Laurence Sterne
Life
Laurence Sterne was born in Ireland and educated in Halifax and Cambridge.
He became a vicar, which provided financial stability for his pursuits in music, painting, and writing.
His marriage was unhappy, and he suffered from poor health throughout his life.
Later, he moved to France seeking relief from tuberculosis but spent much of his time in London, where he separated from his wife and formed a relationship with Eliza Draper.
He died in London.
Works
Laurence Sterne’s first publication, A Political Romance, marked the start of his literary career.
He began his masterpiece, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, the same year, with its first two volumes making him a celebrity.
Sterne later recounted his travels in A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy.
After his death, The Journal to Eliza, a diary of his love for Eliza Draper, was published.
Plot
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a highly unconventional work, often seen as an anti-novel or meta-novel due to its rejection of traditional narrative structure.
Instead of following a straightforward plot, it focuses on the act of storytelling itself, exposing and playing with literary conventions such as chronology, plot, and narration.
This approach invites readers to see the “behind-the-scenes” mechanics of the writing process.
Although presented as Tristram Shandy’s autobiography, the narrative meanders through anecdotes about his family and various digressions, delaying his birth—which is introduced on the first page—until much later in the novel.
The story includes humorous and reflective accounts of his parents, Uncle Toby, and other characters, alongside discussions on peculiar topics like noses.
Feature
The brilliance and peculiarity of Tristram Shandy lie in its unique treatment of time, the narrator, and the reader.
• Time is constantly disrupted, abandoning linear progression in favor of digressions and free associations.
• The narrator frequently comments on the writing process and his own role as a fictional character, blending self-awareness with humor.
• The reader, often addressed directly as “Dear Madam” or “Gentle Reader,” is invited to actively engage with the book, even contributing to its creation.
A striking example of its non-linear structure is the placement of the preface in Volume III, long after the story begins.
This playful digression, which Shandy calls “the sunshine” or “the life of reading,” embodies the novel’s innovative and unpredictable charm.
Typographic
Sterne’s Tristram Shandy uses typographical innovations to emphasize the artificiality of the novel and challenge its illusion of realism.
Examples include a cross symbol for Dr. Slop crossing himself, a black page to mourn Yorick’s death, squiggly graphs showing narrative progress, and a blank page for readers to describe Widow Wadman.
These humorous techniques reveal the novel’s constructed nature and were groundbreaking for their time, influencing writers like Italo Calvino, Milan Kundera, and Salman Rushdie, and anticipating postmodern fiction.