The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe (Athlone Critical Traditions Series)

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

Peter de Voogd John Neubauer, Editors

Continuum

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

The Athlone Critical Traditions Series: The Reception of British Authors in Europe Series Editor: Elinor Shaffer School of Advanced Study, University of London Published volumes Volume I: The Reception of Virginia Woolf in Europe Edited by Mary Ann Caws and Nicola Luckhurst Volume II: The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe Edited by Peter de Voogd and John Neubauer Forthcoming volumes in the series include: The Reception of James Joyce in Europe Edited by Geert Lernout and Wim Van Mierlo The Reception of Lord Byron in Europe Edited by Richard Cardwell The Reception of Ossian in Europe Edited by Howard Gaskill The Reception of Walter Pater in Europe Edited by Stephen Bann

The Athlone Critical Traditions Series: The Reception of British Authors in Europe Series Editor: Elinor Shaffer School of Advanced Study, University of London

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe Edited by Peter de Voogd and John Neubauer

First published 2004 by Thoemmes an imprint of Continuum The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 15 East 26th Street, New York, NY 10010 © Peter de Voogd, John Neubauer and the Contributors 2004 Series concept and Series Editor’s Preface © Elinor Shaffer All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers or their appointed agents. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-8264-6134-4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data [to follow]

Typeset by BookEns Ltd., Royston, Herts Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, www.biddles.co.uk

Contents

Series Editor’s Preface Elinor Shaffer

vii

Acknowledgements

xi

List of Contributors

xiii

Abbreviations

xvi

Timeline: European Reception of Laurence Sterne

xvii

Introduction: Sterne Crosses the Channel Peter de Voogd and John Neubauer 1 Movements of Sensibility and Sentiment: Sterne in Eighteenth-Century France Lana Asfour 2 Romantic to Avant-Garde: Sterne in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century France Anne Bandry 3

‘Sterne-Bilder’: Sterne in the German-Speaking World Duncan Large

1

9

32

68

4 Sterne in the Netherlands Peter de Voogd

85

5 Sterne’s Nordic Presence: Denmark, Norway, Sweden Paul Goring with Eli Løfaldli

96

6 From Imperial Court to Peasant’s Cot: Sterne in Russia Neil Stewart

127

7 Sterne in Poland Graz· yna Bystydzienska ´ and Wojciech Nowicki

154

vi 8

Contents Conceiving Selves and Others: Sterne and Croatian Culture

165

Tatjana Juki´c

9 Sterne in Hungary Gabriella Hartvig 10 The Sentimental, the ‘Inconclusive’, the Digressive: Sterne in Italy Olivia Santovetti

180

193

11 Sterne’s Arrival in Portugal Manuel Portela

221

12 Sterne Castles in Spain Luis Pegenaute

234

13 Sternean Material Culture: Lorenzo’s Snuff-box and his Graves W.G. Day

247

14 Shandean Theories of the Novel: From Friedrich Schlegel’s German Romanticism to Shklovsky’s Russian Formalism 259 John Neubauer and Neil Stewart Bibliography

281

Index

319

Series Editor’s Preface

The reception of British authors in Britain has in good part been studied; indeed, it forms our literary history. By contrast, the reception of British authors in Europe has not been examined in any systematic, long-term or large-scale way. It is the aim of this Series to initiate and forward the study of the reception of British authors in Continental Europe, or, as we would now say, the rest of Europe, in a comparative perspective, rather than as isolated national histories with a narrow national viewpoint.‘Europe’, of course, is an ever-shifting historical and conceptual entity. The perspectives of other nations add greatly to our understanding of individual contributors to that history. The history of the reception of British authors extends our knowledge of their capacity to stimulate and to call forth new responses, not only in their own disciplines but in wider fields and to diverse publics in a variety of historical circumstances. Often these responses provide quite unexpected and enriching insights into our own history, politics and culture. Individual works and personalities take on new dimensions and facets.They may also be subject to enlightening critiques. Our knowledge of British writers is simply incomplete and inadequate without these reception studies. By ‘authors’ we intend writers in any field whose works have been recognized as making a contribution to the intellectual and cultural history of our society. Thus the Series includes literary figures, such as Laurence Sterne,Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, philosophers such as Francis Bacon and David Hume, historians and political figures such as Edmund Burke, and scientists such as Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton, whose works have had a broad impact on thinking in every field. In some cases individual works of the same author have dealt with different subjects, each with virtually its own reception history; so Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution (1790) was instantaneously translated and moulded thinking on the power struggles in the Europe of his own day; his youthful ‘Essay on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime’ exerted a powerful influence on aesthetic thought and the practice of writing and remains a seminal work for certain genres of fiction. Similarly, each of Laurence Sterne’s two major works of fiction, Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey, has its own history of reception, giving rise to a whole line of literary movements calling forth new terminology, innovative progeny and concomitant critical theory in most European countries. The research project examines the ways in which selected authors have been translated, published, distributed, read, reviewed and discussed on the

viii

Series Editor’s Preface

continent of Europe from their own lifetime to the present or an appropriate stopping place. In doing so, it throws light not only on specific strands of intellectual and cultural history but also on the processes involved in the dissemination of ideas and texts. The project brings to bear the theoretical and critical approaches that have characterized the growing fields of reader response theory and reception studies in the last quarter of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. These critical approaches have illuminated the activity of the reader in bringing the text to life and stressed the changing horizons of the reading public or community of which the reader is a part. The project also takes cognizance of the studies of the material history of the book that have begun to explore the production, publication and distribution of manuscripts and books. Increasingly, other media too are playing a role in these processes; the history of book illustration (Sterne’s work was widely distributed in editions illustrated by the French artist Johannot, as well as contributing to the history of typographical experiment and facsimile) is amplified by lantern slides (as in the popular versions of both Scott’s and Dickens’ works), cinema (whose early impact forms an important part of our H.G. Wells volume), and more recently television (as recounted, for example, in the Jane Austen volume).The study of material history forms a curious annexe, containing objects that offer durable traces of the vogue for a particular author, which may be parts of himself (as with the macabre story told in our Shelley volume of the wish to possess the drowned poet’s heart), or items of his wardrobe (as with Byronic shirtsleeves), or the more elaborate memorial gardens and graveyards such as linked Rousseau and Sterne in France, and in Germany made an aristocratic garden the resting-place of Sylvio the faithful dog’s headstone.The author’s own image may become iconic.The significance of such cults and cult objects requires further analysis as the examples multiply and diversify. The Series as published by Continuum Books is multi-volumed and open-ended, and each volume is based on a particular author. The authors may be regarded according to their discipline, or looked at across disciplines within their period. Thus the reception of philosophers Bacon and Hume may be compared; or Hume may be considered as belonging to an eighteenthcentury group that includes writers like Swift and Sterne, historians and political figures such as Gibbon and Burke.As the volumes accumulate, they enrich each other and our awareness of the full context in which an individual author is received.The Swift volume shows that in many places Swift and Sterne were received at the same time, and viewed sometimes as a pair of witty ironists, and sometimes as opposites representing traditional satire on the one hand (Swift) and modern sentimentalism on the other (Sterne), and equally or diversely valued as a result. These chronological shifts, bringing different authors and different works into view together, are common to the reception process, which so often displaces or delays them and drops them into an entirely new historical scene or set of circumstances. The kaleidoscope of reception displays and discovers new pairings and couplings, new milieux, new matches and (as Sterne might say) mismatches; and, of course, new valuations. Sterne even seems to be the occasion of a new literary history that wends its way far from the monuments of realism. The ingenious

Series Editor’s Preface

ix

observer of reception will find an entirely new sentimental and ironic journey opening before him or her. In period terms one may discern among the volumes of the Series a Romantic group; a Victorian group; a fin-de-siècle and an early Modernist group. Period designations differ from discipline to discipline, and are shifting even within a discipline: Blake, who was a ‘Pre-Romantic’ poet a generation go, is now considered a fully fledged Romantic, and Beckford is edging in that direction. Virginia Woolf may be regarded as a fin-de-siècle aesthete whose affinities are with Walter Pater or as an epoch-making Modernist like Joyce. Terms referring to period and style often vary from country to country. What happens to a ‘Victorian’ author transplanted to ‘Wilhelmine’ Germany? Are the English Metaphysical poets to be regarded as ‘baroque’ in continental terms, or will that term continue to be borrowed in English only for music, art and to an extent architecture? It is most straightforward to classify them simply according to century, for the calendar is for the most part shared. But the various possible groupings will provide a context for reception and enrich our knowledge of each author. Division of each volume by country or by linguistic region is dictated by the historical development of Europe; each volume necessarily adopts a different selection of countries and regions, depending on period and on the specific reception of any given author. Countries or regions are treated either substantially, in several chapters or sections where this is warranted, for example, the French reception of Sterne, Woolf or Joyce (and nearly all English-language works until after the Second World War pass first through the medium of French language and the prism of French thought), or on a moderate scale, or simply as a brief section. In some cases, where a rich reception is located that has not been reported or of which the critical community is not aware, more detailed coverage may be justified, for example, the reception of Woolf in the different linguistic communities of the Iberian peninsula. In general, comparative studies have neglected Spain in favour of France, Germany and Italy, and this imbalance needs to be righted. Brevity does not indicate lack of interest: the ‘Sentimental Journey’ of Sterne became a vade mecum for the search for the imagined ‘Croatia’ itself.Where separate coverage of any particular country or region is not justified by the extent of the reception, relevant material is incorporated into the bibliography and the Timeline, as with the Romanian reception of Sterne. Thus an early translation may be noted, although there was subsequently a minimal response to the author or work, or a very long gap in the reception in that region. This kind of material will be fully recorded in the database (see below). It is, of course, always possible, and indeed to be hoped and expected that further aspects of reception will later be uncovered, and the long-term research project forwarded, through this initial information. Reception studies often display an author’s intellectual and political impact and reveal effects abroad that are unfamiliar to the author’s compatriots. Thus, Byron, for example, had the power of carrying and incarnating liberal political thought to regimes and institutions to whom it was anathema; it is less well known that Sterne had the same effect, and that both were charged with erotically tinged subversion.Woolf came to be an icon for women writers in countries where there was little

x

Series Editor’s Preface

tradition of women’s writing. By the same token, the study of censorship, or, more broadly, impediments to dissemination, and modes of circumventing control, becomes an important aspect of reception studies. In Bacon’s reception, and throughout the ancien régime, the process of dissemination of ideas through the private correspondence of organized circles was vital. Certain presses and publishers also play a role, and the study of modes of clandestine or underground distribution under severe penalty is a particularly fascinating subject, whether in Catholic Europe or Soviet Russia. Irony and aesopian devices, and audience alertness to them, are highly developed under controlling regimes. A surprising number of authors live more dangerously abroad than at home. New electronic technology makes it possible to undertake reception studies on this scale. An extensive database stores information about editions, translations, accompanying critical prefaces or afterwords, illustrations, biographies and correspondence, early reviews, important essays and booklength studies of the authors, and comments, citations and imitations or reworkings, including satire and pastiche by other writers. Some authors achieve the status of fictional characters in other writers’ works; in other cases, their characters do, like Sterne’s uncle Toby, Trim, Maria and his own alter egoYorick; or even their characters’ family members, as in the memorable novel by a major Hungarian contemporary writer chronicling the early career of the (Hungarian) father of Joyce’s Leopold Bloom. The recording of full details of translations and translators is a particular concern, since often the names of translators are not supplied, or their identity is concealed behind pseudonyms or false attributions.The nature of the translation is often a determining factor in the reception of a work or an author. The database also records the character and location of rare works. Selected texts and passages are included, together with English translations. The database can be searched for a variety of further purposes, potentially yielding a more complete picture of the interactions of writers, translators, critics, publishers and publics across Europe in different periods from the Renaissance to the present. Dr Elinor Shaffer, FBA Director, Research Project Reception of British Authors in Europe

Acknowledgements

The Research Project on the Reception of British Authors in Europe is happy to acknowledge the support of the British Academy, the Leverhulme Foundation, the Arts and Humanities Research Board and the European Science Foundation.We are also greatly indebted to the School of Advanced Study, University of London, where the project has been based during the preparation of this volume; and in particular to the Dean,Terence Daintith, for his unfailing support and acute advice; and to the Institute of Germanic Studies, Institute of English Studies, Institute of Historical Research and Institute of Romance Studies, with whom we have held a series of seminars and colloquia on Reception Studies since 1998, where some of the contributors to this volume presented early versions of their chapters and benefited from discussion. Thanks are owing to the University of Utrecht, and to Peter de Voogd, for hosting a Colloquium on Laurence Sterne in December 2000 that was indispensable to the organization of this volume, as well as to New College Oxford for lending its facilities, through the good offices of Lana Asfour, for a further Colloquium in March 2002 where the collaborators were able to exchange findings and give final shape to their contributions. We also gratefully acknowledge the advice and guidance of the Advisory Board of the Project, which has met twice a year since the launch of the Project in the British Academy. We also acknowledge the indispensable services of the staff of the Project during the preparation of this volume: the Research Fellow, Dr Wim Van Mierlo; the Assistant to the Project, Miss Monica Signoretti and then Mr Lachlan Moyle; and finally, Mrs Charlotte Pattison Reuter, who gave crucial help to the Series Editor in the final correction of the manuscript for publication. We should also like to express our thanks to Dr Michaela Mudure, who has carried out new research on the Reception of Sterne in Romania embodied in the Bibliography and the Timeline, though not deeming it extensive enough to warrant a separate chapter. Thanks are owing too to Dr Alessandra Tosi, appointed Modern Humanities Research Association Research Associate to the Project from next year, for her invaluable help with bibliographical research for the chapter on Russian reception. We also thank Ann Lewis for her painstaking reading of the chapters on Sterne’s reception in France. For help with the chapter ‘Sterne in Scandinavia’, Dr Paul Goring would like to express particular thanks to Margareta Björkman, Per Olov Enquist, Tone Midtgård, and Bente Ahlers Møller. Dr Duncan Large expresses his thanks to Fred

xii

Acknowledgements

Bridgham, Wolfgang Hörner and John Vivian for their helpful advice. Dr Hartvig would like to acknowledge the research grant OTKA (FO zg 203) and her debt to the other authors of this volume. Finally, our debts to a variety of individuals and institutions across Europe are too extensive to be fully acknowledged.

List of Contributors

Lana Asfour has completed her doctorate on the reception of Sterne in France at Oxford University, and works as a freelance journalist. She has published on Sterne in The Shandean. Anne Bandry is a lecturer in English literature and language at the University of Mulhouse, France, and has published many articles on Sterne. She is currently working on stylometry in eighteenth-century fiction. Graz• yna Bystydzie´nska is Professor of English Literature at the University of Warsaw, Poland. She has written extensively on aspects of eighteenthcentury English literature and culture. W.G. Day is the Eccles Librarian at Winchester College, UK. As one of the editors of the Florida Sterne he collaborated with Melvyn New and R.S. Davies on the annotations to Tristram Shandy (1984); co-edited with Melvyn New A Sentimental Journey and Continuation of the Bramine’s Journal (2002); and is currently editing the Minor Writings which will form the eighth and final volume in the series. With Anne Bandry, he edited The Clockmakers, Outcry Against the Author of the Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1991). He is the review editor of The Shandean, and has written on the development of the novel (From Fiction to the Novel, 1987). Paul Goring is Senior Lecturer in British Literature at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. He specializes in eighteenth-century studies and has particular interests in sentimentalism, Irish-authored drama, the body as text, Laurence Sterne, and literary reception. Among his recent publications are Studying Literature (Arnold, 2001; co-authored) and a new edition of Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey (Penguin Classics, 2001). Gabriella Hartvig is Assistant Professor at the University of Pécs, Hungary. She has published a book on the early Hungarian reception of Laurence Sterne, and has also written for the Ossian and Swift volumes in the present Series, as an aspect of her interest in eighteenth-century English literature in Hungarian translation.

xiv

List of Contributors

Tatjana Juki´c teaches in the English Department, University of Zagreb, Croatia. Her research interests include the relations between literature and visuality, and comparative studies of English and Croatian literatures and literary histories. She is the author of Zazor, nadzor, svidjanje: Dodiri knjizevnog i vizualnog u britanskom devetnaestom stoljecu (‘Liking, Dislike, Supervision: Literature and the Visual in Victorian Britain’, Zagreb, 2002). Duncan Large is Senior Lecturer in German at University of Wales Swansea, UK. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the British Comparative Literature Association, and reviews editor of the journal New Comparison. His publications include several articles on the reception of Sterne by German writers (Goethe, Hoffmann, Nietzsche), and the monograph Nietzsche and Proust: A Comparative Study (Oxford University Press, 2001). Eli Løfaldli is a doctoral student at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. Her research focuses upon gender and literary reception/adaptation, particularly rewritings of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. John Neubauer is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and co-editor of the German comparatist journal arcadia. His publications include The Emancipation of Music from Language; The Fin-de-siècle Culture of Adolescence; and numerous publications on the relations between the arts, the philosophy of science, and Goethe. He is presently editing a four-volume history of literary cultures in East-Central Europe. Wojciech Nowicki is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the Marie Curie University of Lublin, Poland, and has published work on theory and early fiction in Europe. Luis Pegenaute is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain. He received his doctorate in 1993 with a thesis on the translations of Tristram Shandy into Spanish, and specializes in comparative literature, translation theory, history of translation and literary translation. He is the editor of La traducción en la Edad de Plata (Barcelona: PPU, 2001) and is currently co-editing a comprehensive volume on the history of translation in Spain. Manuel Portela is Assistant Professor at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, and has translated Tristram Shandy, A Sentimental Journey, A Political Romance and the Bramine’s Journal into Portuguese. He was awarded the National Prize for Literary Translation in 1998 for his translation of Tristram Shandy. Olivia Santovetti is Associate Lecturer in the Italian Department of the University of Cambridge, UK. Her publications include Laurence Sterne,

List of Contributors

xv

Dieci sermoni di Mr Yorick (Rome: Signorelli, 1993), which she edited and translated into Italian, and articles including ‘The Adventurous Journey of Lorenzo Sterne in Italy’, The Shandean, 8 (1996),‘Digressive art as humorous art? Luigi Pirandello’s Uno, nessuno e centomila’, Yearbook of the Society for Pirandello Studies, 20 (2000), and ‘“Il lettore mutatosi in collaboratore”: Digression and the Reader in Carlo Dossi’s texts’, Italian Studies, 2003. Neil Stewart is a member of the Graduiertenkolleg (Graduates’ Workshop) ‘Classicism and Romanticism’ at the University of Giessen, Germany. His main interests include literary theory and comparative literature. He has published a monograph on V. Erofeev’s ‘Moscow-Petushki’ (Frankfurt, 1999) and articles on Russian Romanticism (V. Odoevsky, N. Gogol). He is currently completing his dissertation and editing (with J. Fritz) a volume on violence in postmodern literature and film. Peter de Voogd is Professor of English Literature at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, and founding editor of The Shandean. He has written extensively on eighteenth- and early twentieth-century English literature, has co-edited Sterne and (Post) Modernism with David Pierce, and is presently preparing, with Melvyn New, the seventh volume of the Florida Sterne, The Correspondence.

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations of titles of works by and about Laurence Sterne are used throughout the book. ASJ

BJ CH EMY EY Letters LY PR Sermons TS

YE

Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy and Continuation of the Bramine’s Journal: The Text and Notes, The Florida Edition of the Works of Laurence Sterne, Vol. 6, eds Melvyn New and W.G. Day, Gainesville FL, University Press of Florida, 2002. Laurence Sterne, Continuation of the Bramine’s Journal (also known as Journal to Eliza; see ASJ, above). Alan B. Howes, (ed.), Sterne: The Critical Heritage, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974. Arthur H. Cash, Laurence Sterne: The Early and Middle Years, London: Methuen, 1975. Anon., Letters from Eliza to Yorick, London: Printed for the Editor, 1775. Letters of Laurence Sterne, ed. Lewis Perry Curtis, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935. Arthur H. Cash, Laurence Sterne: The Later Years, London: Methuen, 1986. Laurence Sterne, A Political Romance, London: Scolar Press, 1971 [1759]. Laurence Sterne, The Sermons of Laurence Sterne, The Florida Edition of the Works of Laurence Sterne,Vol. 4, The Sermons, ed. Melvyn New, Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1996. Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,The Florida Edition of the Works of Laurence Sterne, Vols 1–2, The Text, ed. Melvyn New and Joan New, Vol. 3, The Notes, by Melvyn New, Richard A. Davies and W.G. Day, Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1978, 1984. References to the text of Tristram Shandy are to original volume and chapter, followed by page number in the Florida Edition. Laurence Sterne, Letters from Yorick to Eliza, London: G. Kearsly, T. Evans, 1773, 1775.

