A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

Cover
Cosimo, Inc., 01.11.2005 - 324 Seiten
The crimson window-curtains... were drawn close; the sun was setting, and reflected through them so warm a tint into the fair fille de chambre's face, I thought she blush'd-the idea of it made me blush myself. We were quite alone; and that super-induced a second blush before the first could get off.-from "The Temptation"Laurence Sterne's revolutionary novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767) plays with time, space, narrative conceits, and the very concept of the novel itself-it has dramatically affected the course of English-language fiction in the centuries since, with works from writers such as James Joyce and Thomas Pynchon showing his influence. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768) is the thematic sequel, a tale of a minor character from Shandy that is its own frolic of experimental fiction. Though less well known than its celebrated predecessor, this is an equally startling and frantically imaginative work from a writer some consider a comic genius.This edition also features the collection The Journal to Eliza, Sterne's impishly coy diary of a separation from his mistress, as well as numerous letters Sterne wrote to a variety of correspondents, including his wife.Irish clergyman LAURENCE STERNE (1713 -1768) also wrote the satire A Political Romance (1759) and published volumes of his sermons.

Im Buch

Ausgewählte Seiten

Inhalt

A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
9
THE JOURNAL TO ELIZA
154
LETTERS TO ELIZA
224
THE HISTORY OF A GOOD WARM WATCHCOAT
247
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS
267
LETTER TO MR FOLEY AT PARIS
275
Urheberrecht

Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen

Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen

Beliebte Passagen

Seite 90 - ... laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there ; he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had he lifted up a hopeless eye toward the door, then cast it down, shook his head and went on with his work of affliction.
Seite xv - STERNE, for which the usher severely whipped me. My master was very much hurt at this, and said, before me, that never should that name be effaced, for I was a boy of genius, and he was sure I should come to preferment.
Seite 144 - Eternal fountain of our feelings ! 'tis here I trace thee*, and this is thy "divinity which stirs witMn me"; not that in some sad and sickening moments, "my soul shrinks back upon herself, and startles at destruction" — mere pomp of words! — but that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyond myself; all comes from thee, great, great SENSORIUM of the world! which vibrates, if a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in the remotest desert of thy creation.
Seite 72 - And I made six efforts, replied she, to let you enter. — I wish to heaven you would make a seventh, said I. — With all my heart, said she, making room.
Seite 34 - I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, Tis all barren — and so it is; and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers.
Seite 89 - Liberty ! thrice sweet and gracious goddess, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till nature herself shall change : no tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron.
Seite 141 - She had superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green ribband, which fell across her shoulder to the waist ; at the end of which hung her pipe. Her goat had been as faithless as her lover ; and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she had kept tied by a string to her girdle. As I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with the string. Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio, said she.
Seite 55 - Eternal Fountain of Happiness ! said I, kneeling down upon the ground, — be thou my witness, — and every pure spirit which tastes it, be my witness also, That I would not travel to Brussels, unless Eliza went along with me, did the road lead me towards Heaven ! In transports of this kind, the heart, in spite of the understanding, will always say too much.
Seite 88 - ... the door : it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces. I took both hands to it. The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, pressed his breast against it, as if impatient. I fear, poor creature, said I, I cannot set thee at liberty. "No," said the starling; "I can't get out, I can't get out,
Seite 107 - Surely this is not walking in a. vain shadow, nor does man disquiet himself in vain by it — he of tener does so in trusting the issue of his commotions to reason only. I can safely say for myself, I was never able to conquer any one single bad sensation in my heart so decisively, as by beating up as fast as I could for some kindly and gentle sensation to fight it upon its own ground.

Autoren-Profil (2005)

If Fielding showed that the novel (like the traditional epic or drama) could make the chaos of life coherent in art, Sterne only a few years later in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760--67) laughed away the notion of order. In Sterne's world, people are sealed off in their own minds so that only in unpredictable moments of spontaneous feeling are they aware of another human being. Reviewers attacked the obscenity of Tristram's imagined autobiography as it was published (two volumes each in 1759, early 1761, late 1761, 1765, and one in 1767), particularly when the author revealed himself as a clergyman, but the presses teemed with imitations of this great literary hit of the 1760s. Through the mind of the eccentric hero, Sterne subverted accepted ideas on conception, birth, childhood, education, and the contemplation of maturity and death, so that Tristram's concerns touched his contemporaries and are still important. Since Tristram Shandy is patently a great and lasting comic work that yet seems, as E. M. Forster said, "ruled by the Great God Muddle," much recent criticism has centered on the question of its unity or lack of it; and its manipulation of time and of mental processes has been considered particularly relevant to the problems of fiction in our day. Sterne's Sentimental Journey (1768) has been immensely admired by some critics for its superb tonal balance of irony and sentiment. His Sermons of Mr. Yorick (1760) catches the spirit of its time by dramatically preaching benevolence and sympathy as superior to doctrine. Whether as Tristram or as Yorick, Sterne is probably the most memorably personal voice in eighteenth-century fiction.

Bibliografische Informationen