In A Sentimental Journey, Laurence Sterne places a peculiar emphasis on the exchange of money. An intentional stress on this topic is clear in the monetary terms found throughout the text, especially as metaphors in unexpected places. The process...

In the “Narrative Desire” chapter of his larger work, Reading for Plot, author Peter Brooks discusses the different modes of desire that exist within a reader. He argues that these desires are the forces of momentum brought to a text that in fact...

Travel literature became, after the novel, the most famous literary genre in the eighteenth century. Thanks to the geographical discoveries made by important navigators of that time, enlightened people finally could explore with their imagination...

Laurence Sterne’s novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is heavily saturated with elements of satire and dark humor. Sterne proposes an argument, through the inclusion of the ‘male’ mid-wife, Dr. Slop, for the restoration of...

Travel Writing and Identity in Tristram Shandy

In The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne employs unconventional structure and non-linearity to disorient his readers. Sterne projects himself through the lens of Tristram Shandy,...

Byron called Don Juan ‘the poetical Tristram Shandy’, and both works appear consciously intertextual in their attempts to question held beliefs about storytelling. They both define an ideal reader by everything that they should not be, and attempt...

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne is the fictional autobiography of Tristram Shandy in the novel form that tries to find out, defy, and/or experiment with the rules of this new genre it is written in as the...