Timeline: European Reception of Laurence Sterne Only first editions of translations have been included. Under ‘other’ only dates immediately relevant to Sterne and his work are listed. The criticism includes only publications on the Continent.

Year

Translations

Criticism

1713 1759 1760

Journal encyclopédique, 15 April: first French review of the English TS

1761 1762–64 1763–67 TS in German (Zückert) 1765 1765–66

1769

1770

TS 7–8 Sterne in France and Italy Sermons 3–4 TS 9, Sterne writes BJ ASJ; Sterne dies March 18 Sermons 5–7

First ASJ in German (Bode) First ASJ in French (Frénais) ASJ in German (Mittelstedt) Voltaire’s article ‘Conscience’ in Questions sur l’Encyclopédie praises Trim’s sermon in TS

1771–72

Abbé G.Th. Raynal, Éloge d’Eliza Draper J.G. Schummel, Empfindsame Reisen durch Deutschland YE J.K.Wezel, Lebensgeschichte Tobias Knauts J. Ewald, Levnet og Meeninger (published 1804–08)

1773 1773–76 1773–77 1774 1775

Sterne is born on November 24 PR, TS 1–2 Sermons 1–2 TS 3–4, 5–6 Sterne in France

1766 1766–67 First Sermons in German 1767 1768

Other

TS in German (Bode) First ASJ in Danish (Birch) YE and Letters to Friends in German (Bode)

EY, Letters 1–3

xviii Timeline Year

Translations

1776

Criticism

First TS 1–4 in French (Frénais) First Rabelaisian fragment and Letters in German (Weisse) 1776–79 First TS in Dutch (Brunius) 1777 Voltaire reviews TS 1778 First ASJ in Dutch (Brunius) 1779 First ASJ Lorenzo-episode in Russian (Arndt) from Bode’s German 1779–80 First Sermons in Dutch (Brunius) 1784 TS 5, 7, Koran, Letters in French (de la Beaume) 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789

F. Nicolai, Das Leben und die Meinungen des Herrn Magister Sebaldus Nothanker

J.-C. Gorjy, Nouveau voyage sentimental en France

TS 5–9 in French (de Bonnay, de la Beaume) First Sermons in French (de la Beaume) First Tsonnonthouan in French (anon.) First Letters in French (de la Beaume) Letters in French (Durand de Saint–Georges) First YE in Russian (Apukhtin)

1790

1791

Other

First ASJ in Swedish (Ekmanson)

A. Radishchev, Puteshestvie F.S. Jezierski, Katechizm Sambor (actually Warsaw) N. Karamzin, Pis’ma russkogo puteshestvennika B.M. de Calzada, El viajador sensible

Timeline Year

Translations

1792

First ASJ in Italian (anon.); YE, EY (Vianello)

1793

First ASJ in Russian (Kolmakov) First TS vol. 1 in Danish (Zetlitz)

1794 1795

Criticism

X. De Maistre, Voyage autour de ma chambre

First Correspondence with Eliza in Russian (Karin) D. Diderot, Jacques le fataliste et son maître

1797 1799

First YE in Swedish (anon.) ASJ bilingual edn (publ. Dufour in Paris and Amsterdam)

1800

First Beauties in French (anon.); ASJ in French (Frénais) publ. in Lund, Sweden (Lundblad/Sjöberg) ASJ in French (Crassous) First Sermons in Russian (Chichagov) First Beauties in Russian (Galinkovsky) First Yorick’s Meditations in Swedish (Granberg) Oeuvres Complètes 6 vols. ASJ in Russian from Frénais’s French (Domogatsky)

1802 1803

1804–5

Other D. Diderot, Jacques le fataliste et son maître (in German) (anon.) Tableau sentimental de la France depuis la Révolution. N. Karamzin ‘Bednaya Liza’ W.G. Becker, Das Seifersdorfer Thal

1796

1801

xix

F. Schlegel, Gespräch über die Poesie

A. Forbin, and P.-H. Revoile, Sterne à Paris A.G. de Mendoza y Francia, trans. ‘Viaje sentimental’ (rejected by the censor, not published, ms lost) ASJ in English publ. in Lund, Sweden (Lundblad/Sjöbeck)

P.-S. Ballanche, Du Sentiment considéré dans ses rapports avec la littérature et les arts

Verseghy, Nagy nevezetü és nagy tekintetü Kolomposi Szarvas Gergely

xx

Timeline

Year

Translations

Criticism

1804–7

First TS in Russian (Kaisarov)

Kaisarov, ‘Open Letter to a Friend’

1805–10

1807 1809

1813 1815 1817 1818

N.Wergeland, Haldor Smeks Smaae Tildragelser i Livet, Eventyr, Bemærkninger og Meninger First Letters in Swedish (Rundahl) First Koran in Russian (Berkh)

ASJ in Italian (Foscolo) First YE, ASJ in Hungarian (Kazinczy) First ASJ in Polish (Kl/okocki) Oeuvres in 6 vols. (publ. Ledoux et Tenré)

J. de Lespinasse, Deux chapitres dans le genre du Voyage sentimental de Sterne (written in the 1770s)

Döbrentei,’ Szterne Ló´rincz élete’

1819

ASJ on the Index of Forbidden Books

1820–21 Letters to intimate Friends in Russian (Parenago) 1821 First ASJ in Spanish (anon.) 1824 First TS vol. 6 in Hungarian (Illés) 1825 First Letters in Russian (Parenago) 1825–27 Oeuvres in 4 vols. (publ. Salmon) 1825–33 1828

1829 1829–30 1830

Other

X. De Maistre, Expédition nocturne autour de ma chambre A. Pushkin, Evgenii Onegin

ASJ in French (Moreau-Christophe) YE in Hungarian (Döbrentei) ASJ in Russian (Yakovlev) First TS 3 fragments in Italian (Bini) Y. De Sanglen, Zhizn’ i mneniya novogo Tristrama Ch. Nodier, Histoire du roi de Bohême et de ses sept châteaux

Timeline Year

Translations

1831

First Sermons in Italian (anon.)

Criticism

1836 1837 1841 1842 1843 1845 1846

TS published in France in English by Baudry; contains W. Scott’s ‘Life of Sterne’ Oeuvres Complètes in French trans. with W. Scott’s ‘Life of Sterne’ (Michel) N. Gogol, ‘Nos’ ASJ in Dutch (Geel) ASJ in Danish (Magnus) ASJ in French (Janin, Defauconprêt,Wailly) TS in French (Wailly) ASJ in Spanish (Anon.) ASJ in Polish (Wisl/ocki) A. Garrett, Viagens na Minha Terra L.Tolstoi begins his incomplete trans. ‘Sentimental’ noe puteshestvie’

1851

1852–53 TS in Dutch (Lindo) 1853 Koran in French (Hédouin) ASJ in Polish (Noakowski) 1854 Further works from Sterne (Nachlese) in German (Voß) 1865 ASJ in Russian (Lyzhin) TS in German (Gelbcke) 1866 ASJ in French (Fournier) 1867 AS in German (Hörlek) 1868 ASJ in German (Eitner) 1870 ASJ in French (Hédouin) TS in German (Seubert)

1882

TS, ASJ and YE in French (Wailly) ASJ in French (Blémont) TS, ‘Oncle Toby’ in French (Hédouin) ASJ in Spanish (Douse) ASJ in Russian (Averkiev)

1892

J. Dinis, Uma Família Inglesa

P. Stapfer, Laurence Sterne

1875 1881

1884 1890

Other A.Veltman, Strannik

1832

1835

xxi

Machado de Assis, Memórias Póstumas de Braz Cubas

J. Barbey d’Aurevilly, ‘Lawrence Sterne’

xxii

Timeline

Year

Translations

Criticism

1902 1903

First ASJ, YE in Portuguese O. J. Bierbaum, Eine empfindsame Reise im Automobil

1908

L. Pirandello, L’umorismo

1910

G. Lukács, ‘Beszélgetés Laurence Sterne-ró´l’ F.B. Barton, Etude sur l’influence de Laurence Sterne

1911 1912

First ASJ in Catalan (Vallvé)

1914 1915 1919 1920 1921 1922

G. Rabizzani, Lorenzo Sterne ASJ in Spanish (Blanco) ASJ in Spanish (Reyes) Bode’s Collected Works (in German) Sermons in German (Grabisch)

G. Rabizzani, Sterne in Italia V. Shklovsky, ‘Tristram Shendi’ Sterna i teoriya romana

First TS in Italian (Salvatori)

1923

V. Shklovsky, ‘Evgenii Onegin (Pushkin i Stern)’ V. Maslov, ‘Interes k Sternu v russkoi literature’

1924 1926 1927 1931 1932 1934

BJ and YE in German (Hellwig) ASJ in Swedish (Hejll) ASJ in Italian (Ipsevich-Bocca) ASJ in Spanish (anon.) ASJ in French (Digeon) ASJ in Catalan (Margaret)

1936 1937 1939 1940

Other

G.J. Hallamore, Das Bild Laurence Sternes in Deutschland TS in German (Kassner) TS extracts in Romanian (anon.) ASJ, BJ in Russian (Frankovsky) ASJ in Spanish (Godoy)

V. Shklovsky, ZOO, Pis’ma ne o lyubvi ili Tret’ya Elyuiza, V. Shklovsky, Sentimental’noe puteshestvie. L. Pirandello, Uno, nessuno e centomila

Timeline xxiii Year

Translations

1942 1944

ASJ in Danish (Kruuse) TS, ASJ extracts in Italian (Linati) TS in French (Mauron) TS in Russian (Frankovsky) First ASJ in Croatian (Pusi´c) ASJ in Polish (Glinczanka) ASJ in German (Findeisen) First TS in Hungarian (Határ) Hungarian ASJ (Határ) First TS in Polish (Tarnowska); ASJ in Swedish (Johansson); TS in Italian (Meo) A.G. Fredman, Diderot and Sterne H. Fluchère, Laurence Sterne P. Michelsen, Laurence Sterne und der deutsche Roman des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts First TS in Croatian (Hartl) Letters and Documents R.Warning Illusion und in German (Schmitz) Wirklichkeit in Tristram Shandy und Jacques le fataliste TS in Italian (Melandri-Minoli) ASJ in Spanish (Anon.)

1946 1949 1951 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958

1960 1961 1962

1964 1965

1967

Criticism

1968

1969

Other

Official illustrated edition of TS and ASJ in the Library of World Literature TS in Italian (Morra)

B. Fabian, ‘Sterne’s Tristram Shandy’

TS in Romanian (Miroiu, Spãriosu) 1973 1975 1976 1977

P. Madsen Romanens Form First TS in Spanish (Letona) TS in Danish (Møller) TS in Spanish (Aznar) K. Bartoszy´nski, ‘Sternizm’

xxiv Timeline Year

Translations

1978 1980

TS in Spanish (Marías) First TS in Swedish (Warburton) First YE in Italian; first PR in Italian (Martelli) ASJ in Dutch (Kellendonk)

1981 1982

ASJ in Spanish (Lauvent) 1983–91 TS in German (Walter) 1985

Criticism

English language edition of Sterne’s works (ed. Atarova) R. Kireev, ‘Stivenson protiv Sterna’

1983

1986 1987

ASJ in Romanian (Miroiu) First BJ, PR in French (Soupel)

1988 1989 1990 1991 1992

TS in Dutch (Starink); First ASJ Continuation in Italian (Innocenti) ASJ in Italian (Mazzacurati)

Other

A. Montandon, La réception de Laurence Sterne en Allemagne W. Iser, Laurence Sterne’s ‘Tristram Shandy’ K. Atarova, first monograph on Sterne in Russian

P. de Voogd, De invloed van Joyce op Sterne

TS in Italian (Conetti) First ASJ in Galician (Outeiriño) 1993 Sermons sel. in Italian G. Bystydzie´nska, (Santovetti) W labiryncie prawdy First TS in Catalan P.E. Sørensen Det Muntre (Mallafrè) Muntre Babel 1995–96 First Norwegian TS (Herrmann) 1996 ASJ in Italian (Guerneri) ASJ in Catalan (Mallafré) 1997 ASJ in Spanish (Campo) 1997–98 First TS in Portuguese (Portela) 1998 TS 1–2 in French (Jouvet) First ASJ in Basque (Barambones) ASJ in Spanish (Cardona) 1999 First ASJ in Portuguese C. Polletti, Lo scrittore e (Portela) il suo doppio, saggio sul ‘Tristram Shandy’; F.Testa, Tristram Shandy in Italia

I. Calvino, Lezioni americane

P. Békés, Érzékeny útazások Közép Európán át

Timeline Year

Translations

2000

First BJ, PR, ‘Rabelaisian G. Hartvig, Laurence fragment’ in Portuguese Sterne Magyarországon: (Portela) 1790–1860 M. Pfister, Laurence Sterne ASJ in Italian (Papetti) First JE, ‘Rabelaisian Fragment’ and ‘Political Romance’ in Spanish (Fransoy)

2001 2002

Criticism

Other

xxv

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Introduction: Sterne Crosses the Channel Peter de Voogd and John Neubauer

Alas poor Yorick! After taking his sentimental journey across (part of) the Continent of Europe, he made another voyage, between the covers of books, this time into all corners of it; and now, at last, he will travel for a third time, in a scholarly rather than sentimental fashion, in the company of scholars who here follow his second itinerary. But his curiosity, his wit and his invention have not dimmed. The trip we undertake with Yorick in this book will obviously differ from his two previous ones, as well as from the venerable tradition of the Grand Tour. For one, we undertake (with one exception) several limited trips, shuttling back and forth, so to speak, between England and a continental country: each chapter traces the history of Sterne’s fortune within a single national tradition. In this, it may be said, we re-enact Yorick’s crossing from England to the Continent in order to explore literary as well as cultural affinities and differences. The shortcoming of this method is that it leaves little room for a summary overview of his reception.To balance the generally national focus, we attempt to undertake in this Introduction several pan-continental journeys, each of which will trace a salient feature of the Sterne reception across the national borders.The final chapter on ‘Shandean Theories’ may also be read as an Introduction, as it spans the whole reception of Sterne in critical and narrative theory from Friedrich Schlegel’s prophetic Romantic insights into the nature of the novel to the groundbreaking insights of Shklovsky and the Russian Formalists, which provided the foundation for twentieth-century narrative theory across Europe. Although our book focuses on national receptions, the following articles on individual countries do cross national borders; indeed, they are forced to do so. British Sterne publications in English frequently reached the various European countries (often crossing continental borders on the way) and made important contributions there to the forming of a reading public and stimulating interest in the production of translations. As our articles show, British publications of TS and ASJ were read in France, Scandinavia, Croatia and elsewhere. More interesting, though less frequent, were publications of Sterne’s work in English within a continental country, which then usually crossed the border and were sold in other countries. The publications of

2

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

Rudolph Sammer (mentioned in the article on the Hungarian reception) are a case in point. This Viennese publisher brought out English language editions of Sterne’s complete works, which found their way to all corners of the Habsburg empire and thus made their impact in Hungary and the Balkans. The Leipzig publisher Bernhard Tauchnitz, which brought out TS (1849) and ASJ (1861) in its impressive ‘Collection of British Authors’, is another prominent example. Similarly international were the Sterne illustrations by Tony Johannot, which were printed in various de luxe editions of ASJ in France, Germany, Spain, Poland and elsewhere. Finally, there were also publications (translations, imitations, and even critical works) of Sterne in one of the major continental languages, which were then distributed and read across the border, in countries with both minor and major languages. Such was the case, for instance, with Joseph-Pierre Frénais’s popular French translations of TS and ASJ, and with Johann Joachim Christoph Bode’s German translations. These were not only read abroad, they also served, at least in the early decades, as the source text for second translations into another vernacular (e.g. the French formed the source for the Russian). These ‘secondary’ Sterne effects and receptions involved a second national and linguistic border crossing. Important as these categories and cases are, their effects are extremely difficult to measure for we have no reliable data on the volume of the ‘border crossing’ and the size of the reading public actually profiting from them.The chapter on the Croatian Sterne reception offers a fascinating glimpse of such a process, where new research by the contributor has shown that English originals were available from an early date, so that the long-held view that the translations came via the German must be reconsidered. These are some interesting cases of the transnational production and distribution of Sterne books on the Continent. The overview becomes more difficult if we try to take a view of human contacts and the commerce of ideas across the borders, for the staple material of comparative ‘influence studies’, the cross-national adoptions, adaptations, absorptions and imitations by other writers constitute only a fraction of the reception process. To be sure, one can point to the impact of TS on Diderot’s Jacques le fataliste, which in turn, exerted a profound influence on writers from Friedrich Schlegel to Milan Kundera (see Asfour’s chapter), or one can show how Goethe’s changing interest in Sterne was then received in other countries (see Large’s chapter). But a broader view should include also analogies (or contrasts) between the Sterne receptions of different countries. Based on the individual articles of this volume we single out for this introduction a few such clusters for discussion: Sterne’s ‘linguistic’ impact; Sterne’s impact on modes of narration; Sterne’s political meaning and impact; and Sterne’s impact on individual writers. The chapters in this volume offer a large number of examples of each of these (and many other) categories of continental impact. The point of the following discussion is to take a ‘horizontal’ and cross-sectional view of some vital matters that the chapters treat in a temporal sequence within a national culture. *

Introduction

3

Sterne’s verbal craftsmanship has challenged readers and translators alike. Translators struggled to find the right words and phrases for his often idiosyncratic modes of expression. As Foscolo (whose translation of A Sentimental Journey in the early nineteenth century is a landmark in the formation of modern Italian and an Italian classic in its own right) remarked, Sterne was ‘very delicate in his conceits, strange in the expression, and concise in style’. In a more general sense, the public needed new words and concepts to characterize the modes and moods of his discourse. At times, as in the case of the German Empfindsamkeit, this led to the coinage and popular acceptance of a completely new term: the Sterne reception enriched in this way the vocabulary of the host country and gave its name to an entire movement of sensibility and style.The ‘sentimental’ style also led to coinages in other countries, e.g. Sweden and Russia.Where, as in the case of humour, irony and wit, the words had existed already, they nevertheless acquired new shades of meaning through their application to Sterne’s art. Whether this also means that, in turn, we ought to read Sterne’s work in terms of the older pre-Sternean meanings of those terms has been a favourite topic of scholarship on Sterne. One of the discussants in Lukács’s dialogue on Sterne asserts, for instance, that Sterne’s characters are schematic and flat because they are related to the traditional four-fold schema of humoural pathology (see the chapter by Neubauer and Stewart). In Eastern Europe and Italy, in part also in Germany and Scandinavia, Sterne became of interest during a period of national revival, which usually started with intense efforts to turn the vernacular into a refined literary idiom. There were continued debates from country to country on the question, to what extent the honing of the vernacular could be achieved just by writing new poetry in it, and what contribution translations from already rich languages could make.As Santovetti shows in her chapter on the Italian reception, Foscolo started to learn English and to translate ASJ in 1806 in order to ‘understand that bizarre author’ and, at the same time, ‘to experiment with the flexibility of the Italian language’, reaching back to Dante and forward to the contemporary dialectal vernacular.Those who advocated the cultivation of translations were again divided between factions that differed on the kind of translations they favoured. As Hartvig’s chapter on Hungary shows in an exemplary fashion, problems in the translation of Sterne’s work were often at the very heart of such debates. Both the debate and the translations produced contributed to the revival and reform of Hungarian as a literary language. Pushkin was no translator of Sterne, but Sterne’s narrative techniques played an important role when in Evgenii Onegin he created, almost single-handedly, a supple and brilliant Russian literary idiom. Sterne’s novels, TS especially, broke new grounds in the history of the genre and spawned an immense body of fiction that contains both blatant thematic imitations and sophisticated adaptations of narrative devices. Chapter 14 by Neubauer and Stewart traces the impact Sterne had on theories of the novel. A much longer account would be needed to trace within the history of the novel the sequence of works that wholly or partly adopt Sterne’s narrative techniques, such as the unreliable narrator, digression, self-reflection and ‘stream of consciousness’. Although Sterne was not the only progenitor of these and other techniques (which makes the tracing

