Sutton-on-the-Forest in Yorkshire. Sterne married Elizabeth Lumley in 1741. Both were ill with tuberculosis. In 1743, he was presented to the neighbouring living of Stillington, and did duty both there and at Sutton. He was also a prebendary of York Cathedral. Sterne’s life at this time was closely tied with his uncle, Dr. Jacques Sterne, an archdeacon at Cleveland and precentor at York Minster. Sterne’s uncle was also a loyal Whig proponent, and urged Sterne to begin a career of political journalism which resulted in some scandal for Sterne and a falling out between the two men.
Sterne lived in Sutton for twenty years, during which time he kept up an intimacy which had begun at Cambridge with John Hall-Stevenson, a witty and accomplished bon vivant, owner of Skelton Hall in the Cleveland district of Yorkshire. Without Stevenson, Sterne may have been a more decorous parish priest, but might never have written Tristram Shandy.
It was while living in the country-side, struggling with tuberculosis, that Sterne began work on his most famous novel, Tristram Shandy, 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 he was ill himself with TB. The publication of Tristram Shandy made Sterne a man famous in London and on the continent. He was delighted by the attention, and spent part of each year in London, being, feted as new volumes appeared. Indeed, Baron Fauconberg rewarded Sterne with the perpetual curacy of Coxwold, Yorkshire.
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 was lucky to attach himself to a diplomatic party bound for Turin, as England and France were still adversaries in the Seven Years' War. Sterne was gratified by his reception in France where reports of the genius of Tristram Shandy had made him a celebrity. Aspects of this trip to France were incorporated into Sterne’s second novel, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, which was published at the beginning of 1768. The novel was written during a period in which Sterne was increasingly ill and weak. Less than a month after Sentimental Journey was published, early in 1768, Laurence Sterne's strength failed him, and he died in his lodgings at 41 Old Bond Street on the 18th of March, at the age of 54.
Works
Sterne’s early writing life was unremarkable. He wrote letters, had two ordinary sermons published (in 1747 & 1750), and tried his hand at satire. He was involved in, and wrote about, local politics in 1742. His major publication prior to Tristram Shandy was the satire, A Political Romance, from 1759, aimed at conflicts of interest within York Minster. A posthumously published piece on the art of preaching, A Fragment in the Manner of Rabelais, appears to have been written in 1759. Sterne did not begin work on Tristram Shandy until he was 46 years old.
Sterne is best known for his novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, for which he became famous not only in England, but throughout Europe. Translations of the work began to appear in all the major European languages almost upon its publication, and Sterne influenced European writers as diverse as Diderot and the German Romanticists. Indeed, the novel, in which Sterne manipulates narrative time and voice, parodies accepted narrative form, and includes a healthy dose of ‘bawdy’ humor, was largely dismissed in England as being too corrupt. Samuel Johnson’s critique from 1776 was that, ‘Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last.’ This is strikingly different from the views of European critics of the day, who praised Sterne and Tristram Shandy as innovative and superior. Voltaire called it ‘clearly superior to Rabelais,’and later, Goethe praised Sterne as ‘the most beautiful spirit that ever lived.’
The novel itself is difficult to describe. The story starts with the narration, by Tristram, of his own conception. It proceeds by fits and starts, but mostly by what Sterne calls ‘progressive digressions’ so that we do not reach Tristram’s birth before the third volume. The novel is rich in characters and humor, and the influences of Rabelais and Cervantes are present throughout the work. 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 and blackened pages within the narrative. Many of the innovations that Sterne introduced, adaptations in form that should be understood as an exploration of what constitutes the novel, were highly influential to Modernist writers like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, and more contemporary writers like Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace. Italo Calvino referred to Tristram Shandy as the ‘undoubted progenitor of all avant-garde novels of our century.’
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy is a less influential book, although it was better received by English critics of the day. The book has many stylistic parallels with Tristram Shandy, and indeed, the narrator is one of the minor characters from the earlier novel. Although the story is more straight-forward, A Sentimental Journey can be understood to be part of the same artistic project to which Tristram Shandy belongs.
Two volumes of Sterne’s Sermons were published during his lifetime, but they are not marked by anything extraordinary in either their style or their substance. Several volumes of letters were published after his death, as was Journal to Eliza, a more sentimental than humorous love-letter to a woman Sterne was courting during the final years of his life. Compared to many eighteenth century authors Sterne’s body of work is quite small.
Sterne, who used his wife very ill, was one day talking to Garrick in a fine sentimental manner, in praise of conjugal love and fidelity. "The husband," said Sterne, "who behaves unkindly to his wife, deserves to have his house burnt over his head." "If you think so," said Garrick, "I hope your house is insured."
External links
- Laurence Sterne resources at the Open Directory (http://dmoz.org/Arts/Literature/Authors/S/Sterne,_Laurence/)
- From Sterne to Baldessari: The Illustration of Tristram Shandy, 1760–1996 (http://www.aellam.net/ts/)
- Laurence Sterne in Cyberspace (http://www.gifu-u.ac.jp/~masaru/Sterne_on_the_Net.html)
- includes links to various e-texts of both Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journeyde:Laurence Sterne
eo:Laurence STERNE hu:Laurence Sterne nl:Laurence Sterne pt:Laurence Sterne