Laurence Sterne | |
|---|---|
 Portrait byJoshua Reynolds, 1760 | |
| Born | (1713-11-24)24 November 1713 Clonmel, Ireland |
| Died | 18 March 1768(1768-03-18) (aged 54) London, England |
| Occupation | Novelist, clergyman |
| Alma mater | Jesus College, Cambridge |
| Notable works | The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy A Political Romance |
| Spouse | Elizabeth Lumley |
Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768) was an Anglo-Irishnovelist andAnglican cleric. He is best known for his comic novelsThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759–1767) andA Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768).
Sterne grew up in a military family, travelling mainly in Ireland but briefly in England. He attendedJesus College, Cambridge on asizarship, gaining bachelor's and master's degrees, and was ordained as a priest in 1738. While Vicar ofSutton-on-the-Forest, Yorkshire, he married Elizabeth Lumley in 1741. He briefly wrote political propaganda for theWhigs, but abandoned politics in 1742. In 1759, he wrote an ecclesiasticalsatireA Political Romance, which embarrassed the church and was burned. Having discovered his talent for comedy, at age 46 he dedicated himself to humour writing as a vocation. Also in 1759, he published the first volume ofTristram Shandy, which was an enormous success. He was a literary celebrity for the rest of his life. In addition to his novels, he published several volumes ofsermons. Sterne died in 1768 and was buried in the yard ofSt George's, Hanover Square.
Laurence Sterne was born inClonmel, County Tipperary, on 24 November 1713.[1] His father, Roger Sterne, was anensign in a British regiment recently returned fromDunkirk.[2] Roger's social standing was far lower than that of his recent ancestors: Roger's grandfatherRichard Sterne had been thearchbishop of York.[3] Roger was the second son of Richard's second son, and consequently, Roger inherited little of the familial wealth.[4] Roger left his family to join the army at the age of 25; he enlisted uncommissioned, which was unusual for someone from a family of high social position.[5] Roger married Agnes Herbertnée Nuttall, the widow of a military captain, in 1711.[6][4] Laurence was the second of their seven children,[4] one of only three to survive to adulthood.[7]
The first decade of Laurence Sterne's life was impoverished and unsettled.[8] After his birth, the family spent six months in Clonmel, then ten months at Roger's mother's estate inElvington, North Yorkshire while Roger had no army posting.[9] From 1715 to 1723, the Sternes moved repeatedly (about once a year) between poor family lodgings in army barracks in Britain and Ireland,[10] with brief ownership of a townhouse inDublin during a particularly prosperous stint from 1717 to 1719.[11] These postings included three separate moves to Dublin, at other times living inPlymouth, theIsle of Wight,Wicklow,Annamoe, andCarrickfergus.[12] In 1723, at the age of ten, Sterne was relocated to his uncle's household inHalifax, on the condition that he would repay his uncle for the cost of his upkeep and education.[13] This arrangement reflected both the poor financial resources of Sterne's father, and the strained relationship he had with his wealthier family members.[13] Sterne never saw his father again, as Roger was next ordered toJamaica where he died of malaria in 1731.[14]
Sterne attended boarding school atHipperholme Grammar School in Yorkshire, near his uncle's estate.[15] There, he received a traditionalclassical education.[16] In July 1733, at the age of twenty, he was admitted toJesus College, Cambridge with asizarship that allowed him to afford attendance.[17] He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in January 1737.[18] Sterne was ordained as adeacon on 6 March 1737[19] and as a priest on 20 August 1738.[20] He returned to Cambridge in the summer of 1740 to be awarded hisMaster of Arts.[18] His religion is said to have been the "centristAnglicanism of his time", known aslatitudinarianism.[21] A few days after his ordination as a priest, Sterne was awarded the vicarage living ofSutton-on-the-Forest in Yorkshire.[22]
Sterne married Elizabeth Lumley on 30 March 1741, despite both being ill withconsumption.[23] Only one of their several children survived infancy, a daughter named Lydia.[24] Throughout their marriage, Sterne had adulterous affairs, and developed "an unsavoury but deserved reputation as a libertine".[25]
In 1743, he was presented to the neighbouringliving ofStillington by Reverend RichardLevett, prebendary of Stillington, who was patron of the living. Subsequently, Sterne did duty both there and at Sutton.[26] Sterne lived in Sutton for 20 years, during which time he continued a close friendship that had begun at Cambridge withJohn Hall-Stevenson, a witty and accomplishedbon vivant, owner ofSkelton Hall in theCleveland district of Yorkshire.[27]