4

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

complicated), he played a key role in their development.The line runs from TS via Diderot’s Jacques le fataliste to Theodor Gottlieb Hippel, Jean Paul and several other German Romantics, to Gogol in Russian and Ukrainian, and to Xavier de Maistre, Charles Nodier, and Gérard de Nerval in French literature. It all but disappeared during the period of Realism and Naturalism but came to full vigour in Modernism and Postmodernism, though the Sternean subtext now becomes mingled and merged with many others. Nevertheless, Sterne was often explicitly recognized and accredited as a pioneer. Suffice it to mention here Luigi Pirandello, who greeted Sterne as a comrade in the fight against the dominant realist novel, Italo Calvino, who saw in Sterne the progenitor of his own self-reflexive narrative mode, and Georges Perec and the French avant-garde group of Oulipo with their cunning wordplay and typographical experiments. A different line could be traced for ASJ, which was in almost all countries the more popular and more frequently translated novel of Sterne’s, though (or precisely because) it was formally less innovative. Sterne’s undermining of the well-crafted plot and his thematic subversion of decorum clearly went beyond mere aesthetics and constituted also a political act in a broader sense. We can recognize the political implications of his aesthetics in the many devastating criticisms (which, for instance, accused him of sexual indecencies) as well as in the political role that some Sterne’s admirers have played. To be sure, Sterne also had his conservative admirers, Catherine the Great being perhaps the most prominent among them.As Asfour writes in Chapter 1, indicating the range of the political sympathies to which Sterne seemed to speak, in the eighteenth century he was ‘adopted by writers with monarchist, republican and reformist leanings’. The group of liberals and radicals that was charmed by Sterne’s free, even anarchistic spirit was much the largest, but our continental tour of visiting them country by country turns into a disconcerting journey through prisons and places of exile. It includes the Russian Alexander Radishchev, whom Catherine ‘merely’ banished to Siberia after first condemning him to death, the Jacobin Hungarians Ferenc Kazinczy and Ferenc Verseghy, who read and started to translate Sterne in prison, the Pole Franciszek Salezy Jezierski, probable author of the audacious Catechism on the secrets of the Polish government, written about the year 1735 by Mr Sterne in the English tongue, subsequently rendered into French, and now finally into Polish, which packaged Polish radicalism under Sterne’s name, the young Polish nationalist poets Adam Mickiewicz, and Juliusz Sl/owacki, members of a university group at Wilno University who called themselves ‘Sternians’, the Italian Romantic poet and Sterne translator, Ugo Foscolo, who had to flee to England and died there in poverty, and the Hungarian Sterne translator Gyó´zó´ Határ, who started to translate Sterne soon after he was released in 1953 after spending four years in prison under the Stalinist regime. We find, finally, a group of continental writers from a variety of countries who deeply absorbed Sterne and his novels, at least during a certain phase of their lives, though their own temperament and creativity eventually led them in different directions. To what extent these ‘resistant aficionados’ were, nevertheless, indebted to Sterne is a continually challenging question for Sterne scholarship. To the already mentioned name of Goethe we have to add from

Introduction

5

this point of view that of Tolstoi, who started but never finished his translation of ASJ, and that of Dostoevski, who knew and even used his Sterne even though he was of a totally different temperament. The list could be extended to many lesser figures. * How would Sterne himself have reacted to the long-lasting fame he acquired on the Continent? On 9 February 1768, a month before his death, he wrote a letter to Dr John Eustace, an American admirer in North Carolina, who had sent him a curious walking-stick as a present. In his thank-you letter, Sterne looks back on his writing career (which, we should remind ourselves, had started a mere eight years earlier with the huge success of the first two volumes of TS) and wishes he ‘could have got an act of parliament when the books first appeared, that none but wise men should look into them; it is too much to write books, and find heads to understand them’. He then says of his books: The world however seems to come into better temper about them; the people of genius here being to a man on its side, and the reception it has met with in France, Italy and Germany, have engaged one part of the world to give it a second reading, and the other part of it, in order to be on the strongest side, have at length agreed to speak well of it too; a few hypocrites and tartuffes, whose approbation could do it nothing but dishonour, remain unconverted. (Letters, 411; modified in accordance with the forthcoming Florida edition).

It is important to realize that Sterne did not only have the nine volumes of TS in mind, but surely also the four volumes of sermons he had published under the name of ‘Mr. Yorick’ – the first two volumes of ASJ were printing but had not yet come out when the letter was written.This is the second time that Sterne speaks in his letters of ‘reception’ in the sense of this volume; the first time had been at the very inception of his public career, in the daring and hopeful letter he had written at the age of 45 from his obscure parsonage in North Yorkshire to one of the most prestigious publishers in London, Robert Dodsley, on 5 October 1759: I propose therefore to print a lean Edition in 2 small Vols, of the Size of Rasselas [Samuel Johnson’s widely read tale], & on the same paper and Type, – at my own Expence merely to feel the Pulse of the World – & that I may know what Price to set upon the Remaining Volumes, from the reception of these – If my Book sells & has the run our Criticks expect, I purpose to free myself of all future troubles of this kind, & bargain with You, if possible for the rest as they come out which will be every six Months. – (Letters, 80).

The book did sell, and Sterne became famous, although troubles were still to come. Illness, marital misfortune and foreign travel also saw to it that his optimistic bi-annual scheme didn’t work out.The letter to Dodsley is a good example of the confidential manner in which Sterne promoted his own work. His latest biographer, Ian Campbell Ross, emphasizes that Sterne skilfully manipulated his commercial success and was always fully aware of his reception, at home and abroad. His years of fame, however, were short, and overshadowed by several scandals. After his death, his correspondence

6

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

was badly edited by his daughter Lydia and partly forged, notably by William Combe of Dr. Syntax fame; furthermore, numerous weak imitations were passed off as his. His reputation was harmed by malicious reminiscences by John Croft and a damning and influential critique by Thackeray, the well-known author of Vanity Fair. The first scholarly biography, by Percy Fitzgerald, appeared as late as 1864, and his major work, TS, was fully annotated more than a century later. Sterne has always been somewhat of an outsider in English studies. That great canon-maker Samuel Johnson thought Sterne would be forgotten quickly, the Victorians on the whole shared Sir Walter Scott’s and Thackeray’s doubts about Sterne’s moral uprightness, and the most influential academic critic for the comparatively new English Studies of our generation, one who exerted a huge influence on continental English studies, Dr Leavis, famously belittled Sterne’s work in a footnote as ‘nasty, trifling’. In many ways, Sterne has always fared much better outside England. * The reception of Sterne, at home or abroad, is imperfectly known. In the major interpretative biographies, by Fitzgerald, Melville, Cross, Fluchère, Thomson, Cash and Ross, the reception, if treated at all, is an after-thought, often literally so in the final chapter. Howes (1958) and (1974) are closest to offering an overview of the early British reception, but Howes is incomplete in his fragmentary quoting of the primary sources and inadequate for an understanding of the continental reception. On the Continent itself there have been a few ‘national’ monographs, which are cited in the relevant chapters below, but these tend to be narrowly confined to their country of origin, and are often quite outdated. Perhaps it is typical of Sterne studies that Hartley (1966) published the last listing of secondary material (that published between 1900 and 1965, including several pages of what he called ‘Literary Reputation’ and ‘Influences, Affinities, and Imitations’). The Internet yields several attempts to bring Hartley up to date, but there is as yet no combined database for the more recent and pleasingly great output of secondary Sterneana (which is one important reason to welcome the database that will follow this volume in a few years’ time). The history of the histories of Sterne receptions is easily summarized: in Britain it began in 1968, the bicentenary of Sterne’s death, with the short but very instructive lecture that one of the greatest collectors of Sterneana gave to the Cambridge Bibliographical Society. Oates basically offered a description of his remarkable collection and sketched in a few pages the early reception history. Oates (1968) lists the English language editions abroad, of which there were surprisingly many, the early translations and the more outstanding imitations; he describes what he calls ‘the lunatic fringe of Sterneana’, the Father Lorenzo and Maria cult, the versifications, dramatizations, the musical and painterly versions. Oates’s listing was a first and often tantalising survey of that hitherto neglected field. In the same bicentenary year a seminal conference was held in York and Shandy Hall, which resulted three years later in The Wingèd Skull; this contains much material relevant to this volume, as it discusses Sterne’s impact on Modernism, his early

Introduction

7

reception in America, Japan, Germany and Italy, and affords some glimpses of the collections that belonged to the late Kenneth Monkman and Oates (the former now still housed in Shandy Hall, Coxwold; the latter in Cambridge University Library). A landmark in Sterne studies was the appearance of the Florida Edition’s Notes to TS (1984); since 1989 the annual The Shandean brings together Sternean material from all over the world. So far, The Shandean has published overviews and bibliographies of Sterne in Germany, Spain, Japan, the Netherlands, Italy, Hungary, Finland and France, as well as much material about curious Sterneana which is of interest to the scholar of reception. In 1993 a second York conference on Sterne was held, this time focusing on Modernism and Postmodernism. It yielded another publication (de Voogd and Pierce 1996) as well as a sequel and a continuity: many of the young Sterne scholars who met for the first time in York reunited seven years later in Utrecht, laying the groundwork for this volume. The starting point for any research into the reception of Sterne must be a bibliographical overview that is as complete as possible.Thus, nearly all the articles in this volume take into account the often highly complicated bibliography of the primary texts: PR, TS, ASJ, the Sermons, the Letters (including YE) and the so-called ‘Rabelaisian Fragment’, but also of versions of the Beauties of Sterne, the Sterne selections in anthologies and school handbooks, the occasional surprise appearance of Sternean writings in letter-writing manuals.Trickier still, there is a vast field that we call ‘pseudoSterne’. Sterne studies have not yet paid sufficient attention to the continuations of A Sentimental Journey (there were at least three), to the many faked letters of ‘Yorick’ to others, or from Eliza to him, to the so-called Koran and similar collections of quasi-Sternean aphorisms and wisecracks, which found their way into many of the Complete Works from the 1770s onwards. A national reputation of Sterne may well have been founded on pseudoSterne rather than real Sterne – strictly speaking it was not Sterne who influenced Goethe, but Richard Griffith, author of The Posthumous Works of a Late Celebrated Genius (1770), which Goethe believed to be written by Sterne. Each contributor to this volume discusses also Sternean imitations, and the chief patterns in the overwhelming amount of secondary material: reviews, monographs, seminal articles, academic vogues and fashions, always discussed within the larger framework of a national culture, which sometimes yields simple explanations for odd facts. Thus, the sudden enormous rise in French articles on Sterne in the early 1990s was not caused by miraculous popular enthusiasm, but by the selection of ASJ as one of the set texts on the 1994 nation-wide agrégation syllabus. Our contributors point out, wherever relevant, what Oates called the ‘lunatic fringe’ – which plays a prominent role in all but the last chapter, thus indicating the extent to which Sterne became part of the popular imagination. The final chapter (Neubauer and Stewart) traces the ways in which TS served to elaborate theories of the novel in Romanticism and Modernism, showing that Sterne shook off the lunatic fringe to become the source and occasion of serious criticism and scholarship on the very stuff of literature, the nature of narrative. The editors have tried to cover all geographical areas of the European

8

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

continent, but have not fully succeeded for reasons that have more to do with politics, academic and otherwise, than scholarly endeavour. But we do list in the bibliography additional translations that have come to our attention: those by Jankovi´c and Vinaver into Serbo-Croatian (1926 and 1955); Gradiˇsnik into Slovenian (1968); Kalliphatide into Greek (1992); Juva into Finnish (1998); Skoumal into Czech (1985); Kuosaite into Lithuanian (1968); Miroiu into Romanian (1969 and 1986). Yordan Kosturkov translated ASJ in 1982 into Bulgarian and is working on TS now. Striving for completion is perhaps never a good idea, and in the case of Sterne, who never finished a work, it’s even a bad one. Readers should be aware, as indeed the contributors have been, that reception histories of this kind are fundamentally incomplete because they can list only what has been published, and as yet tell us little about its distribution. Much more work needs to be done in the history of the book. We do not know how many English copies of Sterne’s works found their way to the Continent and we can hardly guess how many Portuguese or Spanish translations from the Americas were read in Europe (both cases are, after all, instances also of continental reception). On a yet more misty and inaccessible level, we know nothing about the ‘silent majority’ of readers who left no record of their reading experience for us. Accepting these insurmountable difficulties, the editors are reasonably certain that the following chapters will demonstrate that Sterne’s work was received, translated and imitated in most European countries, and show how interest in his life and work grew into a literary cult at an early stage, led to the vogue of Sentimentalism, and contributed to modern theories of the novel. Readers will find in this volume discussions of questions arising from the serial nature of much of Sterne’s writings, the various ways in which translators all across Europe coped with the specific problems that the Sternean text poses, the extent to which especially ASJ came to be regarded both as a model of ‘sentiment’ and as a provocative political text, how TS became a test case for theories of humour and of narrative structure, and how Sterne’s texts and the Letters were used as didactic tools.They will even discover that there was a vogue for a snuff-box belonging to one of Sterne’s characters, of which no example has yet been found.

1

Movements of Sensibility and Sentiment: Sterne in Eighteenth-Century France Lana Asfour

Sterne’s work arrived in France quickly and controversially. Eighteenthcentury French literary culture was not a stable and fixed entity which was modified by the importation of Sterne’s work in an easily quantifiable manner. It was, rather, a dynamic and complex web of overlapping and coexisting tendencies, a culture in flux, with a general movement from classical literary traditions to more modern, Romantic conceptions of literature. TS in particular attracted controversy because it seemed to embody and represent many of the important aesthetic and cultural dilemmas of the period. Was French literature enslaved by the neo-classical rules established in the seventeenth century? Should English fiction and English aesthetic taste be regarded as a good model for French literature or as a corrupting influence? Should the imagination be curbed by literary rules and principles? Is the novel a morally and aesthetically inferior genre? In studying Sterne’s early reception history in France, it is useful to bear in mind Jauss’s ‘dynamic principle of literary evolution’, in which literature is considered both aesthetically and historically through the study of its understanding by contemporary and later readers, critics and writers (1982).1 Jauss’s conception of the ‘horizon of expectations’ allows us to take into consideration the dynamism and complexity of the recipient culture with its different driving and shaping forces. The ‘horizon of expectations’ of any given set of readers is identifiable, or ‘objectifiable’, as Jauss believes, when

1

The fullest study on the subject of Sterne in eighteenth-century France remained for a long time Barton (1911).This assumes a simplistic view of Sterne’s reception in France, in which Sterne’s work remains the superior original that was, on the whole, misunderstood by French readers, translators and imitators.The premises and conclusions of Barton’s work were more or less accepted and remained uncontested throughout the twentieth century. See, for instance, the relevant sections of Van Tieghem (1967), Green (1935) and Streeter (1970). For a different and more recent perspective, see Asfour (2003).

10

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

the latter brings to its understanding of Sterne’s work certain standards and expectations developed from its reading of other works, such as the roman comique, the picaresque novel, satire and sentimental narrative. Of course, these expectations can never be fully articulated or known, but the attempt to identify them does illuminate the relationship between the literary work and its readers. This chapter looks at significant points at which Sterne’s work was read against standards and expectations held by eighteenthcentury French readers, critics, translators and imitators, and derived from forms of writing familiar to them. It will also touch on some of the aesthetic and socio-cultural factors contributing to the recipient culture’s ‘horizon of expectations’. Tristram Shandy in English, and attitudes towards the novel The earliest discussion about Sterne in France took place in the periodical press, a popular and widespread medium during the eighteenth century through which intellectual discussions were eagerly followed by an increasingly literate public (see Censer 1994; Gough 1988, 1–11; and Sgard 1990, 247–55). Articles on Sterne appeared in the literary-philosophical or belleslettres sections of the periodical press, usually in response to recently published translations and new editions of his work. The majority focused primarily on TS because it was, as we shall see, the more controversial of Sterne’s two fictional works. ASJ was also reviewed, though a little less frequently, and there were some articles on the Letters, the BJ and the Sermons. Sterne’s work was announced, reviewed and discussed in some of the most widely distributed periodicals, including the Année littéraire (AL), the Mercure de France (MF), the Journal encyclopédique ( JE) and the Gazette littéraire de l’Europe (GLE). Many of them professed a cosmopolitan attitude and the aim to diffuse foreign, and particularly English, literature. The earliest review covered the publication in England of TS. It exemplifies the French critic’s dilemma in relation to Sterne’s novel: This is Horace’s monster.Thoughts that are moral, penetrating, delicate, salient, sound, strong, blasphemous, indiscreet, rash: this is what one finds in this book. Freedom of thought is often carried to extremes and appears with all the disorder which usually accompanies it.The author has neither plan nor principles, nor system: he only wishes to talk on and unfortunately one listens to him with pleasure.The vivacity of his imagination, the dazzling quality of his portraits, the distinctive character of his reflections; all please, all interest, all beguile. (English translation in CH, 382)2

2

‘C’est ici le monstre d’Horace. Des pensées morales, fines, délicates, saillantes, solides, fortes, impies, hazardées, téméraires: voici ce que l’on trouve dans cet Ouvrage. La liberté de penser y est portée à l’excès, & s’y présente avec tout le désordre qui l’accompagne ordinairement. L’Auteur n’a ni plan, ni principes, ni système: il ne veut que parler, et malheureusement on l’écoute avec plaisir. La vivacité de son imagination, le feu de ses portraits, le caractère de ses réfléxions, tout plaît, tout intéresse et tout séduit’ ( JE, 15 April 1760, 150–51).

Sterne in Eighteenth-Century France

11

The reference to Horace’s view of unity, harmony and propriety in art, expressed in the The Art of Poetry (Ars poetica), reveals the extent to which eighteenth-century critics continued to be influenced by the neo-classical principles established during the previous century by writers and theorists such as Boileau, ‘législateur de Parnasse’. For the first reviewer of TS, this text represents all that deviates from the tradition. Without order, plan or principles, it cannot contain the truthful – or rather appropriate – representation of nature, and thus poses a direct challenge to French literary culture. Nevertheless, the critic betrays a reluctant fascination with TS.The pleasure he takes in the liveliness of Sterne’s imagination demonstrates a significant departure from the classical view of the imagination as secondary to reason.3 Sterne’s vivid imagination ‘seduces’ the reviewer, who finds the text pleasurable almost in spite of his better judgement, and certainly in contradiction to his own critical tradition. Confused but perceptive, this critic is an ambiguous voice that marks the beginning of a discussion about Sterne in the French periodical press. From 1761 to 1767, the JE printed a series of reviews covering the publication in England of volumes three to nine of TS, which are far more negative in tone than the article of 1760.They emphasize the ways in which TS departs from French literary standards, and associate Sterne’s ‘originality’ with negative connotations. Since the seventeenth century, originalité used in reference to a work of art was frequently a synonym of bizarrerie and extravagance. A tradition that conceived of art as the imitation of nature and of classical models associated originality with excess and transgression. ‘It is hard to see how such nonsense [extravagance] could have such a prodigious success’, says one critic of TS (CH, 382–83).4 But with the birth of ‘aesthetics’ in the mid-century, the notion of originality began to change.5 As Mortier (1982) has pointed out, it began to take on the meanings of singularity and uniqueness, and came to be valued as a quality in art. While referring to the disorder and perceived lack of ‘common sense’ of TS, complaints about Sterne’s originality encompassed the idea of overstepping the boundaries of aesthetic decorum and morality. Such objections reveal an aspect of the French reader’s ‘horizon of expectations’ that relates to attitudes towards the genre of the novel. In fact, while TS was not considered to be a ‘novel’ in the sense that it is today, the JE articles of 1761–67 attack TS in terms that reflect both the neo-classical disdain for the burlesque and some of the more negative eighteenth-century attitudes towards the novel. The debate about the genre continued throughout the century, and Georges May (1963) has identified the ‘dilemma’ faced by the novel when confronted by its critics.Without classical precedents and a well3

4

5

Descartes and Malebranche had linked the imagination to the sensual perception of the external world rather than to the tasteful ordering of it which is the activity of reason. See Becq (1994), Chouillet (1974) and Folkierski (1969). ‘On ne conçoit pas comment une pareille extravagance a pû avoir un si prodigieux succès’ (JE, May 1761, 131). The German philosopher A. G. Baumgarten first used the term ‘aesthetics’ in his 1735 dissertation.The word was not published until his Æsthetica (1750–58).

