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STERNE, LAURENCE (1713-1768)
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See also:STERNE, LAURENCE (1713-1768) , See also:English humorist, was the son of See also:Roger Sterne, an English officer, and See also:great-See also:grandson of an See also:archbishop of See also:York. Nearly all our See also:information about the first See also:forty-six years of his See also:life before he became famous as the author of Tristram Shandy is derived from a See also:short memoir jotted down by himself for the use of his daughter. It gives nothing but the barest facts, excepting three anecdotes about his See also:infancy, his school days and his See also:marriage. He was See also:born at See also:Clonmel, See also:Ireland, on the 24th of See also:November 1713, a few days after the arrival of his See also:father's See also:regiment from See also:Dunkirk. The regiment was then disbanded, but very soon after re-established, and for ten years the boy and his See also:mother moved from See also:place to place after the regiment, from See also:England to Ireland, and from one See also:part of Ireland to another. The familiarity thus acquired with military life and See also:character stood Sterne in See also:good See also:stead when he See also:drew the portraits of See also:Uncle Toby and See also:Corporal See also:Trim. After ten years of wandering, he was fixed for eight or nine years at a school at See also:Halifax in See also:Yorkshire. His father died when he was in his eighteenth See also:year, and he was indebted for his university See also:education to one of the members of his father's See also:family. His great-grandfather the archbishop had been See also:master of Jesus See also:College, See also:Cambridge, and to Jesus College he was sent. He was admitted to a sizarship in See also:July 1733, took his B.A. degree in 1736 and proceeded M.A. in 1740. One of his uncles was See also:precentor and See also:canon of York. See also:Young Sterne took orders, and through this uncle's See also:influence obtained in 1738 the living of See also:Sutton-in-the-See also:Forest, some 8 m. See also:north of York. Two years after his marriage in 1741 to a See also:lady named See also: It was not published until after his death, when it appeared in 1769 under the title of A Political See also:Romance, and afterwards the See also:History of a Warm See also:Watch-Coat. The first two volumes of Tristram Shandy were issued at York in 1759 and advertised in See also:London on the 1st of See also:January 1760, and at once made a sensation. York was scandalized at its clergyman's indecency, and indignant at his See also:caricature as " Slop " of a See also:local physician (Dr John See also:Burton); London was charmed with his audacity, wit and graphic unconventional See also:power. He went to London See also:early in the year to enjoy his See also:triumph, and found himself at once a personage in society—was called upon and invited out by See also:lion-hunters, was taken to See also:Windsor by See also:Lord See also:Rockingham, and had the See also:honour of supping with the See also:duke of York. For the last eight years of his life after this sudden leap out of obscurity we have a faithful See also:record of Sterne's feelings and movements in letters to various persons, published in 1775 by his See also:sole See also:child and daughter, See also:Lydia Sterne de Medalle, and in the Letters from Yorick to Eliza (1766-1767), also published in 1775. At the end of the sermon in Tristram he had intimated that, if this See also:sample of Yorick's See also:pulpit eloquence was liked, " there are now in the See also:possession of the Shandy family as many as will make a handsome See also:volume, at the See also:world's service, and much good may they do it." Accordingly, when a second edition of the first See also:instalment of Tristram was called for in three months, two volumes of Sermons by Yorick were announced. Although they had little or none of the eccentricity of the history, they proved almost as popular. Sterne's clerical character was far from being universally injured by his indecorous freaks as a humorist: Lord Fauconberg presented the author of Tristram Shandy with the perpetual curacy of Coxwold. To this new residence he went in high See also:spirits with his success, " fully deter-See also:mined to write as hard as could be," seeing no See also:reason why he should not give the public two volumes of Shandyism every year and why this should not go on for forty years. By the beginning of See also:August 176o he had another volume written, and was so " delighted with Uncle Toby's imaginary character that he was become an enthusiast." The author's delight in this wonderful creation was not misleading; it has been fully shared by every See also:generation of readers since. For two years in See also:succession Sterne kept his bargain with himself to provide two volumes a