Sterne's life at this time was closely tied with his uncle, Jaques Sterne, thearchdeacon of Cleveland andprecentor of York Minster. Sterne's uncle was an ardentWhig,[28] and urged Sterne to begin a career ofpolitical journalism.[29] Sterne wrote anonymouspropaganda in theYork Gazetteer from 1741 to 1742.[30] Sterne's published attacks on theTory party earned him career favours from the church (including aprebendary ofYork Minster), but also harsh personal criticism. Sterne abruptly abandoned his political writing, leading to a permanent falling-out with his uncle, and stalling his ecclesiastical career.[24]
In 1744, Sterne purchased several pieces of farmland in Sutton, with the hope that raising crops and dairy cattle would supplement his household's foodstores and finances.[31] However, the farm was not particularly successful.[32] Meanwhile, he soughtpatronage fromJohn Fountayne, a college acquaintance who becameDean of York in 1747.[33] To earn Fountayne's favor, Sterne wrote the Latin sermon which Fountayne preached in order to earn hisdoctorate of divinity.[34] In 1751, Fountayne granted Sterne a very minor post, thecommisaryship ofPocklington andPickering.[33] In 1758, Sterne gave up directly farming his land, and leased the property out.[32] He relocated to York to assist Fountayne with bureaucratic tasks, in hopes of further preferment.[33]
In 1759, Sterne contributed to apamphlet war related to Fountayne's rivalries within the church. Fountayne was criticized by an ambitious ecclesiastical lawyer, Francis Topham, who complained that he had been unfairly passed over for the commissaryship granted to Sterne.[33] Topham and Fountayne published a series ofopen letters criticizing each other, which spurred several replies from their acquaintance.[35] Sterne publishedA Political Romance in January 1759, a satirical work with unflattering caricatures of Fountayne's critics.[36] Unusually for a pamphlet, Sterne explicitly attached his name to the work.[37] TheArchbishop of York was embarrassed by how public the church's internal disputes had become, and ordered all 500 copies ofA Political Romance burned. Sterne complied, but a handful of copies accidentally survived from other owners.[38]
Despite its lack of success,A Political Romance was a turning point for Sterne. He later wrote that, before finishing it, "he hardly knew he could write at all, much less with humour, so as to make his reader laugh."[39] At the age of 46, Sterne dedicated himself to writing for the rest of his life. He immediately 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.[40] He wrote as fast as he possibly could, composing the first 18 chapters between January and March 1759.[41] Sterne borrowed money for the printing of his novel, suggesting that he was confident in the prospective commercial success of his work.[42]
The publication ofTristram Shandy made Sterne famous in London and on the continent. He was delighted by the attention, famously saying, "I wrote not [to] befed but to befamous."[43] He spent part of each year in London, being fêted as new volumes appeared.[44] As Sterne assiduously promoted his book, some of the attention he received was scandal: at the time, it was slightly disreputable for any gentleman to write for financial gain; for a clergyman to appear motivated by money, and to use "indecent" humour to pursue it, was doubly questionable.[45] Sterne's bawdiness was criticized in a series of 1760s pamphlets, and he was encouraged to "mend his style" by theBishop of Gloucester.[46] Even after the publication of volumes three and four ofTristram Shandy, Sterne's 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."[44]Baron Fauconberg rewarded Sterne by appointing him as the perpetualcurate ofCoxwold in the North Riding of Yorkshire in March 1760.[47]
In 1766, in the early days of British debates about slavery, the composer and former slaveIgnatius Sancho wrote to Sterne,[48] encouraging him to use his pen to lobby for the abolition of the slave trade.[49] Sterne wrote back to say that he had just written a scene sympathizing with the oppression of a black servant, which appeared in the next published volume ofTristram Shandy.[50] Sterne's widely publicised response to Sancho's letter became an integral part of 18th-century abolitionist literature.[50]
Struggling again with his ill health, Sterne 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 Shandy made him a celebrity.[51] He stayed in France until 1764, followed by a trip through France and Italy from 1765 to 1766.[52] Aspects of his experiences abroad were incorporated into Sterne's second novel,A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.[51]
Early in 1767, Sterne metEliza Draper, the wife of an official of theEast India Company, while she was staying on her own in London.[53] He was captivated by Eliza's charm and vivacity, and they began a mutual flirtation.[54][55] 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 a year later without seeing her again. In 1768, Sterne published hisSentimental Journey, which contains some extravagant references to her; and their relationship 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 Museum in 1894. After Sterne's death, Eliza allowed ten of his letters to be published under the titleLetters from Yorick to Eliza and succeeded in suppressing her letters to him, though some blatant forgeries were produced in a volume ofEliza's Letters to Yorick.[56]