12

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

defined form established over centuries, the novel was vulnerable to criticism that it was a lightweight, unstructured genre for feeble minds. Furthermore, since its subject matter was love, it was also prone to accusations of moral corruption and the ability to lead astray women and the young. Finally, novels containing exotic adventures filled with chance encounters, perfect heroes and heroines, and happy endings were accused of invraisemblance, or a lack of verisimilitude. Hence the tendency during the period for novelists, including Marivaux, Prévost and Crébillon fils, to call their works mémoires (‘memoirs’), histoires (‘histories’) or lettres (‘letters’) rather than identify them as romans (‘novels’), and to defend their chosen form in their prefaces. The English TS thus provoked aesthetic and moral criticisms that were usually reserved for the increasingly popular novel. TS was charged with being indecent and vulgar: the review of volumes five and six, for instance, concludes as follows: ‘One finds here the same indecent allusions, the same tedious digressions, the same extravagant sallies which characterized the preceding volumes’ (CH, 383),6 and volume nine is attacked for its ‘indecency and … triviality of thought’ (‘indécence & ... trivialité de pensées’, JE, March 1767, 145). Aesthetically, TS flouted all the familiar principles of artistic decorum: ‘we do not understand how Mr. Sterne, a clergyman of York, has been able to push this outlandish [bisarre] production so far’ (CH, 384).7 TS was considered to be a low form of writing, and was associated with the ill-defined burlesque rather than with the rigorously structured classical genres: ‘nearly everywhere he [Sterne] mixes the sacred and the profane; religion does not escape his jokes. In a word, he is a very witty and very scandalous jester.’8 Sometimes, the digressions, lack of chronology and mixture of registers and tones in TS were considered to constitute an allegory or ‘mask’ rather than to be an integral part of the text’s meaning. Critics searched in vain for some profound underlying wisdom.Antoine JeanBaptiste Suard, who would become one of the most eminent journalists of the period, expressed a feeling of disappointment on the part of the reading public in not having found some rational significance behind the bouffonerie.To Suard, the originality was a mere gimmick to capture audiences, and he makes a comparison between the serial publication of TS and a confidence trick: [Volumes one and two] both amused the public, and exercised its curiosity. They were supposed to contain a pleasant and delicate satire, in which a sage put on a fool’s cap to disguise his views. This same sage published soon after four volumes more, which were read with the greatest avidity; their readers, nevertheless, awaked out of their dream, and, to their great surprise [sic], began to perceive, that they did not understand the joke.Their patience, however, was

6

7

8

‘On trouve ici les mêmes allusions indécentes, les mêmes digressions ennuyeuses, les mêmes saillies extravagantes qui distinguent les volumes précédens [sic]’ (JE, March 1762, 143). ‘Nous ne concevons pas comment Mr. Sterne, béneficier d’Yorck, a pu pousser si loin cette bisarre production’ (JE, January 1766, 137). ‘il mêle presque partout le sacré avec le profane; la Religion n’échappe pas à ses saillies. C’est en un mot, un bouffon três [sic] spirituel & très scandaleux’ (JE, October 1762, 96).

Sterne in Eighteenth-Century France

13

not exhausted; they still expected to be led into the secret; they fondly imagined that there really was a secret; and that if they did not perceive the design of the author and the cream of the jest, it was their own fault. Some imagined that they had discovered a profound meaning in a scene of buffoonery, where there was no meaning at all. At length the public [sic] began to see clearly that Mr. STERNE had amused himself at their cost, and that his work was a riddle, without an object. This adventure is not unlike the famous story of the man who, some years ago, informed the public, that he would put himself in a bottle before their eyes. The credulous multitude, both great and small, flocked to the theatre to behold this wonder; but the droll carried away their money and left the bottle empty; not, however more empty than the last two volumes of the life of Tristram Shandy. (translated in the London Chronicle XVII, No. 1299, 10–18 April 1765, 373)9

A Sentimental Journey and Tristram Shandy in French translation: preoccupations with national identity Contemporary discussions about the novel overlapped with questions of national identity that arose in the wake of an increase in the translation and consumption of English novels in the middle of the century.The year 1769 marks an important turning point in the reception of Sterne’s work, thanks to the publication of Joseph-Pierre Frénais’s translation of ASJ as Voyage sentimental (VS).This was the first time French readers could sample Sterne’s work directly instead of simply reading news about its publication in England in the periodical press, and it was available in a highly accessible form. ASJ was shorter than TS, consisted of fewer digressions and more sentimental episodes, and was about France. Its appeal was so apparent that it was translated less than a year after its publication in English. TS, on the other hand, had to wait eleven years, until 1776, for its first, incomplete translation into French, and a further nine, until 1785, for a complete translation. The 1740s and 1750s had seen a dramatic increase in the translation of English fiction.The novels of Richardson and Fielding were translated, and many French novels contained English characters or English settings, and carried false London imprints. The adoption of Britain as a compelling

9

‘Ces deux Tomes piquerent la curiosité des Lecteurs; on crut y voir une satyre fine et gaie où le sage se cachoit sous le masque de la folie. Le Sage a publié quatre autres Volumes qu’on a lus avec avidité, et on a été surpris de n’y rien comprendre. Les Lecteurs attendoient toujours quelque chose et croyoient que s’ils n’entendoient rien c’étoient leur faute; ceux qui cherchent finesse à tout découvroient un sens profond dans des bouffonneries que n’en avoient aucun. Enfin, on finit par s’appercevoir que M. Sterne s’étoit diverti aux dépens du Public et que son Ouvrage étoit à peu près une enigme que n’avoit point de mot. Cette aventure ressemble beaucoup à celle de la bouteille de deux pintes dans laquelle un Charlatan Anglois promit, il y a quelques années, qu’il entreroit publiquement sur le Théatre de Haymarket. Le Charlatan emporta l’argent des Spectateurs et leur laissa la bouteille vide sur la table. Elle n’étoit pas plus vide que la vie de Tristram Shandy’ (GLE, 20 March 1765, 40–41).

14

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

imaginative space in French culture and the concomitant absorption of English literature by the reading public played a part in the transformation in political and cultural relations between the two countries during the period. In the previous century, Louis XIV had centralized his authority in relation to the regions, consolidated political power in Europe, and conquered colonial territories. French culture had also been undisputed in its supremacy: French was spoken in every European court and French literature provided a model of neo-classical elegance and national selfexpression. During the eighteenth century, however, Britain asserted its economic and political power and forged itself as a nation through a succession of wars with France.10 Its political rise was accompanied by a rich and diverse literary culture. France found not only its colonies attacked by British forces, but also its domestic culture invaded by British philosophy, literature, tourists and fashions in food, dress and landscape gardening (see Grieder 1985; Mat-Hasquin 1981; Texte 1895). Many despised blind anglomanie and the popular taste for English novels, and responded with equally fervent anglophobie (Nordmann 1984). English fiction was frequently considered to be ignorant of the ‘universal’ rules of genre perfected in seventeenth-century France, and was believed to constitute a vehicle for the introduction of a lesser, foreign aesthetic standard. At the same time, however, some distinguished between run-of-the-mill sensational novels and those with more literary value. Diderot’s Eloge de Richardson (1762; 1980) expressed a preference for Clarissa over Prévost’s gallicizing translation of it. Richardson and Fielding in particular were considered worthy models for French novelists because they represented the highest possible manifestation of the genre: they had moral intentions as well as aesthetic concerns with psychological and social realism. The English novel was therefore increasingly seen to provide a solution to the common charge against the genre in France that it was morally and aesthetically corrupting. ASJ represented a rare English work that was sympathetic towards France and French culture. Sterne’s positive depiction of French mores contrasted with other English travel narratives of the period, most notoriously Smollett’s Travels through France and Italy (1766), whose splenetic narratortraveller grumbled his way around France and was satirized by Sterne as Smelfungus. An article announcing Frénais’ translation reveals an appreciation of Sterne’s sympathy towards France: This journey is a gay and pleasing painting of French life; but Mr. Sterne’s good humor does not prevent him from being touched by everything that wounds humanity and showing the most tender sensibility: this is what has led him to call his work ‘sentimental’. (CH, 388)11 10

11

The War of Spanish Succession (1702–13), the War of Austrian Succession (1739– 48), the Seven Years War (1756–63), the French Revolutionary War (1793–1802) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15). See Colley (1992) and Black (1986). ‘Ce voyage est une peinture gaye & plaisante des mœurs françoises; mais la bonne humeur de M. Sterne ne l’empêche point d’être touché de tout ce qui blesse l’humanité, & de montrer la sensibilité la plus tendre; c’est ce qui l’a engagé de donner à son ouvrage le titre de Sentimental’ ( JE, July 1769, 71).

Sterne in Eighteenth-Century France

15

The publication of VS ensured Sterne’s successful reception in France. From 1769, his tendency to digress was no longer regarded as transgressive or immoral, but was associated instead with sympathy and the finer feelings: It is useless to look for order or connection in the productions of Sterne – he loses himself in endless digressions, one leading him to another; he forgets his main objective and often makes his readers forget it while he secures their interest with the strokes of a tender and genuine sensibility which draws their tears. (CH, 388)12

The sentimental episodes are seen to provide the main moral structure of the work, holding together the otherwise chaotic narrative and compensating for its irregularities. Significantly, the adjective ‘sentimental’ did not previously exist in French. Frénais coined the word from English for his translation, as he explains in his Preface. The translator’s neologism is a symbol of the successful integration of Sterne’s shorter novel in France. Sterne’s death in 1769 led to an interest in his life and character, to the point of mythologization of both man and work. Raynal’s Eulogy for Eliza (Eloge d’Eliza, 1770), which would appear in reprints of the French ASJ and Letters as well as in some imitations, contributed to the sentimental Sterne cult. Sterne’s visits to France had been particularly instrumental in the initial stages of his celebrity. He first went in 1761 for health reasons. France and England were engaged in the Seven Years War but he managed to travel with the diplomatic party of George Pitt who was on his way to the court of Turin to participate in the peace negotiations. After Paris, he settled with his wife and daughter in Toulouse before moving to Montpellier from 1762 to 1764. He returned to Paris on his way back to England in the spring of 1764, when he was asked by Lord Hertford, the British ambassador in Paris, to preach in his chapel to celebrate the opening of the embassy. Prominent members of Parisian intellectual and social circles, as well as the anglophone community in Paris, would have been present at this sermon. He passed through Paris again in October 1765 on his way to Italy and in May 1766 on his way back (Cash 1986; Ross 2001). Sterne earned a certain amount of notoriety in Paris, where he met philosophes, politicians, princes and writers. These included Pelletier, Suard, the abbé Morellet, the prince de Conti, the comte de Bissy (the comte de B* in ASJ helps Yorick with his passport), the duc d’Orléans (see LY, passim), the Baron d’Holbach, Diderot and Crébillon fils, whose novel, The Wanderings of the Heart and Mind (Les Egarements du cœur et de l’esprit, 1736), is carried by the charming fille de chambre in ASJ. He famously ‘shandied it away’ in Paris as he had in London, playing up his quintessentially English

12

‘Il ne faut pas chercher de l’ordre ni de la liaison dans les productions de M. Sterne; il se perd dans des digressions infinies; l’une le conduit à l’autre; il perd de vue son objet principal, & le fait souvent oublier à ses lecteurs qu’il attache par des traits d’une sensibilité tendre & vraie qui leur arrache des larmes’ (MF, August 1769, 71).

16

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

eccentricity and allowing himself to be identified with Tristram, as he boasts in a letter to David Garrick in 1762: [I] have converted many unto Shandeism – for be it known I Shandy it away fifty times more than I was ever wont, talk more nonsense than ever you heard me talk in your days – and to all sorts of people. Qui le diable est ce homme là [sic] – said Choiseul, t’other day, ce Chevalier Shandy – You’ll think me as vain as a devil, was I to tell you the rest of the dialogue. (Letters, 157)

French readers and critics often considered ASJ to be an autobiographical account of his travels to France, and various anecdotes circulated about him. One of the most frequently repeated concerns Sterne’s opinion on the differences between the French and the English, which is fictionalized in ASJ in the scene between Yorick and the comte de B* (ASJ, 119). The French are compared with shillings because they are smooth, polished, social and similar, while the English are likened to ancient medals because they are less used to social interaction and therefore retain their originality (‘sharpnesses’). Sterne evidently used his famous coin metaphor in real life, because the story is related by Suard before the publication of ASJ (GLE 5, 20 March 1765, 39–42).13 The appearance of VS in 1769, together with Frénais’ translation of TS in 1776, paved the way for a more positive reception of TS. Frénais’ translation of ASJ remained the only one until the end of the century, revealing the ease with which it fitted into contemporary preoccupations in France during the period. In the Preface to his translation of TS, however, Frénais reveals a sense of diffidence; he thought of his translation as an experiment and decided to publish only two volumes, roughly corresponding to volumes one to four of TS, and to wait for the public’s response, so that he would not ‘waste his breath’ translating the whole novel if it was not well received. He was doubtful that a French TS would be as successful as the VS, and therefore fell back on a more traditional and conservative method of translation for the longer book. Frénais was on the whole more faithful to ASJ than to TS in his translations, despite Soupel’s claim that they were equally unfaithfully rendered (2001, 297). The final paragraph of ASJ is a famous exception, in which Frénais could not bear to conclude the book with Sterne’s bawdy suggestion about Yorick’s outstretched hand, and adds a passage to clarify the innocence of Sterne’s encounter with the fille de chambre. The notion of translation itself was changing during the course of the eighteenth century. The legacy of the seventeenth-century conception of the belles infidèles remained; this encouraged the ‘embellishment’ and ‘perfection’ of foreign texts in order to render them more palatable to French readers. English fiction, notoriously ‘unpolished’ and ignorant of classical literary principles, was often subjected to the corrective type of translation.14 But there was a progressive shift towards a more modern idea of translation, 13

14

The anecdote is repeated almost word for word by Frénais in the Introduction to his translation of ASJ and occasionally re-emerges in periodical reviews. On the translation of the English novel in eighteenth-century France, see Asfour (2001b). On the belles infidèles, see Zuber (1968).

Sterne in Eighteenth-Century France

17

which aims primarily to provide the service of accessibility for readers and to produce a literal version of the original text in their language. This idea coincided with the Romantic elevation in status of the author’s creative genius, so that the translator’s work came to be seen as secondary to the author’s. Frénais admitted he found Sterne’s novel difficult, but was confident enough to exercise the freedom and creativity of a classical translator: I had to cut out much of the original and replace it with my own invention … Actually when Sterne’s jests did not always strike me as good ones, I left them where I found them and substituted others. I believe one may take that liberty in the translation of a work whose sole purpose is to amuse, and one must just do one’s best not to have his substitutions recognized, and I will be very happy if the reader is unable to detect my presence in the book. (CH, 394)15

Frénais’ translation is, in fact, rather contradictory. On the one hand, TS posed an obvious challenge, and Frénais was unsure that French readers would like it. As a consequence, he had no qualms about adding to, substituting and omitting parts of the text. He censored Sterne’s bawdy ambiguities by choosing the ‘innocent’ meanings, inserted his own moral commentary at the end of a Shandean anecdote and suppressed the occasional anti-Catholic joke. Structurally, his addition of chapter titles provides a little more guidance for the reader and ‘tidies’ the chaotic, unchronological events. It also integrates TS into a familiar comic-satiric tradition; the roman comique usually has descriptive and comic chapter titles that comment ironically on events in the chapter. Yet on the other hand, Frénais wanted to emphasize the very originality, difficulty and humour on which TS’s fame was based. He did this by exaggerating Tristram’s typographical eccentricities and adding his own jokes here and there. Despite such recurring minor liberties, Frénais’ translation is, on the whole, recognizably TS, and permitted the reading public finally to read the notorious work in French. It was received with interest; critics and readers no longer found its digressions and burlesque elements a hindrance to literary, philosophical and moral value: All the flashes of a free and original imagination, characterize, Sir, the facetious work which I am announcing to you; a work which, in spite of its outlandish irregularities, sparkles with wit, gaiety, and sound philosophy … I will not cite, Sir, all the jokes, all the clownish scenes, all the comic situations represented in this novel … it is not true, however, that all Stern’s [sic] thoughts degenerate into frivolous flashes of wit: one finds in his work subtle and ingenious

15

‘il a fallu que je retranchasse beaucoup de l’original, et suppléer à ce que je retranchois … Les plaisanteries de M. Stern ne m’ont pas en effet paru toujours fort bonnes. Je les ai laissées où je les ai trouvées, et j’y en ai substitué d’autres. Je crois que l’on peut se permettre cette liberté dans la traduction d’un ouvrage de pur agrément. Il faut seulement faire son possible pour n’être pas reconnu, et je me trouverai fort heureux si l’on ne m’apperçoit pas’ (Frénais 1776, Preface).

18

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe allusions, adroit criticism of manners and of false scholarship, accurate and sound observations. (CH, 395)16

The work was now appreciated for its wit, descriptive realism and character portrayal: One finds in TS picturesque descriptions, subtle and ingenious reflections, and most of all, singular and striking characters … it will be a most sought after book for those who want to be amused and to observe human nature in a variety of situations.17

TS was, moreover, integrated into French culture through its identification with the French comic-satiric tradition: ‘Mr Sterne … is regarded as the Rabelais of England, and his writings do indeed deserve to be placed, in libraries, on the same shelf as the jovial clergyman of Meudon.’18 Voltaire, however, found TS rather disappointing. He appreciated Sterne in two ways, as a realist and as a writer of sermons. His article ‘Conscience’ (Voltaire 1877–85), in Questions sur l’Encyclopédie (1770), pays tribute to Sterne’s sermon, read by Trim in TS.19 Voltaire’s view of TS in this article became famous and was frequently repeated by critics in periodical reviews: Perhaps this important question [on the deceptions of conscience] has never been better treated than in the comic novel TS, written by a parish priest named Sterne, England’s second Rabelais. It resembles those ancient little vases decorated with satyrs which contained precious essences.20

16

17

18

19

20

‘Toutes les saillies d’une imagination libre & originale caractérisent, Monsieur, la production facétieuse que je vous annonce; production, qui, malgré ses irregularités bisarres, éteincèle d’esprit, de gaîté, & de bonne philosophie … Je ne vous citerai pas, Monsieur, toutes les plaisanteries, toutes les scènes bouffonnes, toutes les situations comiques que présente ce roman … Il ne faut pas croire cependant que tout l’esprit de l’auteur s’évapore en saillies frivoles: on trouve dans son ouvrage des allusions fines & ingénieuses, un [sic] critique adroite des mœurs & des faux sçavans, des réflexions pleines de justesse & de solidité’ (AL 6, 1776, Letter 1, 3, 22). ‘On y trouve des descriptions pittoresques, des réflexions fines & ingénieuses, & sur-tout des caractères singuliers & frappans ... il deviendra un des livres les plus recherchés par ceux qui veulent s’amuser & observer l’espèce humaine dans une multitude de tableaux variés’ (MF, January 1777, 131, 136). ‘M. Stern [sic] ... est regardé comme le Rabelais de l’Angleterre, & ses écrits méritent, en effet, d’être placés, dans les Bibliothèques, sur la même tablette que ceux du jovial Curé de Meudon’ (AL 6, 1776, Letter 1, 3–4). The articles in the Questions sur l’Encyclopédie, including this one, are published in the Garnier Voltaire (1877–85).The Besterman Œuvres completes, XXXV–XXXVI (1994) does not incorporate the Questions sur l’Encyclopédie as it is based on the 1769 edition of the Dictionnaire philosophique. The first English Rabelais was Swift, according to Voltaire (1734, Letter 22, 111). ‘Ce qu’on a peut-être jamais dit le mieux sur cette question importante [‘de la conscience trompeuse’] se trouve dans le livre comique de TS, écrit par un curé nommé Sterne, le second Rabelais d’Angleterre; il ressemble à ces petits satyres de l’antiquité qui renfermaient des essences précieuses’ (1877–85, XVIII, 237).