year. Vols. iii. and iv. appeared in 1761; vols. v. and vi. in January 1762. But his sanguine hopes of continuing at this See also:rate were frustrated by See also:ill-See also:health. He was ordered to the See also:south of See also:France; it was two years and a See also:half before he returned; and he came back with very little See also:accession of strength. His reception by literary circles in France was very flattering. He was overjoyed with it. " 'Tis comme a Londres," he wrote to See also:Garrick from See also:Paris; " I have just now a fortnight's dinners and suppers upon my hands." Through all his pleasant experiences of See also:French society, and through the fits of dangerous illness by which they were diversified, he continued to build up his history of the Shandy family, but the work did not progress as rapidly as it had done. Not till January 1765 was he ready with the See also:fourth instalment of two volumes; and one of them, vol. vii., leaving the Shandy family for a See also:time, gave a lively sketch of the writer's own travels to the south of France in See also:search of health. This was a digression of a new See also:kind, if any-thing can be called a digression in a work the See also:plan of which is to See also:fly off at a tangent whenever and wherever the writer's whim tempts him. In the first volume, anticipating an obvious complaint, he had protested against digressions that left the See also:main work to stand still, and had boasted—not without See also:justice in a Shandean sense—that he had reconciled digressive See also:motion with progressive. But in vol. vii. the work is allowed to stand still while the writer is being transported from Shandy Hall to See also:Languedoc. The only progress we make is in the See also:illustration of the buoyant and joyous See also:temper of Tristram himself, who, after all, is a member of the Shandy family, and was due a volume for the elucidation of his character. Vol. viii. begins the See also:long-promised See also:story of Uncle Toby's amours with the Widow Wadman. After seeing to the publication of this instalment of Tristram and of another set of sermons—more pronouncedly Shandean in their eccentricity—he quitted England again in the summer of 1765, and tavelled in See also:Italy as far as See also:Naples. The ninth and last and shortest volume of Tristram, concluding the See also:episode of Toby Shandy's amours, appeared in 1767. This despatched, Sterne turned to a new project, which had probably been suggested by the ease and freedom with which he had moved through the travelling volume in Tristram. The Sentimental See also:Journey through France and Italy was intended to be a long work: the plan admitted of any length that the author See also:chose, but, after seeing the first two volumes through the See also:press in the early months of 1768, Sterne's strength failed him, and he died in his lodgings at 41 Old See also:Bond See also:Street on the 18th of See also: This writing is so singularly See also:frank and unconventional that its See also:drift is not at once apparent to the literary student. The indefensible indecency and overstrained sentimentality are on the See also:surface; but after a time every repellent defect is forgotten in the enjoyment of the exquisite literary See also:art. Li the delineation of character by graphically significant speech and See also:action, introduced at unexpected turns, left with happy audacity to point their own meaning, and pointing it with a force that the dullest cannot but understand, he takes See also:rank with the very greatest masters. In Toby Shandy he has See also:drawn a character universally lovable and admirable; but See also:Walter Shandy is almost greater as an See also:artistic triumph, considering the difficulty of the achievement. Dr Ferriar, in his Illustrations of Sterne (published in 1798), pointed out several unacknowledged plagiarisms from See also:Rabelais, Burton and others; but it is only See also:fair to the critic to say that he was fully aware that they were only plagiarisms of material, and do not detract in the slightest from Sterne's reputation as one of the greatest of literary artists.
A revised edition of Mr Percy Fitzgerald's Life of Sterne, containing much new information, appeared in 1896. There is also a valuable study of Sterne by M. See also:Paul Stapfcr (187o, 2nd ed., 1882); and many fresh particulars as to Sterne's relations with his wife and daughter, and also with the lady known as " Eliza " (Mrs Elizabeth See also:Draper), are collected in Mr See also:Sidney See also: 34,527). A convenient edition of Sterne's See also:works, edited by Professor See also:George See also:Saint shury, was issued in six volumes in 1894. See also Wilbur L. See also:Cross. The Life and Times of Laurence Sterne (New York, 1909); and Walter Sichel, Sterne: a Study (1910). (W. M.; A. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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