Less than a month afterSentimental Journey was published, Sterne died in his lodgings at 41Old Bond Street on 18 March 1768, at the age of 54.[57] He was buried in the churchyard ofSt George's, Hanover Square on 22 March.[58]
It was rumoured that Sterne's body was stolen shortly after it was interred and sold toanatomists at Cambridge University. Circumstantially, it was said that his body was recognised byCharles Collignon, who knew him[59][60] and discreetly reinterred him back in St George's, in an unknown plot. A year later a group ofFreemasons erected 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 thechurchyard of 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.[61][62] The skull was held up to be his, albeit with "a certain area of doubt".[63] Along with nearby skeletal bones, these remains were transferred toCoxwoldchurchyard in 1969 by the Laurence Sterne Trust.[64][65][66] The story of the reinterment of Sterne's skull in Coxwold is alluded to inMalcolm Bradbury's novelTo the Hermitage.[67]
The works of Laurence Sterne are few in comparison to other eighteenth-century authors of comparable stature.[68] Sterne's early works were letters; he had two sermons published (in 1747 and 1750) and tried his hand at satire.[69] He was involved in and wrote about local politics in 1742.[69] His major publication prior toTristram Shandy was the satireA Political Romance (1759), aimed at conflicts of interest withinYork Minster.[69] A posthumously published piece on the art of preaching,A Fragment in the Manner of Rabelais, appears to have been written in 1759.[70]Rabelais was 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.[71][72]
Sterne's novelThe Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman sold widely in England and throughout Europe.[73] Translations of the work began to appear in all the major European languages almost immediately upon its publication.[74] 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.[75][76] The novel is rich in characters and humour, and the influences ofRabelais andMiguel de Cervantes are 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.[69]
English writer andliterary criticSamuel Johnson's verdict in 1776 was that "Nothing odd will do long.Tristram Shandy did not last."[77] This is strikingly different from the views of continental European critics of the day, who praised Sterne andTristram Shandy as innovative and superior.Voltaire called it "clearly superior toRabelais", and laterGoethe praised Sterne as "the most beautiful spirit that ever lived".[69] Swedish translator Johan Rundahl described Sterne as anarch-sentimentalist.[78] Sterne influenced European writers as diverse asDenis Diderot[79] and theGerman Romanticists.[74] His work also had noticeable influence overBrazilian authorMachado de Assis, who made use of the digressive technique in the novelThe Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas.[80] TheRussian Formalist writerViktor Shklovsky regardedTristram Shandy as the archetypal, quintessential novel, "the most typical novel of world literature."[81] Many of the innovations that Sterne introduced, adaptations in form that were an exploration of what constitutes the novel, were highly influential toModernist writers likeJames Joyce andVirginia Woolf, and more recent writers such asThomas Pynchon andDavid Foster Wallace.[82]Italo Calvino referred toTristram Shandy as the "undoubted progenitor of all avant-garde novels of our century".[82] More recently, scholarly opinions ofTristram Shandy include those who minimize its significance as an innovation. Since the 1950s, following the lead of D. W. Jefferson, there are those who argue that, whatever its legacy of influence may be,Tristram Shandy in its original context actually represents a resurgence of a much older,Renaissance tradition of "Learned Wit" – owing a debt to such influences as theScriblerian approach.[83]
Sterne's final novel,A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, has many stylistic parallels withTristram Shandy, and the narrator is one of the minor characters from the earlier novel.[84] At its first publication,A Sentimental Journey was warmly received by readers who saw it as more sentimental and less bawdy thanTristram Shandy.[85] From Sterne's death through the nineteenth century,A Sentimental Journey was considered Sterne's best and most beloved work, and it was more widely reprinted thanTristram Shandy.[86] Today,A Sentimental Journey is often interpreted by critics as part of the same artistic project to whichTristram Shandy belongs.[87] In addition to his fiction, two volumes of Sterne'sSermons were published during his lifetime; more copies of hisSermons were sold in his lifetime than copies ofTristram Shandy.[88] In the years after Sterne's death, his family published additional sermons,[89] as well asletter collections of his correspondence.[90][91]
Laurence Sterne Stillington Rev. Richard Levett.
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