Sterne in Eighteenth-Century France

19

Voltaire was nevertheless also very critical of TS. He may have considered the sermon to be one of Sterne’s essences précieuses, but his admiration for TS was moderate. In 1777, seven years after the publication of his article on ‘Conscience’ and a few months after the appearance of Frénais’ translation, Voltaire wrote a substantial review of TS in the Journal de politique et de littérature (JPL, 25 April 1777, 568–70). Like others, he placed TS within a tradition of European comic-satiric writing that includes Swift, Scarron, Rabelais, and the two fifteenth-century German writers, Reuchlin and Hutten, but evidently he felt that Sterne fell short. According to Voltaire, Reuchlin and Hutten’s Letters of Obscure Men (Epistolae obscurorum virorum, 1515) had a more serious effect than la gaieté Françoise of Rabelais, because it was more politically effective: its publication constituted an indirect provocation of the Reformation, leading to the division of the Church. TS does not,Voltaire believes, have such political motivation or authority: ‘TS will not bring about any revolution,’ he states flatly (‘ne fera point de révolution’, trans. in CH, 393). He thus uses the notion of a comic tradition not only to classify and define TS, but also to demonstrate precisely the way in which Sterne, as a comic-satiric writer, does not fulfil the serious moral and political function he should, and to criticize him for prioritizing fame and profit instead. Interestingly, Voltaire compares Sterne with Shakespeare: ‘There are, in Sterne, flashes of superior insight, such as one finds in Shakespeare’ (trans. in CH, 392).21 He alludes to the common idea, which he had himself helped to disseminate through the Lettres philosophiques, of Shakespeare as an unpolished genius, having natural talent without aesthetic taste. He qualifies his praise for such geniuses: ‘And where do we not find them? There is an ample store of ancient authors where everyone can take his fill of inspiration at his ease’ (trans. in CH, 392).22 Voltaire thereby subverts the talent of both English writers even as he affirms it by suggesting that their genius resides in mere plagiarism. An early champion of Shakespeare, whose plays he favoured during the eighteenth century in comparison with the ‘excessive delicacy’ of French drama during the early eighteenth century, Voltaire’s attitude by 1777 – the date of his article on Sterne in the JPL – was very different and more conservative. In the Lettre à l’Académie française (1776), Voltaire responded to the enthusiastic view of Shakespeare expressed by his French translator Le Tourneur, and attacked the anglomanie which, he believed, led to an unquestioning reverence of Shakespeare above the great French playwrights. His comparison of Sterne with Shakespeare is therefore indicative of a particularly sceptical attitude towards both writers at a time when they were clearly becoming increasingly popular with the French public and critics.

21

22

‘Il y a chez Sterne [sic] des éclairs d’une raison supérieure, comme on en voit dans Shakespeare.’ ‘Et où n’en trouve-t-on pas! Il y a un ample magasin d’anciens Auteurs, où tout le monde peut puiser à son aise.’

20

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

Originality and imagination In 1785, two different and unrelated translations of volumes five to nine of TS were published by the Marquis Charles François de Bonnay and Antoine-Gilbert Griffet de la Beaume respectively. De la Beaume’s translation contrasts markedly with that of Frénais. The editors’ introduction presents his work as a solid and scholarly translation and an accurate representation of the author’s work. It is the concern with accuracy and the authority of the original writer that leads the editors to disagree with Frénais’ free method of translation: The translator did not believe it necessary, following Mr Frénais’ example, to interpret and render the author more original or lively. Sterne already is so, and one could not add to his pleasant singularity and picturesque ideas and turns of phrases.23

And indeed, de la Beaume does not add chapters, short poems or typographical novelties to imitate and rival Sterne’s. He offers reliability and erudition, which are visible as footnotes scattered throughout the text, providing biographical details about Sterne and explanatory notes, and expressing the translator’s own opinions about elements of the text.24 Bonnay, on the other hand, is more carefree and appears to take the opposite view of translation, aligning himself with Frénais. In his Preface, he presents himself as a great admirer of Sterne who continues his predecessor’s translation simply in order to understand the rest of the novel. This dilettantish attitude is refreshingly straightforward and, despite professing to adopt Frénais’ method of translation, he does not, like him, engage in a debate, weighing the pros and cons of literalness or freedom in translation, justifying his changes, and making jibes at other translators. Paradoxically, while his translation contains the addition of lively flourishes that do not exist in Sterne’s text, Bonnay’s translation is remarkably faithful – with the important exception of an added chapter consisting of an imitative sentimental vignette.25 It is also more pleasurable to read than de la Beaume’s rather pedantic translation, and therefore, in a way, truer to Sterne’s playfulness.

23

24

25

‘le Traducteur n’a pas cru non plus devoir, à l’exemple de M. Frénais, interpréter et vouloir rendre son Auteur plus original ou plus piquant: Stern l’est, sans doute, assez lui-même; et l’on ne sauroit ajouter à la plaisante singularité, à ses idées et à ses tournures pittoresques’ (Griffet de la Beaume 1785, Preface). For detailed discussions of the translations see Bandry (1994 and forthcoming), and Asfour (2003). This chapter, entitled ‘Le Pauvre et son chien’, is placed within Tristram’s travels in France (i.e. volume 7 of TS), which is divided in Bonnay’s translation between books three and four. Imitative of the sentimental vignettes in ASJ, it consists of Tristram’s meeting with a poor man whose misfortunes elicit Tristram’s initial obstinate refusal to help, then remorse, and finally belated charity. The episode recalls Yorick’s encounters with Father Lorenzo at Calais and with the old man lamenting the dead ass. One may reasonably question whether it was actually written by Bonnay or simply added to his translation.

Sterne in Eighteenth-Century France

21

This may explain the fact that this version was reprinted more often than de la Beaume’s. The existence of two rival continuations of TS reveal that, while the belles infidèles method of translation continued to be practised throughout the eighteenth century, a more modern view of translation was beginning to replace it. The idea that a translation should be truly representative of the original text goes hand in hand with the belief in the original author’s creative superiority as well as with the idea that originality may be more important than familiar literary standards. Critical responses to the full French version of TS (each of the 1785 translations was published as the continuation of Frénais’) reveal the extent to which ideas about Sterne’s originality had changed since the 1760s. It begins to be valued precisely because it is different from anything in contemporary French literature. The JE speaks positively of ‘this author who is at once gay, ingenious, sentimental, philosophical and profound’ (August 1785, 174: ‘cet auteur à la foi gai, ingénieux, sentimental, philosophe & profound’), the AL reveals a charmed delight in the motley mixture of elements in TS (8, 1785, Letter 2, 35), and finds that TS’s realistic, natural and spontaneous depiction of everyday life contrasts with a more affected French style: A real excellence of this author is that he has never tried to arouse interest by those romantic and unbelievable adventures, which are almost always false to life. His pictures are chosen from the common ranks of society, conceived with delicacy, and executed with wit and gaiety. He has, in short, the rare talent of arousing our interest by pictures and details that we see every day, and which our Authors, always stilted and affected, pretend to scorn, because they don’t know how to present them. (CH, 389)26

Sterne’s natural writing is thus seen in contrast to French works that are constructed according to traditional rules and artificial constraints. The translation into French of English aesthetic works during this period also had an effect on the appreciation of originality in art. Mortier (1982) notes the importance of Le Tourneur’s translation of Edward Young’s Conjectures on Original Composition (1759; Le Tourneur 1770) to the development of ideas of originality: Le Tourneur’s analysis [of Young] recognizes with an admirable finesse the radical change that came about around 1760 in the perception of art and in the function attributed to it. Beauty was no longer felt to be a perfect balance, a harmony to be contemplated, something cut off from its creator and living an autonomous life, like an object of delectation that is judged according to the undisputed canon.

26

‘Un véritable mérite de cet Ecrivain, c’est de n’avoir point cherché à exciter l’intérêt par ces aventures romanesques & extraordinaires, qui sont presque toujours hors de la nature. Ses tableaux sont puisés dans l’ordre commun de la société, saisis avec finesse, & tracés avec esprit & avec gaieté. Il a enfin le secret, si rare actuellement, de nous intéresser par des peintures & des détails que nous voyons tous les jours, & que nos Auteurs, toujours guindés & précieux, affectent de dédaigner, faute de pouvoir les rendre’ (AL 7, 1786, Letter 9, 109–10).

22

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe From now on, art was expected to be the faithful – and if possible complete – expression of its creator’s singularity. The relation between man and work was made evident and its importance was privileged. Beauty (in the traditional aesthetic sense) was less important than the produced effect. Since art became an unveiling (the imitator ‘masked his soul’), a stripping down to the original person that we carry inside ourselves, it was thus that which was most intimate and individual in us. Its value was not linked to formal criteria, but to the quality of the relation between it and that which is lived, that is to say, to the authenticity of its voice.27

In the critical reviews of Sterne’s work, this general change in aesthetic ideas provides a framework for the increasing appreciation of its originality. The JE, for instance, writes: There are pliant and facile geniuses who are formed in part by the prevailing taste and who perhaps would be nothing without it; there are others, in contrast, truly original, who could not be purified by the prevailing taste, who cannot be enslaved by the yoke of rules, and who are from the beginning what they will always be. Such was Sterne. (CH, 398)28

Finally, the new appreciation of originality as a separate critical category must also be linked with that of the imagination, both as a creative force and as a faculty through which art is judged. No longer considered only to be dangerous and potentially irrational, the imagination now signalled liberty in artistic production, and was associated with a more general rejection of ancien régime values. In the JE, one critic reveals an appreciation of Sterne’s meandering imagination in language that is itself distinctly sinuous and ‘free’: His fertile & animated imagination rises, falls, travels through all tones and subjects.The most vivid and true paintings, the finest and most gay critiques,

27

28

‘... l’analyse que nous propose Le Tourneur rend compte avec une admirable finesse du changement radical qui s’est produit, autour de 1760, dans la perception de l’art et dans la fonction qu’on lui attribue. La beauté n’est plus ressentie comme un équilibre parfait, comme une harmonie qui se laisse contempler, comme une chose entièrement coupée de son créateur et vivant d’une vie autonome, comme un objet de délectation que l’on juge en fonction de canons indiscutés. On attend dorénavant de l’art qu’il soit l’expression fidèle – et si possible intégrale – de la singularité de son créateur. La relation de l’homme et de l’œuvre est mise en évidence et son importance est privilégiée. La beauté (au sens de l’esthétique traditionnelle) compte moins que l’effet produit. Puisque l’art devient un dévoilement (l’imitateur est celui qui ‘masque son âme’), une mise à nu de l’original que nous portons en nous, il se doit de procéder de ce qu’il y a en nous de plus intime et de plus individuel. Sa valeur n’est pas liée à des critères formels, mais à la qualité de la relation qui existe entre lui et le vécu, c’est-à-dire à l’authenticité de sa voix’ (1770, 90–91). ‘Il est des génies souples & faciles que le goût forme en partie, & qui peut-être ne seroient rien sans lui: il en est d’autres au contraire, vraiment originaux, que le goût ne sauroit épurer, que le joug des règles ne peut asservir, & qui sont d’abord ce qu’ils seront toujours.Tel fut M. Sterne’ (JE, May 1785, 71).

Sterne in Eighteenth-Century France

23

the richness of poetry, the seductions of eloquence, the sweetest emanations of morality and sentiment flow without order, one after the other, from his smooth, natural and abandoned pen.29

Imitations: sentiment and ideology We have seen that, although it was initially perceived as both morally and aesthetically suspect, TS came to be appreciated for its naturalness, spontaneity and realism. It was compared favourably with frivolous adventure novels, as well as with more strictly structured and rule-bound forms of writing. ASJ, while also recognized for its originality and quirkiness, owed much of its success to the ease with which it was integrated into the culture of sentimentalism. The reception of ASJ by French readers was inevitably conditioned by the ‘horizon of expectations’ generated from the reading of familiar sentimental narratives. Meanwhile ASJ itself impacted upon these texts and led to the development of an imitative sub-genre that reveals the ways in which it was absorbed into, merged with, or resisted the existing literary trends in sentimentalism during the period. The presence of A Sentimental Journey in the minor prose fiction of the period is very palpable. Several texts refer to Sterne or take up the title of ‘voyage sentimental’, and frequently appear to do so without being aware of the origin of their ideas. Saint-Amans’s Fragments d’un voyage sentimental et pittoresque (1789) and Brune’s Voyage pittoresque et sentimental dans plusieurs provinces occidentales de la France (1788), for instance, are picturesque voyages reminiscent of Rousseau’s wanderings in nature. They are autobiographical journey narratives that have little to do with Sterne apart from the borrowing, probably unconscious, of his title. In some works, Sterne’s sentimental travelling topos and Rousseau’s recurring theme of sentimental country meanderings are intermingled, although Sterne’s two ironic and eccentric travellers,Tristram and Yorick, are very different from Rousseau’s earnest and self-examining promeneur solitaire. Damin’s Le Voyageur curieux et sentimental (1799–1800), for instance, begins as a comic Sternean journey and quickly turns into a reverie-filled pilgrimage to Rousseau’s tomb at Ermenonville. Overt references to Sterne are common in a variety of minor works, and many were spuriously attributed to him, although they had little in common with his work. Rutledge’s La Quinzaine anglaise à Paris (1776), a parable that warns British tourists about how they can lose their money in Paris, masqueraded as a posthumous work by Sterne. The anonymous Tableau sentimental de la France depuis la Révolution (1792) claimed to be the translation of a work by Yorick, Sterne’s nephew. There was even a musical comedy that exploited Sterne’s role as a literary celebrity. Sterne à Paris, ou Le

29

‘Son imagination fertile & animée s’éleve, s’abaisse, parcourt tous les tons & tous les sujets. Les peintures les plus vives & les plus vraies, les critiques les plus fines & les plus gaies, les richesses de poésie, les séductions de l’éloquence, les plus douces émanations de la morale & du sentiment, coulent tour à tour sans ordre de sa plume facile, naturelle & à l’abandon’ (JE, 1 August 1786, 524–27).

24

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

Voyageur sentimental, was performed in the vaudeville theatre in 1799. It incorporated episodes from A Sentimental Journey and anecdotes about Sterne’s visits to France, played with French stereotypes of Englishness, and patriotically asserted French identity during the post-Revolutionary period. Some texts explicitly ‘imitated’ ASJ. These usually feature a first person narrator, whose identity is merged with that of the imitating author and conflated with Yorick, Tristram and Sterne himself. The narrator travels around a largely rural France, noting his observations and experiences, and thereby linking together an otherwise disparate group of sentimental episodes or tableaux. In general, these depict chance encounters between the narrator-traveller and members of the lower social orders or of the impoverished nobility. As in ASJ, the emphasis is on the narrator’s sentiments and his responses to events or people, and the aim is to elicit the reader’s sympathy. These imitative texts, which I shall call voyages sentimentaux, were written before and during the revolutionary period, and are permeated by ideo-logical concerns. The sentimental literature of the period should be read ‘not just as a corpus of themes but as a phenomenon possessing real social referents and historical meanings’ (Denby 1994, 5).While sentimental fiction encouraged widespread interest in humanitarian issues, the ‘universal’ values it propounded were frequently those of a particular social group. In the case of Sterne’s imitators these values varied, since Sterne, like Rousseau, was adopted by writers who had monarchist, republican or reformist leanings.30 Thus, while Sterne’s imitators borrow and imitate many aspects of ASJ, their naïve and politically motivated sentimentalism differs greatly from Sterne’s highly self-conscious sentimentalism. In Le Voyageur sentimental (1786), for example, François Vernes uses Sterne’s sentimental travelling topos to create a text that is permeated with republicanism. Vernes was from the ascendant Protestant bourgeoisie of Geneva and believed in the ‘patriotic’ reform of the state. He uses the framework of a Sternean, quixotic journey undertaken by the young narrator and his appropriately named friend La Joye, together with episodic sentimental tableaux in order to convey his republican sympathies. The sentimentalism of Julie de Lespinasse and Jean-Claude Gorjy, by contrast, is employed for more conservative purposes. Gorjy’s Nouveau voyage sentimental (1784) reveals a clear anti-republican ideology and expresses instead the belief in reform within a benevolent monarchy. This is apparent in the story of the chevalier d’Orbeville, who marries the girl chosen by his aristocratic father rather than the woman he loves. After revolutionaries seize his father’s estate and his wife dies, Orbeville goes to seek his love. However, he is eventually reinstated at his ancestral home, welcomed by the local church and peasants.The ideal social structure, to Gorjy, is that of a union between a benevolent aristocracy and peasants.31

30

31

McFarland (1995). For an overview of the variety of critical, literary, and political texts inspired by Rousseau, see Roussel (1972) and Trousson (1977). Gorjy also wrote Ann’quin Bredouille, ou le petit cousin de Tristram Shandy (1792), which has little to do with Sterne. It is a long satire and political allegory in which the principal character, loosely modelled on Uncle Toby, travels through Néomanie, a fictional land representing revolutionary France.

Sterne in Eighteenth-Century France

25

Lespinasse engages with ASJ in a fairly sustained and creative way, but her imitation also reveals an ideological brand of sentimentalism. Lespinasse is remembered today for helping to host Madame du Deffand’s salon before leaving to hold her own, as well as for her close friendship with D’Alembert, and her passionate correspondence with the Comte de Guibert. She wrote the Deux chapitres dans le genre du Voyage sentimental (Two Chapters in the Style of the Sentimental Journey) during the early 1770s, but it was published posthumously in 1809 in the first edition of her letters.32 It consists of two short prose chapters freely inspired by Sterne’s sentimentalism, the quality which she believes redeems his imperfect and irregular style. In the first chapter, ‘Monsieur Sterne’ is the narrator. Encouraged by his servant La Fleur, he takes pity on the worker who has been charged with delivering a vase.When it breaks, Sterne not only forgives him but also is charitable enough to offer him some money. The sensibility Lespinasse propounds in this story remains firmly within the traditional social structure and is both condescending and aristocratic. There is no hint of the characteristic Sternean irony that exposes the dangers and self-indulgence of sensibility. She does not express a desire to change the social system that permits workers to be at the mercy of their exploitative employers and dependent upon the charity of the richer classes. The solution she offers – sympathy for the worker’s plight, which at least leads to practical and active charity – does not subvert the system. The next chapter, in which Sterne narrates a dinner party at Madame G’s, contains a similar message. Madame G explains why the guests are given sour milk for their coffee: she had been deeply moved by the sentimental récit of her milkmaid, whose cow had died and left her entire family without a source of income. Madame G’s benevolence is inspired by the milkmaid’s story of suffering, and the chapter ends with Sterne giving his authoritative approval of Madame G’s sensibility. Madame G is overwhelmed by Sterne’s response and she embraces him. Lespinasse thus creates a sentimental relationship between her two characters that represents what she believes to be a sentimental literary relationship between her text and Sterne’s (Asfour 2001a). The anonymous Tableau sentimental de la France depuis la Révolution (1792) (Sentimental Portrait of France since the Revolution) is more directly political, openly criticizes the chaotic results of the revolution and looks nostalgically at the ancien régime. It is dedicated to Raynal who, in his Lettre à l’Assemblée nationale (1791) (Letter to the National Assembly), criticized the disorder and violence of the revolutionary government.The narrator of this text is Sterne, who is revisiting Paris after the revolution and finds it changed for the worse. It is not a travel narrative but uses the travel motif in order to

32

Barton notes the possibility that Lespinasse is the author of another text inspired by Sterne, Le Seigneur de chateau, chapitre cinquantième du Voyage sentimental (The Lord of the Castle, Fifth Chapter of the Sentimental Journey). This is disputable, since its style is very different to that of the Deux chapitres. He also names another text by her, Une promenade à l’Hôtel … (A Walk to the Hotel …), which has not yet been found.

26

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

introduce a variety of tableaux that include Sterne’s observations, conversations, sentiments, and Rousseauist rêveries as he wanders around Paris or remains in his lodgings.The story of Dugg is a central episode in this work. This young woman is a typical object of sentimental pity: in the sentimental ethic her suffering and misfortune render her interesting and noble (Tableau, 38–39). Her directionless wandering and her fragmentary and irrational phrases are a sign of psychological and emotional distress. She may be compared with ‘poor Maria’, one of Sterne’s most famous sentimental figures, who makes her first appearance in Volume nine of TS and reemerges in ASJ. In TS, there is an evocative lead-up to Tristram’s meeting with her, in which his emotions are aroused by the sweet sound of her flute and the coach driver’s pity for her. Nevertheless, during their meeting, he cannot refrain from asking a question (does he resemble her goat?) that may be taken for a joke (TS, III, 74).Tristram’s sentimental tableau is not straightforward but reveals the potential to become ridiculous. Similarly, the portrayal of Maria in ASJ, though longer, more drawn out and affecting, nevertheless retains a hint of comedy, particularly in the interaction between her and Yorick as they soak the handkerchief alternately (ASJ, 151). According to Bell (2000, 67–73), Sterne was one of the earliest writers of popular sentimental fiction to demonstrate an awareness that sentimentalism had both moral and aesthetic aspects. While Sterne is not simply satirizing sentimentalism, his own sentimentalism is always self-conscious. Yorick’s sensitive, vibrating nerves are susceptible to sexual titillation and threaten the ‘virtue’ of his sensibility, though they never actually do so.The episode of the fille de chambre is an example of this, and Maria’s physical beauty certainly encourages Yorick’s pity and inspires his wish that she should ‘lay in my bosom’ – as a daughter, he adds somewhat belatedly (ASJ, 154). His sentimentalism is also prone to egotism: at the height of his tearful exchange with Maria,Yorick reflects on himself and on the existence of his soul, which he believes is proved by his ability to sympathize with Maria. Yorick’s constant examination of his own responses to the objects of his pity hint at the ambiguity and potential selfishness of sympathy (see Mullan 1988, 200, on the dangerously private nature of Sterne’s sentimentalism). In the Tableau sentimental, however, there is no such self-consciousness, and sentiment is employed in the promotion of a political viewpoint. The narrator, ‘Sterne’, talks to Dugg, and learns that she has arrived in Paris to save her father from prison but has run out of money. He buys her bundle of clothes in an act of charity. It is evident to him that she has seen better days, and he learns her story on finding her love letters in the bundle.Thus, in return for his benevolence, he is given a sentimental récit. He learns that her lover Sylv… (interestingly, Sylvio is the name of Maria’s dog) is a young hothead who has been led astray by the republican cause, and one night leads a horde of republicans to attack the home of Dugg’s aristocratic father. Cruel Sylv…, ignoring her pleas, throws her father into prison and gloats triumphantly.The sympathy that the reader is guided to feel for her is used to political effect: the republicans are monsters because they are insensible to Dugg’s signs of distress and inner sensibility – what she calls ‘my efforts, my tears, my moans’ (‘mes efforts, mes pleurs, mes gémissemens’, Tableau, 59).

Sterne in Eighteenth-Century France

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Pierre Blanchard’s Le Rêveur sentimental (An IV/1795) (A Sentimental Dreamer), meanwhile, is a sentimental journey that takes place entirely in the mind, and exhibits republican sympathies similar to those of Vernes. Published almost a decade after Vernes’s text, however, Blanchard’s is less optimistic about the success of republicanism.The text consists of a random mixture of memories, passing thoughts, imagined scenarios and fantasies, linked only by the fact that they all occur in the mind of the narrator Pierre, a fictionalized version of the author. From Rousseau, Blanchard takes the idea of mental travelling and borrows certain terms, such as rêverie and pauvre sauvage, while from Sterne he adopts a disordered narrative structure punctuated by a number of sentimental episodes that he remembers, dreams or imagines. These are on the whole formulaic sentimental encounters: he is moved by the hospitality of a poor and virtuous old couple who treat him like a patriotic hero; he refrains from seducing an attractive peasant girl because he hears the story of her older sister Adélaïde, who became pregnant and died of grief when her lover left her; he sighs over a blind young man named Isadore, who gives up the woman he loves because he does not wish to impose his blindness on her. At one point, he contemplates prison and draws a sentimental portrait of a prisoner in order to praise the faculty of the imagination: the poor man buried there [in prison] must have vivid dreams … he only has his heart for consolation, his imagination is the universe. He dreams, his eyes fixed heavily on the straw on which he lies. His dream ended, he lifts his head. I see him drag himself to the barred basement window that offers him a ray of light. He contemplates the grass that steals from him a part of his day. Oh! how sombre and melancholy is his face! it expresses his black and gloomy thoughts.33

The prisoner, like the author himself, needs to dream and use his imagination in order to overcome the limitations of reality. This figure is modelled on Yorick’s captive in ASJ, who is similarly imagined in order to contemplate slavery and ‘the miseries of confinement’ (ASJ, 97). However, there are important differences between the two portraits. Yorick’s portrayal is selfconsciously crafted. He realizes that he cannot begin to sympathize with all the victims of slavery. Nor can he elicit sympathy from readers by speaking in general, abstract terms about slavery. He needs to focus on the portrait of one particular victim, to ‘bring it near’ him (ASJ, 97–8).Yorick is aware of the necessity to use the imagination and fiction in order to encourage – and even manipulate – himself and the reader into having an emotional response in relation to slavery. His rather comic ability to work himself up into tears

33

‘le malheureux qui y [in prison] est enséveli doit faire des rêves bien fortement exprimés ... il n’a que son cœur pour consolateur, il n’a que son imagination pour univers; il rêve, la vue pesamment attachée sur la paille où il est couché. Son rêve est achevé, il relève la tête; je le vois se traîner vers le long soupirail que lui donne un rayon de lumière; il considère l’herbe qui lui dérobe une partie de son jour. Oh! que sa figure est sombre et mélancholique! c’est l’expression de ses pensées noires et lugubres’ (Blanchard, I, iii–iv).

28

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

emphasizes the manipulative and egotistical aspect of the sympathetic process: he can only feel for someone with whom he can identify, so he must draw the captive realistically and make him familiar to the person (Yorick or the reader) who beholds him. The context of Yorick’s portrait of the captive is also significant: Yorick is inspired to contemplate confinement because he is, himself, threatened with imprisonment in the Bastille for travelling in France without his passport. Although Mullan believes that Sterne’s sentimentalism is on the whole self-regarding, he points out that Yorick’s manipulative sympathy has much in common with the conscious sympathy evoked in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), in which self-preservation and self-love play an important role in the motivation of benevolence (Mullan 1988, 194). Yorick’s sympathy for the imagined captive arises from his own situation, and also inspires him to action: he decides to go see the Duc de Choiseul and save himself – if not his fellow human beings – from imprisonment. The ambiguity of Yorick’s motives demonstrates that Sterne is deeply aware of the issues at stake in the fictional representation of misfortune and suffering. Blanchard’s portrait of the dreaming prisoner, however, is not self-conscious and does not reveal anything about the workings of sympathy itself. It is drawn in order to praise the liberating quality of the imagination. Blanchard is responding to Sterne’s mention of the Bastille, the symbol of the political oppression of the ancien régime. For him, imagination and ‘rêve’ can overcome this oppression, and sentimental dreaming is presented as a democratic act because it permits everyone to be equal. But Blanchard’s reveries are purely escapist.While he can remember, dream about and describe touching scenes and stories, his sensibility is cultivated in an armchair by the fireplace, with his faithful friend Constant dozing next to him (Blanchard, I, 26–7). The voyages sentimentaux express very different political attitudes, but in all of them, sentimentalism functions in a simplistic manner. While Sterne fictionally explores and dramatizes the complexities and ideology of sympathy, his early French imitators simply reflect ideology.This was usually a conservative ideology that affirmed a belief in enlightened monarchy, but increasingly came to serve the cause of moderate republican authors, particularly during the 1780s and 1790s. While the voyages sentimentaux have little intrinsic aesthetic value, they nevertheless reveal the extent to which Sterne, and ASJ in particular, permeated French culture. Sterne’s presence pervades the popular sentimental fiction of the period, references to him are common, and his personality and writings are exploited in a plethora of ways. TS and Jacques le fataliste Do you know Rabelais? Do you know Sterne? If you don’t know them, I advise you to read them, especially Sterne. But if you wish to see a very feeble imitation of TS, read Jacques le fataliste. (CH, 405)34 34

‘Vous connaissez Rabelais? vous connaissez Sterne? Si vous ne les connaissez pas, je vous conseille de les lire, sur-tout le dernier. Mais si vous voulez connaître une très-faible imitation du Tristram-Shandy, vous n’avez qu’à lire Jacques le fataliste’ (DPLP, 1796, 224).

Sterne in Eighteenth-Century France

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This eighteenth-century view of Jacques le fataliste (JF; Diderot 1976) as a poor imitation of TS is well and truly outdated. Sterne is now regarded to be only one of several sources in JF, among Cervantes, Rabelais, Montaigne, Molière and Goldoni, which Diderot uses to create a very different text with its own aims, significances and coherence (e.g. see Kempf 1964). However, several late twentieth-century critics and novelists have spoken of TS and JF in the same breath, usually as precursors of the modern novel. Digressive and self-conscious texts have been ‘rediscovered’ thanks to the modern emphasis on the formal aspects of writing since Shklovsky (1965). Bakhtin’s theories of dialogism and the ‘carnivalesque’ have also led to an interest in the fragmentary, parodic and multi-vocal nature of TS and JF. Milan Kundera, for instance, praises both texts for challenging the notion of unity in the novel (1986, 105–06), and sees them as landmarks in the history of the novel.35 Sterne’s long-term presence in France may be related to the path taken by JF, rather than that taken by the sentimental imitations. Of course, the cult of sentimentalism was short-lived, but its legacy lasted well into the Romantic period and to the realist novel, through such elements as the depiction of ordinary characters and everyday life, the love of nature, the realistic spontaneity of dialogue, and the use of the pathetic. Some of these qualities overlapped with aspects of JF, which, if considered partly as a picaresque novel, was certainly concerned with the representation of a lower-class world and ordinary characters. Nevertheless, JF differs significantly from the voyages sentimentaux. While the latter absorbed Sterne into sentimentalism, focusing on ASJ and the sentimental episodes of TS, Diderot concentrated on the longer novel and associated Sterne with aspects of the picaresque, burlesque and comic-satiric traditions. The minor and now forgotten imitators integrated Sterne into a popular culture of ideology and Rousseauist sensibility, and neutralized ASJ’s subversive critique of sentimentalism in the process. Diderot’s absorption of Sterne, by contrast, involved the exploration of self-conscious narrative, irony and the relationship between reader and text. Eighteenth-century reviewers, as I mentioned above, placed TS within a transgressive, satiric tradition that was typified by Cervantes, Rabelais, Swift, the authors of the late sixteenth-century Satyre Ménippée (Menippean Satire), and the seventeenth-century writers of the roman comique.Twentieth-century critics, including Wayne C. Booth (1961), Michael Seidel (1979) and D.W. Jefferson (1992), have helped to identify and explore the satiric tradition. In his letter to Sophie Volland in 1762, Diderot reveals that he placed TS within this tradition:

35

Fredman (1960) is one of the earliest studies to discuss Sterne and Diderot, not in terms of original and imitator, but as two writers who had similar interests and a general affinity with each other. Warning (1965) examines TS and JF alongside each other as equally unique and independent works, and focuses on their respective narrative methods in terms of two related concepts, oddity in TS and the bizarre in JF.

30

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe This book so mad, so wise, and so gay is the English Rabelais … I can’t give you a better idea of it than by calling it a universal satire. Mr. Sterne, who is the author, is also a priest (CH, 385).36

Diderot’s most obvious thematic borrowing from Sterne is the story of Jacques’s love life, which is based on Trim’s relation of his amours to Uncle Toby in book eight of TS. In both JF and TS the story is interrupted by digressions, though in the former the postponement stretches out through the entire narrative.The technique of interrupting the story and delaying its dénouement, however, is not necessarily Shandean. JF has in common with TS several elements that they both share with other works in the comic-satiric tradition. These include digressions, framed narratives and stories within stories, burlesque bawdiness, the mixture of genres, the self-conscious narrator and the device of the narratee, a fictionalized reader who appears within the text. It cannot be said that Diderot adopts these only from Sterne, though his reading of TS certainly inspired him. The parodic and self-reflexive critique of the novel in JF also has a precedent in what has been called the ‘anti-novel’ of the early eighteenth century, such as Bougeant’s Voyage merveilleux du prince Fan-Férédin dans la Romancie, 1735 (The Marvellous Journey of Prince Fan-Feredin in Romancie) and Marivaux’s Les Effets surprenants de la sympathie, 1713 (The Surprising Effects of Sympathy) and Pharsamon ou les Nouvelles folies romanesques, 1737 (Pharsamond, or the New Knight Errant). Diderot links JF with TS most directly through his playful and selfquestioning exploration of the very notions of literary originality and imitation. JF explicitly refers to TS in one of its three endings, which the narrator-editor reveals is ‘plagiarized’ from TS: Here now is the second paragraph, which was copied out of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy – unless, that is, the conversations of Jacques the Fataliste and his Master pre-date that work, in which case the Reverend Sterne is a plagiarist, though I don’t believe that for one minute, for I have a particular regard for Monsieur Sterne, whom I set apart from most of the men of letters of his nation, whose regular custom is to steal from us and then hurl insults in our direction (trans. by Coward 1999, 238).37

The speaking voice, here the editor who has just taken over from the narrator, sets up a tongue-in-cheek rivalry between JF and TS in terms of their ‘originality’.While he suspects the narrator of JF to have copied from Sterne, he also considers the possibility of the contrary situation in which

36

37

‘Ce livre si fou, si sage et si gai est le rabelais des anglois … Il est impossible de vous en donner une autre idée que celle d’une satyre universelle. Mr Sterne qui en est l’auteur est aussi un prêtre’ (1955–70, 4: 189). ‘Voici le second paragraphe, copié de la Vie de Tristram Shandy, à moins que l’entretien de Jacques le Fataliste et de son maître ne soit antérieur à cet ouvrage, et que le Ministre Sterne ne soit le plagiaire, ce que je ne crois pas, mais par une estime toute particulière de M. Sterne que je distingue de la plupart des Littérateurs de sa nation, dont l’usage assez fréquent est de nous voler et de nous dire des injures’ ( JF 1976, 375).

Sterne in Eighteenth-Century France

31

Sterne copies JF, only then to dismiss it out of ‘estime’ for the English author. This, of course, is deeply ironic considering Sterne’s own notorious literary pilfering – not infrequently from French authors. In a typically selfconscious manner, Tristram makes an ironic attack on plagiarism (TS, 5.1.408), in terms that are plagiarized from Robert Burton’s attack on plagiarism (Burton 1989–2000).Through the ‘theft’ from TS by the narrator of JF, Diderot engages with his English model on an equal and playful level, mocking the notion that literary texts can be wholly original, or that one can precisely trace the origin of each idea, theme or technique. TS was clearly an important intertext and formative influence on JF, a work that is considered by modern criticism to be one of the great eighteenth-century French novels. Having made an impact on Diderot, as well as on several other canonical figures in France, Sterne played a significant and long-term role in the country’s literary heritage. In exploring his reception more widely within eighteenth-century French literature, particularly in its relation to contemporary preoccupations with national identity, sensibility, and attitudes towards the novel, we have also seen that his work was equally important in the production of minor works and that it had a considerable formative influence in the immediate, popular culture of the period. To have provoked first the admiration, and then the irritation, of Voltaire is clearly a sign that Sterne was a familiar, controversial, and deeply embedded figure in France.

2

Romantic to Avant-Garde: Sterne in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century France Anne Bandry

‘– Poor Yorick! … What a pity he was not simply French by nationality, as he was in spirit’, exclaimed Janin, one of the twelve French translators of ASJ.1 Some nineteen translations, nearly a hundred editions and frequent references indicate how well Sterne’s texts grew on French soil. The synthetic view of the cumulated editions of Sterne in France established by the Centre d’Etude de la Traduction, (Centre for the Study of Translation) in Metz shows that his French fortune or reception is only moderate in extent, but very regular and well sustained. His texts make up 10 per cent of the total of the works of the six main eighteenth-century English novelists from their first publication in France to 1991, with 46 per cent for Defoe, 22 per cent for Goldsmith, 13 per cent for Fielding, 6 per cent for Richardson and 3 per cent for Smollett. Sterne moves down from 13 per cent of the total in the eighteenth century to 10 per cent both in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Such constancy is unique among the six authors (Lautel 1996). ASJ and, to a lesser extent, TS, were part of nineteenth-century educated readers’ culture, with cheap editions also suggesting a wider readership. Sterne’s texts seem to accompany major literary changes. He definitely belonged to the literary background of the Romantics, inspiring an array of eccentric texts, and causing a translators’ quarrel with three rival versions of ASJ in 1841. His reputation then waned, largely because of Taine’s contempt, only to recover since the 1960s’ interest in TS, of which a zany translation is now underway. 1800–1841: Editions Frénais’ ASJ began to be challenged at the turn of the century, when Crassous produced a much better version (1801). His purpose was clearly 1

‘– Pauvre Yorick! … Quel malheur qu’il n’ait pas été tout simplement Français de nation, comme il l’était par l’esprit …’ (Janin 1841, 47).

Sterne in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century France

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didactic, as a whole volume devoted to notes indicates.They explain particular words or phrases, refer to TS, to the Sermons and the Letters, justify his choices as a translator (such as keeping the starling’s ‘I can’t get out’ in English), and even find fault with Sterne’s attitude to the French or with his English (Soupel 1999, 113; 2001a). Crassous comments on Dufour’s bilingual edition (1799), printed by Didot the younger, while Didot the elder printed an English text in 1800. This was a stereotyped edition, a process first used in France by Firmin Didot in 1795 (Chartier 1984, 723): ASJ in English was seen as a text with a steady market, and was frequently reissued. Crassous mentions both Didot editions, praising the English one for having altered Sterne’s ‘I laid at their mercy’ and ‘Maria should lay in my bosom’ (3: 199–200), and criticizing the bilingual one for not really correcting Frénais. Giving both the English and the French texts however, it had to provide a greater degree of consistency: it re-established the names which Frénais had changed, and gave the correct ending. This ‘splendid [quarto] edition’ gave proof of Sterne’s ‘great profit and accumulated fame . . . both in England and France’ (ASJ, London: Hurst, 1803), and contained six illustrations by Monsiau (Blondel 2002). It thus seems quite logical that the 1801 version should have come from both P[ierre] and F[irmin] Didot, who made the Didot dynasty eminent. Crassous included a new translation of YE ‘for the simple reason that they usually go with [ASJ]’, but mainly because ‘the Letters are just as disfigured in Frénais’ translation and hard to recognize’ (Avertissement, Soupel 1999). He clearly aimed at establishing an authoritative version, ridding Sterne of parasite texts. His comments on the 1800 Beautés de Sterne (Beauties of Sterne), published from the eleventh English edition, are just as disparaging. He disapproves of fragmentary presentation but also suggests poor translation (Soupel 1999, 116). Desenne, the Paris publisher, seems to have specialized in easily marketable volumes of diverse collections of fragments. Despite Crassous’ efforts, successive editions of Œuvres (Works) made Frénais’ ASJ and TS, continued by de Bonnay, the standard version.The six 8° 1803 volumes came from Bastien, who had published Gorgy’s Nouveau Voyage Sentimental in 1784. This was the first edition to include a French version of the 1769 Yorick’s Sentimental Journey Continued by Eugenius, reduced to its first third, probably by Frénais (Barton 1911, 151). It also contained ‘Vie de Sterne’ (Life) and ‘Mémoires de Sterne’ (from de la Beaume’s translation of Koran), YE preceded by a Preface (‘Do not be surprised by the passionate tone of these letters . . .’) and by Chasselat’s engraving of Eliza’s tomb, thirty-nine ‘Letters by Sterne’, and ‘Pensées’ (from the Koran). Sixteen plates by Misbach include a portrait of Sterne, Slop’s fall and the reading of the sermon.The publisher showed his taste for Sterne by writing a shandean dedication to a lady: ‘A [To] MADAME M.A.E.B**. / m.d.p.t.n.*f.s.m.c. s.b. a.p.m****. / u***. à j*****.’ [= unis à jamais, united forever]. In 1818, Ledoux and Tenré (six 18° volumes in five) added the heading ‘traduites de l’anglais par une société de gens de lettres’ (‘translated by a society of men of letters’), Lespinasse, EY and nine plates. They also issued an 8° edition (four volumes, sixteen plates) in which they included Brandon’s ‘Fragments in the manner of Sterne’ translated by Mellinet.They specialized in didactic works, but also published Rousseau (1819). Salmon,

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The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

in 1825 (four 8° volumes), kept the heading but changed the translation of ASJ (unidentified). He included fifty-six letters and de la Beaume’s ‘Fragment dans le Voyage Sentimental’. Salmon’s numerous publications include a good selection of European literature, including Fielding, Dante, Cervantes, and Voltaire. From 1835 on, Scott’s ‘Life of Sterne’ became inescapable. It first appeared in Baudry’s 1832 English TS, and was translated by Francisque Michel for the luxurious 1835 Panthéon littéraire Œuvres Complètes, confirming Sterne’s place in the ‘Literary Pantheon’. The 1838 reissue added The Vicar of Wakefield, with Scott’s ‘Life’ of Goldsmith also by Michel. TS is Frénais and de Bonnay’s (without black or marbled pages), and ASJ ends like the bilingual 1799 edition. Michel merely eliminated what he judged to be superfluous (Soupel 1984, 137), and thus did not provide new translations, contrary to what library catalogues often indicate.2 Although he was indeed a translator, he published Tennyson and Shakespeare only in the 1860s. ASJ could also be bought in various collections and sizes: the common and faulty Belgian Lebègue’s Bibliothèque d’une maison de campagne (Library of a Country House; 1822), Dauthereau’s Collection des meilleurs romans français et étrangers (Best French and Foreign Novels; 1827, 1832), or Hiard’s Bibliothèque des amis des lettres (Library of the Friends of Literature; 1833), the latter two adding TS after two years. Ledentu (four plates, 1822), Froment and Berquet (1826), and Rion (1835) also produced ASJ. In 1828 Moreau-Christophe provided a new translation of ASJ. As his main writings ten years later compare French, British and American jails, he may have applied Crassous’ didactic precepts and used Sterne to study English. His Voyage, accompanied by ‘historical, critical and literary notes’, was ‘highly thought of ’ (Michaud 1855). It came from J. C. Dentu, while N. Dentu had included Frénais in his Petite Collection Guillaume (1813). This impressive market for different editions of ASJ partly explains the flurry of 1841. 1800–1841: Critical reception One of the last manifestations of the cult of sensibility came in Ballanche’s Du Sentiment considéré dans ses rapports avec la littérature et les arts (Of Sentiment Considered in its Relationship to Literature and the Arts) (1801). He is ecstatic about Sterne to the point of mimicking sentimental exaltation by accumulating dots – Frénais’ transposition of dashes. Sympathy for digressions and open texts characterizes most of Ballanche’s work (Besnier 1986, 240).A long list of writers ends with his favourites, Sterne,‘that original and piquant writer who created a new style all his own’, Richardson and, above

2

The title of the volume only actually announces that he translated the two Scott pieces.The BL states that the translations are by Frénais and de la Beaume.This is partly wrong: the second part of TS is de Bonnay’s.The BL also mistakenly attributes the 1787 Voyage to Francisque Michel (born in 1809) from the ‘F.M.’ on the title page.

Sterne in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century France

35

all, Rousseau. Sentimentality is both fragmented (a series of episodes) and relational (interaction among characters, and between reader and characters), while anticipated episodes trigger enjoyable tears. The evocation of ‘Le Fever or … poor Maria … his familiar letters … his sentimental journey … his correspondence with Eliza’ lead to: Eliza! Her image appears to me when I read the sentimental lines of her bramine … Eliza, sublime woman … Eliza is no more! … This master-piece of sensibility is no more! … sensitive souls, gather round this monument, raised … by Sterne and Raynal … Eliza is not dead entirely, she still exists through the sentimental pages of her illustrious friends.3

The reviewer of the 1803 Works for the Mercure de France reacted quite differently, accusing Sterne of triviality and frivolity. In words not innocuous at such a date, Sterne is said to have brought about ‘a revolution of sorts’ in literature, but one which should in no way be followed.The remark that the unnamed Ferriar’s ‘detestable sagacity’ was too learned to have any lasting effect on Sterne’s reputation for originality amounts to a reproof to both author and readers. Although the critic admitted that ‘wit and sentiment’ were to be found occasionally, the latter notably in Yorick’s death, his overall opinion was negative, especially regarding TS.4 In her much wider-ranging analyses of literature, the influential Germaine de Staël first mentioned ASJ, probably because of its resonance with the Rousseauist cult of sensibility and individualism of which she was an advocate. Essai sur les fictions (‘Essay on Fiction’) describes ASJ as one of the few ‘successful works of fiction in which the pictures of life are presented in situations not involving love’, which reflects her own preoccupations (1795, CH, 407). It thus seems quite apt that her novel Corinne should have been described as ‘a “Sentimental Journey” in the noble genre’ (Le Publiciste, 5 July 1807, Partridge 1924, 48). She then indirectly challenged Frénais’ rendering of Sterne.While stressing the positive influence of cosmopolitanism on French literature, she repeatedly insisted on the Englishness of Sterne and on the impossibility of transposing his texts into French. De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales (Of Literature Considered in its Relationship to Social Institutions, 1800) examines humour (‘la plaisanterie’), as ‘the character of gaiety the most generally adopted by a nation’s writers is one of the best ways to make the customs of a nation known’. Gaiety, however, is not an English trait, because ‘free countries are and must be serious’.Yet English ‘humour’ exists, it comes from ‘the gravity’ of the author, the discrepancy between serious narrator and comic text. Typically English, but not

3

4

‘Eliza! Son image m’apparaît lorsque je lis les lignes sentimentales de son bramine … Eliza, femme sublime … Eliza n’est plus! … Il n’est plus ce chefd’œuvre de sensibilité! … Ames sensibles, venez autour de ce monument, élevé à l’envi par Sterne et Raynal … Eliza n’est pas morte toute entière, elle existe encore dans les pages sentimentales de ses illustres amis’ (Ballanche 1801, 219–20). ‘Il a opéré une sorte de révolution dans monde littéraire … Un maudit critique anglais … d’une sagacité détestable’ (Ch.D. 1803, 535, 542).

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The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

exclusively Sterne’s, are ‘whimsical characters’, justified by national eccentricity, which, like so many Anglophiles, de Staël saw as a manifestation of English liberty.5 As her aim was to define national traits which could be ‘europeanized’, she did not lay the blame for the fact that ‘TS loses almost all its charm in French’ on the translation (as Voltaire had); she ascribed this impoverishment to ‘verbal humour’, in opposition to ‘philosophical thought happily expressed, like Swift’s Gulliver’, which translated well.6 The incompatibility she sees may echo her complex relationship with England: ‘she admired the English among whom she could not bear to live’ (Sir James Mackintosh, in Escarpit 1954, 15).While Crassous made readers more familiar with English through Sterne, de Staël focused on the mutual influence of the different components of Europe which should induce progress in literature and thought – a philosophy which caused her to be exiled by Bonaparte. Walckenaer, who wrote the Sterne entry in Michaud’s Biographie universelle, also had direct contact with England, having spent two years there in his youth.The volume containing ‘Sterne’ first came out in 1825, and in 1830 Walckenaer published some of his pieces as Vies de plusieurs personnages célèbres des temps anciens et modernes (Lives of several famous characters from times ancient and modern). He insisted that he had read Sterne in English only, although he was a translator himself, improving Pinkerton’s Modern Geography to such an extent that Pinkerton retranslated it into English (Michaud 1855,‘Walckenaer’). He balanced his high political functions with research in many fields, along with a few literary productions which included two sentimental novels. He confirmed what the editorial fortune of Sterne in France shows: ASJ was the favourite book, ‘the one that is often reprinted, the one that people like to reread in its entirety’.7 He saw originality as Sterne’s main characteristic, but presented it with admiring disapproval:‘Sterne certainly had no model and should never serve as one.’ 8 He was the first in France to mention Scott’s view of Sterne, before Baudry and Michel. The part of the entry in Michaud which dwells on translations interestingly only mentions de la Beaume, except for Works (1803, 1818). Trans-

5

6

7

8

‘Rien ne sert mieux à faire connaître les mœurs d’une nation, que le caractère de gaieté le plus généralement adopté par ses écrivains’ (de Staël 1800,‘De la plaisanterie anglaise’, 228).‘Les pays libres sont et doivent être sérieux’ (234).‘Ce que les Anglais peignent avec un grand talent, ce sont les caractères bizarres, parce qu’il en existe beaucoup parmi eux’ (ibid.). ‘Quand la plaisanterie consiste en une pensée philosophique heureusement exprimée, comme dans le Gulliver de Swift, le changement de langue n’y fait rien; mais TS de Sterne perd en français presque toute sa grâce’ (de Staël 1810, 271–72; CH, 408). ‘Le Voyage Sentimental est incomparablement le meilleur des ouvrages de Sterne. C’est le seul qu’on réimprime très-souvent, le seul qu’on aime à relire en entier’ (Walckenaer 1830, 419; CH, 415–16). ‘Tel est Sterne, qui n’a point de modèle et ne doit point en servir’ (Walckenaer 1830, 420).

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37

formations are seen as totally justified:‘Most of Sterne’s works are known in France through translations in which taste has motivated changes made necessary by the difference in genius of the two languages and by the delicacy of French readers.’ 9 1800–1853: Influence – eccentric texts Transformations of another kind appeared in texts which combine direct influence of Sterne with the traditions of anti-novels, parodic narratives and libertine tales. Sangsue, in his thorough study of the minor French Romantics, calls them ‘eccentric texts’, and notes that ‘the Sternean intertext is at work throughout the literature of the first half of the nineteenth century’ (1987, 24). Shortly before the turn of the century, a creative relationship with Sterne’s texts was initiated by Xavier de Maistre’s Voyage autour de ma chambre (1797) (Journey around my Room). It was first published by his brother Joseph in 1795 (Lausanne) (Sangsue 2001). Sangsue situates this short text as the starting point of the eccentric posterity of ASJ in France (1987, 167). Although it was composed between 1790 and 1794, it clearly departs from the many sentimental imitations of ASJ and revives the ironic mockery of the Voyage by Chapelle and Bachaumont (Sangsue 2001). The narrator of Voyage autour de ma chambre is under arrest for having fought a duel. Confined for forty-two days, he gives a mock-heroic description of his room in forty-two chapters, with no link between chapters and days.This, however, concerns only the narrator’s body, as he explains through his ‘system’ of ‘the soul and the beast’; the beast is confined, but his soul, of course, is free to roam over ‘the entire universe’ (de Maistre 1984a, 119) and the text rambles with it. Intertextual connection with Sterne’s texts is not stated outright, except in late (and brief) references to ‘uncle Toby’s hobbyhorse’ (ibid., 64) and to Jenny (ibid., 60, 87). De Maistre’s ‘Jenny’ was his sister Jeanne, but as the name appears in a context of accumulated sentimental episodes, it becomes an allusion to TS – and possibly a private joke (Berthier 1920, 42, 85).The reader familiar with Sterne spots many distinctive similarities: an unconventional journey, a great fondness for progressive digressions, a relish for and distance from sentimental situations, and a distinct taste for metatextuality. After a grandiloquent opening, the narrator lists his possible followers in a way reminiscent of the succession of travellers in ASJ. Once the Sternean link has been activated in the reader’s mind, banalities become allusions (see Booth 1970).The chapter opening ‘There are so many curious readers in the world’ latches onto Tristram’s ‘’tis wrote only for the curious and inquisitive’ in more ways than the mere coincidence of words.The pseudo-exclusion of readers serves to introduce the narrator’s ‘system’ (although the door is

9

‘La plupart des écrits de Sterne sont connus en France par des traductions dans lesquelles le goût a dicté des changements que la différence du génie des deux langues et la délicatesse des lecteurs français rendaient nécessaire’ (Michaud 1855).

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The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

irremediably shut for forty-two days in de Maistre): ‘This chapter is exclusively for metaphysicians’.10 The duality within the narrator enables him to highlight materiality in a Tristram-like manner: [W]hile my soul, folding in upon itself, had, in the preceding chapter, meandered tortuously in metaphysics, – I had tilted myself in my chair so that its two front feet were two inches above the floor; and, while swinging to the left and to the right, and gaining ground, I had insensibly come very close to the wall.11

The separation between body and soul is played upon to the point of absurdity. It is first applied to reading, which sets off metatextuality thanks to a disjunction between the eyes which ‘mechanically follow the words and the lines’ and the soul which wanders elsewhere. To show that randomness prevails, the relationship is then reversed with the soul wandering into pleasant thoughts and realizing only in the nick of time that the ‘other’ has gone ‘to the door of madame de Hautcastel’ (literally Lady Highcastle): ‘I leave the reader to imagine what would have happened if it had entered on its own the house of such a beautiful lady.’12 As in ASJ, playful eroticism is never far away, yet de Maistre makes explicit what Sterne kept in unexpressed tension. The expression of materiality is linked to the theme of travelling. The chair (‘chaise’ in French) duly tilts over, which provides one of several opportunities to make story and narration interact: The fall of my chaise has done the reader the favour of making my journey some good twelve chapters shorter, for when I got up I found myself just opposite and very close to my desk, and was no longer in time to reflect on the number of prints and paintings still to be travelled over, and which might have lengthened my excursions on painting.13

Describing the pictures on his walls constitutes one of the variations on recognizable sentimental scenes, along with an occasional tear, a devoted man-servant (Joannetti), and the compulsory encounter with a beggar, ignored by the narrator but recognized by his servant and his dog. Progressive digression prevails. The narrator makes this principle explicit with the movement of his chair, but also by transposing (and transcending)

10 11

12

13

‘Ce chapitre n’est absolument que pour les métaphysiciens’ (de Maistre 1984a, 26). ‘Pendant que mon âme, se repliant sur elle même, parcourait, dans le chapitre précédent, les détours tortueux de la métaphysique, – j’étais dans mon fauteuil sur lequel je m’étais renversé, de manière que ses deux pieds antérieurs étaient élevés à deux pouces de terre; et tout en me balançant à droite et à gauche, et gagnant du terrain, j’étais insensiblement parvenu tout près de la muraille’ (de Maistre 1984a, 35). ‘Je laisse à penser au lecteur ce qui serait arrivé si elle était entrée toute seule chez une aussi belle dame’ (de Maistre 1984a, 30). ‘La chute de ma chaise de poste a rendu le service au lecteur de raccourcir mon voyage d’une bonne douzaine de chapitres, parce qu’en me relevant je me trouvais vis-à-vis et tout près de mon bureau, et que je ne fus plus à temps de faire des réflexions sur le nombre d’estampes et de tableaux que j’avais encore à parcourir, et qui auraient pu allonger mes excursions sur la peinture’ (de Maistre 1984a, 86).

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the constraints of his confinement. Stating the exact latitude and dimensions of his room leads to the description of his movements in it: ‘I will often cross it from one end to the other, or diagonally, without rule or method. – I will even walk in zigzags, and go over all the possible geometric lines, should the necessity arise.’14 Insisting on a progression along two dimensions conjures up the third, and suggests the logic of a Moebius strip. In Expédition autour de ma chambre, a remake begun circa 1800 but only published in 1825, the narrator uses verticality in the guise of a window in the roof, which he straddles to meditate upon the sky – and on his downstairs neighbour’s delicate slipper. Duality provides the leading thread throughout the Voyage however, so that the ‘pulverulence of small stories’ gradually adds up to an autobiography of sorts (Sangsue 1987, 188). The Grand Larousse du dix-neuvième siècle associated the two Journeys in its definition of digression at the end of a long list of works in which ‘digression has its natural place’: The excess of digressions is justified in works in which the fancy and independence of the writer are justified by a rich eloquence and originality, in Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel, in Béroalde de Verville’s Le Moyen de parvenir and in humorous writings in which digressions, both deliberate and artfully combined, form the main part and the specificity of the work, for example in Sterne and Xavier de Maistre.15

De Maistre’s fondness for digressions was not restricted to Voyage autour de ma chambre, as the ‘Chapter of Parentheses’ shows (1984b, 259), but his other stories are more straightforward. In Voyage, the freedom of the text is enacted in several ways. Part of it is disposable: ‘If someone thinks that in truth I could have suppressed this sad chapter, they can tear it out of their copy, or even throw the book into the fire.’16 One chapter consists of a succession of paralipses, thus suggesting that it is optional: ‘I could write a chapter on this dry rose, if it were worth it.’17 As with Tristram, the text sometimes gets the better of the narrator: ‘I have

14

15

16

17

‘Je la traverserai souvent en long et en large, ou bien diagonalement, sans suivre de règle ni de méthode. – Je ferai même des zigzags, et je parcourrai toutes les lignes possibles en géométrie, si le besoin l’exige’ (de Maistre 1984a, 22). ‘On justifie encore l’excès des digressions dans les ouvrages où la fantaisie et l’indépendance de l’écrivain sont justifiées par la richesse de la verve et de l’originalité, dans le Gargantua et le Pantagruel de Rabelais, dans Le Moyen de parvenir de Béroalde de Verville et dans les écrits humoristiques où les digressions, voulues et combinées avec art, forment la partie essentielle et le relief de l’œuvre, par exemple chez Sterne et Xavier de Maistre’ (quoted by Sangsue 1987, 89). ‘Si quelqu’un trouve qu’à la vérité [Note to Werther, letter xxviii, August 12] j’aurai pu retrancher ce triste chapitre, il peut le déchirer dans son exemplaire, ou même jeter son livre au feu’ (de Maistre 1984a, 61). ‘Il ne tiendrait qu’à moi de faire un chapitre sur cette rose sèche que voilà, si le sujet en valait la peine’ (de Maistre 1984a, 89).

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The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

promised a dialogue between my soul and the other; but some chapters escape me, or rather others flow from my pen, as if in spite of me, and thwart my plans.’18 The responsibility for such a frolicsome text belongs to ‘the angel who distributes thoughts’ (a counterpart to ‘the recording angel’ [TS, 6.8.511]), whom the reader should ask to regulate ‘the crowd of unconnected ideas that he constantly throws upon’ the narrator:‘without this precaution, my journey is in jeopardy’.19 Unable to cope, at this point, with a more complete description of ‘the lovely Rosalie’ who reaches the top of a hillock before him, he blends several of Tristram’s typographical pranks to produce a chapter consisting only of six continuous lines around the two words ‘le Tertre’ (the hillock); this underwent a fate similar to Sterne’s games, and appears as a series of dashes in most editions (Sangsue 1987, 171). A very short chapter follows.Yet, although a fair number of dashes pull the reader along, de Maistre’s pages are altogether more compact than those of Sterne. The city of Turin can be seen as emblematic of the link between Sterne and de Maistre. It is the destination which Yorick never reaches in ASJ, a point which most readers of de Maistre would not have been able to grasp as Frénais’ Yorick heads for Brittany, and de Maistre himself never supplies this information.Yet both in Voyage and in Expédition,Turin stands for a pole of attraction and rejection, the city from which the narrator is separated, and to which he refers. It was also the capital of the Savoy, from which the de Maistre family originated, a region which belonged in turn to the kingdoms of France, Spain and Sardinia in these tumultuous years. De Maistre joined the Russian army in 1799 and settled in Russia, while his little Voyage made its way across Europe along with Sterne’s Journey. Baldwin judged Voyage the one book ‘to sum up the influence of Sterne’s best form on French literature’ (1902, 235), while Barton (1911) and Glaesener (1927) insisted on the vague character of the influence. De Maistre’s enthusiastic biographer Berthier repeatedly called him ‘the French Sterne’ (1920), while quoting Stendhal and Anatole France’s comparisons of the two writers to the disadvantage of the French one (1920, 316). Hugo put the two texts on a par in 1829 to convince his publisher Gosselin that Le Dernier jour d’un condamné (The Last Day of a Condemned Man) should be considered as a novel: Above all there are two books, which it is impossible you should not have read and which I would present to you as bearing a striking analogy with my own

18

19

‘J’ai promis un dialogue entre mon âme et l’autre; mais il est certains chapitres qui m’échappent, ou plutôt il en est d’autres qui coulent de ma plume, comme malgré moi, et qui déroutent mes projets’ (de Maistre 1984a, 93). ‘Si je le continue, et que le lecteur désire en voir la fin, qu’il s’adresse à l’ange distributeur des pensées, et qu’il le prie de ne plus mêler l’image de ce tertre parmi la foule des pensées décousues qu’il me jette à tout instant. Sans cette précaution, c’en est fait de mon voyage’ (de Maistre 1984a, 39).

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work, if its principal merit in my own eyes were not its being without a model. These are Voyage autour de ma chambre and Sterne’s Sentimental Journey [title in English]. No book, no novel ever sold like these. 20

Sterne’s fiction may not have been more than one of several influences on de Maistre, but it definitely belonged to his background. He compared himself yet again to Toby towards the end of his life, in a 1841 letter to his friend Töpffer, who was also one to zigzag along a page (Sangsue 1987, 193); he may have felt a kinship with Toby because of their common military careers, but his early metatextual pranks show that he responded to deeper levels of Sterne’s fiction.The success of Voyage autour de ma chambre throughout the nineteenth century (de Maistre 1984a, 16) ensured that they passed on to following generations of French writers. Nodier stands out among these. He started off in a similar vein, with MoiMême (Myself, written 1799) and Le Dernier chapitre de mon roman (The Last Chapter of my Novel, 1803) along with more conventional texts, but, unlike de Maistre, led his adult life in the world of books. A man of paradoxes, a major librarian, dictionary-maker and bibliophile, famous for having nurtured the writers who were to become the Romantics in his Arsenal salon, he was mainly known for his fantastic tales until 1980, when the bicentenary publications of his work established him as a precursor of (post)modernity: his extraordinarily zany Histoire du roi de Bohême et de ses sept châteaux (History of the King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles), first published in 1830, had now come to the fore, thanks to several recent editions.This could only be done in facsimile, as the page layout cannot be dissociated from the text (1979); a facsimile followed after poor or limited editions in 1950, 1970 and 1976. Neither Baldwin (1902) nor Partridge (1924) could procure a copy. In 1830, Histoire was a commercial failure, partly causing the bankruptcy of Delangle, the publisher with whom Nodier had been closely associated for several years (Laisney 2002, 510): the costs were heavy, the public, at a loss to understand it, thought they were being imposed on, and the admiration of Nodier’s friends did not suffice to save the book, even though they included such notables as Hugo, Balzac, Nerval, Musset, Delacroix, and Janin. Although there was an edition in 1852, Nodier himself allowed only two tales to be reprinted from it after his death. Moreover, Histoire includes its own demise in the form of a scathing pseudo-review. The critics who rediscovered the book saw it as a ‘ferment’ (Jeune), and deemed that it could have represented a literary revolution of the same magnitude as Hugo’s

20

‘Il y a surtout deux ouvrages qu’il est impossible que vous n’ayez pas lus et que je vous présenterais, comme offrant une frappante analogie avec mon livre, si son principal mérite à mes yeux n’était pas d’être sans modèle. C’est le Voyage autour de ma chambre et le Sentimental Journey de Sterne. Jamais livre, jamais roman ne se sont plus vendus que cela’ (Hugo 2000, 192). Sangsue suggests that keeping the title of ASJ in English may have tricked the publisher into linking ‘journey’ to the French ‘journée’, a synonym of ‘jour’ in Hugo’s title (1987, 166).

42

The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

Hernani (produced 1830), had its ‘hyperbolic eccentricity’ not set it way beyond the horizon of expectation of most 1830 readers (Sangsue 1987, 274). The title proclaims the link with Sterne and the epigraph confirms it: ‘There was a certain king of Bohemia who had seven castles. TRIMM [sic]’.21 The second title page, which appears inside the text, announces the book to be a ‘pastiche’, duly completing this with the epigraph from Horace ‘O imitatores, servum pecus’ (‘O imitators, slavish flock’) and the jocular imprint ‘Paris. From the booksellers who sell no novelties’.22 This results from the two preceding chapters in which the narrator questions the status of his text with the help of a reader: – Ho Sir, I see! Yet another bad pastiche of the innumerable pastiches of Sterne and Rabelais … – Bad, so you say … and what the devil do you want if you don’t want pastiches? Dare I ask you which book is not a pastiche …? Dare I ask, I say, which author originated from himself like God, unless it be the unknown writer who, on the morrow of the invention of letters … It might have been Enoch … Abraham … Mercury, also Hermes or Trismegistus … This man (original writer, I salute you!) only wrote, in all appearances, what someone had said before him; and, wonder of wonders, the first book written was only a pastiche of tradition, a plagiarism of speech! A new idea, good God! There was not one left in the time of Solomon – and Solomon only said this after Job. And you expect me, plagiarist of the plagiarists of Sterne – who was the plagiarist of Swift – who was the plagiarist of Wilkins – who was the plagiarist of Cyrano – who was the plagiarist of Reboul – who was the plagiarist of Guillaume des Autels – who was the plagiarist of Rabelais – who was the plagiarist of Morus – who was the plagiarist of Erasmus – who was the plagiarist of Lucian – or of Lucius of Patras – or of Apuleius – for it is not known who out of the three was plundered by the other two, and I have never cared to know … You expect me, I repeat, to invent the form and substance of a book! Heaven help me! Condillac says somewhere that it would be easier to create a world than to create an idea. And this is also the opinion of Virgil Polydorus and of Bruscambille.23

21

22 23

‘Il y avoit une fois un roi de Bohême qui avoit sept châteaux.TRIMM’ (Nodier 1979). Nodier’s wording points to de la Baume. See Bandry (2003). ‘Paris. Chez les libraires qui ne vendent pas de nouveautés’ (Nodier 1979, 35). ‘– Eh, monsieur, je vois ce que c’est! encore un mauvais pastiche des innombrables pastiches de Sterne et de Rabelais…–/ Mauvais, cela vous plaît à dire… et puis, que diable vous faut-il si vous ne voulez pas des pastiches? / Oserois-je vous demander quel livre n’est pas pastiche, / … / Oserois-je vous demander, dis-je, quel

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He then placates his reader (called ‘Madame’ at this point in Sternean style) by stating that he could easily have ‘hidden the borrowing’ with alternative titles: ‘History of the King of Hungary and his eight fortresses’, ‘Chronicle of the emperors of Trebizund and description of their fourteen palaces’, which appear in different typographical characters, so that the opening contains three titles, respectively in black, shaded or italic capitals.24 Histoire is a kaleidoscopic text which constantly suggests infinite choice. The leading thread consists of the plan of going to Bohemia through imagination and dreams; the paths taken – and not taken – meander to such an extent as to make Tristram’s story seem straightforward.The first castle is reached after 386 pages, and another story is announced, when abruptly a fateful finger … simply that of my bookseller, who only gave me three hundred and eighty-seven pages of vellum paper to fill up and an inkstand of twenty centilitres to empty, so as to complete this work of useless arrogance and idleness commonly called a book … this positive and calculating finger drew, in shaded capitals of twenty-two points at the bottom of [his] finished page, the following two words:THE END.25

This, of course, is followed by three more sections.Three characters embody ‘the mysterious trinity’ of the narrator’s mind, Theodore ‘or my imagination’, don Pic de Fanferluchio ‘or my memory’ and ‘my faithful Breloque, or my judgement’ (20–21), who think, talk and act, creating polyphony and a multi-level text. Interwoven with these textual games are the sentimental, Maria-like tales, which Nodier decided to salvage, ‘Le Chien de Brisquet’ 23 cont.

24

25

auteur est procédé de lui-même comme Dieu, si ce n’est l’auteur inconnu qui s’avisa le lendemain de l’invention des lettres… / C’étoit peur-être Énoch … Abraham … Mercure, autrement Hermès ou Trismégiste / Celui-là (écrivain original, je te salue!) n’écrivit cependant, selon toute apparence, que ce qu’on avait dit avant lui; et, chose merveilleuse! Le premier livre écrit ne fut lui-même qu’un pastiche de la tradition, qu’un plagiat de la parole! / Une idée nouvelle, grand Dieu! Il n’en restait pas une dans la circulation du temps de Salomon – et Salomon n’a fait que le dire après Job. / Et vous voulez que moi, plagiaire des plagiaires de Sterne – / Qui fut plagiaire de Swift – / Qui fut plagiaire de Wilkins – / Qui fut plagiaire de Cyrano – / Qui fut plagiaire de Reboul – / Qui fut plagiaire de Guillaume des Autels – / Qui fut plagiaire de Rabelais – / Qui fut plagiaire de Morus – / Qui fut plagiaire d’Erasme – / Qui fut plagiaire de Lucien – ou de Lucius de Patras – ou d’Apulée – car on ne sait lequel des trois a été volé par les deux autres, et je ne me suis jamais soucié de le savoir … / Vous voudriez, je le répète, que j’inventasse la forme et le fond d’un livre! Le ciel me soit en aide! Condillac dit quelque part qu’il seroit plus aisé de créer un monde que de créer une idée. / Et c’est aussi l’opinion de Polydore Virgile et de Bruscambille’ (Nodier 1979, 23–27). ‘Histoire du roi de Hongrie et de ses huit forteresses, Chronique des empereurs de Trébisonde, et description de leurs quatorze palais’ (Nodier 1979, 31–32). ‘Un doigt fatidique … c’étoit simplement celui de mon libraire, qui ne m’a donné que trois cent-quatre-vingt sept pages de cavalier vélin blanc à remplir, et qu’un encrier de vingt centilitres à vider, pour parfaire cet œuvre inutile de suffisance et d’oisiveté qu’on appelle vulgairement un livre … Ce doigt positif et calculateur traça, en initiales ombrées de vingt-deux, au pied de ma page achevée, le monosyllabe suivant: FIN’ (Nodier 1979, 387).

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The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

(The Woodcutter’s Dog) and ‘Les Aveugles de Chamouny’ (The Blind Couple of Chamonix).A ‘pantouffle’ (bedroom slipper) recurs like a leitmotiv, as ‘the phallic image of verbal and poetic creation’ from which the text began emerging around 1800 (Richer 1962, 5). In a typically self-derogatory manner, Nodier described his book as ‘this rhapsody …, this enormous polyglot and polytechnic jumble’.26 References to Sterne abound, especially at the beginning, and Nodier clearly expected his readers to recognize the likes of ‘the mule whose infernal stubbornness compromised the salvation of the abbess of Andouillets and the sweet Margarita’, or of a coach which ‘was not the solitary désobligeante of Mr. Dessein’.27 Allusions also appear in lists, and details show that his sources were the French translations. He gave his own version of Frénais’ radical transformation of Walter’s Lamentation into a double cascade of ‘hélas’ (TS, 4.19, Bandry 1994), combining it with an allusion to Walter and Toby’s staircase conversation: Anyway, I said, going down the seven steps of the staircase.28

This diagonal progression epitomizes the patent refusal of linearity, also manifest in the profusion of vertical lists, lacunae of various kinds and Tony Johannot’s illustrations. The fifty vignettes placed within Nodier’s text interact with it to an unprecedented degree.This was made possible by the new technique of wood-engraving with end-grain wood which began to spread in France in the 1820s.29 The Johannot brothers had made a name for themselves as the illustrators of Scott, Cooper, Chateaubriand and Byron. Nodier the bibliophile had invited them to his salon and entrusted Tony with his Histoire (Marie 1925, 25). Small fantastic figures are scattered throughout the text and combined with constant textual and typographical games, making each opening a surprise. Such a fascination with the materiality of the text runs through Nodier’s writing.That one of his very learned essays on printing,‘De la perfectibilité

26

27

28

29

‘Cette rapsodie [sic] … cet énorme fatras polyglotte et polytechnique’ (Steinmetz 1980, 63). ‘La mule rétive dont l’opiniâtreté infernale compromit un jour le salut de l’abbesse des Andouillettes et de la douce Marguerite’,‘ce n’est pas la désobligeante solitaire de M. Dessein’ (Nodier 1979, 2, 6). ‘D’ailleurs, repris-je en /descendant /les /sept /rampes /de /l’escalier’ (Nodier 1979, 107). Invented in England by Thomas Bewick in the 1780s. The instrument used is a burin (Chartier 1985, 327–51; The ABC of Prints, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, n.d.).

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de l’homme, et de l’influence de l’imprimerie sur la civilisation’ (Of the Perfectibility of Man and of the Influence of Printing on Civilisation) should have come out in the same year as the iconoclastic Histoire under the pseudonym ‘Docteur Néophobus’ is not as paradoxical as it seems (Nodier 1989): he criticized typographical excesses while indulging in them. The voluntary confusion of real life and the world of books surfaced in his simultaneous roles of mystifier, demystifier and theoretician in controversies about the authenticity of texts (Jeandillou 1989, 68), or in his selfdenunciation when his 1803 anti-Napoleonic ode did not resound as loudly as he had wished, causing him to spend thirty-six days in jail (Fournier 1980, 144). Self-conscious fictions punctuated his career, even after he became a member of the Académie Française in 1833. In ‘Bibliographie des fous: de quelques livres excentriques’ (Bibliography of Madmen: of a few Eccentric Books, 1835), he provided a definition which again links him with Sterne: ‘By an eccentric book I mean a book which disregards all common rules of composition and style, and whose purpose is impossible or very difficult to guess, if the writer did happen to have one when he wrote it.’ He immediately dissociates Sterne,Apuleius and Rabelais from this category of writing, for ‘in the brilliant over-abundance of their imagination, reason is not an enlightened guide who precedes or accompanies them, but an obedient slave who follows them with a smile’.30 It is tempting, however, to follow Sangsue (as do most critics) and apply the definition of ‘eccentric texts’ to Nodier’s own productions, albeit with the special exemption he added for Sterne and his like. He chose not to publish the first of these, Moi-Même, which was only partly made public in 1911 and 1921, until Sangsue produced the first reliable edition in 1985. The complete title sets the tone: MOI-MÊME, roman qui n’en est pas un, tiré de mon portefeuille gris-de-lin pour servir de suite et de complément à toutes les platitudes littéraires du dix-huitième siècle (MYSELF, a novel which isn’t one, drawn from my linen-coloured notebook, to be used as a sequel and complement to all the literary platitudes of the eighteenth century).The text, title included, teems with appropriations (Sangsue 1987, 206–08). Spleen, a key theme, serves to express the disillusionments about the 1790s and combines with a constant play on the arbitrariness of writing: ‘Chapter One / ME / Why Chapter One? It would fit as well anywhere else. Why me in particular? Won’t the subject be me throughout? / I shall see.’31

30

31

‘J’entends par un livre excentrique un livre qui est fait hors de toutes les règles communes de la composition et du style, et dont il est impossible ou très difficile de deviner le but, quand il est arrivé par hasard que l’auteur eût un but en l’écrivant. Ce serait très mal juger Apulée, Rabelais ou Sterne, et quelques autres, que d’appeler leurs ouvrages des livres excentriques. Dans les brillantes débauches de leur imagination, la raison n’est point un guide éclairé qui les précède ou les accompagne, mais c’est une esclave soumise qui les suit en souriant’ (Nodier 1993, 63). ‘Premier chapitre./ MOI/ Pourquoi, premier chapitre? Il serait aussi bien partout ailleurs. Pourquoi moi en particulier? N’est-ce pas de moi qu’il s’agira partout? / Je verrai’ (Nodier 1985: 45).

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The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

The second chapter is announced for the following day, ‘if it rains’, and duly opens: So it is raining? No. It is not. But yesterday . . . Yesterday? This very day. I meant to write tomorrow and I am writing tonight. I am writing tonight because I want to, because I feel like it, because it is my own business, and nobody can find fault with that.32

A dialogue with a narratee later comments on the order of the chapters and their time of writing, while the wanton text flows easily from the libertine narrator’s irreverent pen. Diderot constantly comes to mind, and makes an appearance in a reference to his Les Bijoux Indiscrets (The Indiscreet Jewels). Yet sexuality gives way to crucial questioning about identity, half-hidden under the light veil of shandean games: a young woman answers ‘precisely as my mother answered her lover nine months before 29 April 1780’, i.e., the date of Nodier’s birth, a repartee which develops into a description of Nodier himself (as evidenced by biographers) and designates him as ‘Charles anonymous three-stars’.33 Charles was only legitimized by his parents’ marriage in 1791 (Roux 1981). The poignancy of the designation is debunked by earlier typographical pranks, which culminate in Chapter Nine (of course), entitled ‘The Best of the Book’ and consisting of an entire page of punctuation marks. Balzac also played this sort of typographical prank in Physiologie du mariage (Physiology of Marriage), but not unexpectedly with a far more compact result: haphazardly grouped letters separated by punctuation marks but no blanks supposedly explain the role of ‘Religion and confession considered in relation to marriage’ over three pages. An ironic erratum ensured that the point was not missed: ‘to fully understand the meaning of these pages, the gentlemanly reader must read the main passages several times, for the author has put all his thought into them’ (Balzac 1971, 413).34 The link with TS has already been made explicit earlier in the text when the whole of Walter Shandy’s letter to Toby on marriage is quoted. To this and to several mentions of Mrs Shandy and Eliza Draper must also be added the alpha-betical list of reasons for marrying (Balzac 1971, 34). Balzac was to refer to Sterne again.

32

33

34

‘Il pleut donc? / Non. Il ne pleut pas. Mais hier … / Hier? aujourd’hui même. Je voulais n’écrire que demain et j’écris ce soir. J’écris ce soir, parce que je le veux, parce que cela me plaît, parce que cela me regarde, et que personne n’y peut trouver à redire’ (Nodier 1985, 51). ‘Elle y répondit précisément comme ma mère a répondu à son amant neuf mois avant le 29 avril 1780 … Charle [sic] anonyme trois-étoiles’ (Nodier 1985, 83–84). ‘Pour bien comprendre le sens de ces pages, un lecteur honnête homme doit en relire plusieurs fois les principaux passages; car l’auteur y a mis toute sa pensée’ (Balzac 1971, 413).

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Back in the early 1800s, Nodier, at that time an aspiring young writer, often had Sterne in mind.To display his education, the narrator of Moi-Même asks:‘Have you read Montaigne, Charron, Rabelais, and Sterne? If you have not, read them. If you have, you must read them again.’35 De Maistre’s Voyage autour de ma chambre heads a list of texts which triggers a variation on Walter Shandy’s ‘or wrote a book, or got a child’ (TS, 3.20.230): ‘it is well known that every year, my publisher gets a Voyage from me and his wife a child by me’.36 Moreover, when the title of Nodier’s first published novel was changed from Stella to Les Proscrits (The Proscribed) in 1802, he compared his ‘fatherly’ reaction to that of Walter’s on learning that his son had been christened ‘Tristram’ instead of ‘Trismegistus’ by the maladroit cleric.37 Sexuality and textuality also dominate Le Dernier chapitre de mon roman (The Last Chapter of my Novel), published shortly after Nodier had acquired a succès d’estime with Les Proscrits.This preposterous series of sexual encounters with partners who finally all end up being the young woman he has just married includes a variation on the final scene of ASJ. After the ‘treaty’ has been established through the landlady and violated by the young man who slips into the lady’s bed, the allusion to Sterne’s final blank is clear to readers in the know: – I warned you I was a somniloquist … – But I forgot to warn you I was a somnambulist. – You are a monster … – It is better than being an impertinent. – Ah!… Practise, my friend; the time has come for the lacuna.38

This takes place just after the narrator has left Strasbourg, where the lady of his desires caused a sensation the like of which had never been seen since ‘the passage of the man with the large nose, who appears in Tristram Shandy’.39 Nodier also opposes his hero to ‘Grandison’ and his story to those by ‘Radcliffe’, clearly expecting his readers to respond to these allusions to Richardson’s character and Mrs Radcliffe’s plots, and to the tone directly inspired by Diderot’s Jacques le Fataliste. A young writer eager to show he knows – and flouts – the conventions, he produced a very unstable text.

35 36

37

38

39

Nodier 1985, 48. ‘Tout le monde sait qu’il n’y a pas d’année que je ne fasse un Voyage à mon libraire, et un enfant à sa femme’ (Nodier 1985, 108). ‘Cette nouvelle a été aussi fatale pour mes entrailles de père que le fut pour M. Shandy celle de la maladresse de cet éventé de vicaire qui baptisa son fils du nom de Tristram au lieu de celui de Trismégiste’ (Nodier 1985, 18). ‘Je vous avais averti que je suis somniloque …/ Mais j’avais oublié de vous avertir que je suis somnanbule./ Vous êtes un monstre …/Cela vaut mieux que d’être un impertinent./ Ah! …/ Exerce-toi, mon ami; voilà le moment de la lacune’ (Nodier 1999, 29; dots in text). ‘Depuis le passage de l’homme au grand nez, dont il est parlé dans TristramShandy, personne n’avait fixé plus particulièrement l’attention dans notre bonne

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The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

This spirit of derision, this delight in irreverence and irrelevance he never lost. In his 1836 tale ‘Voyage pittoresque et industriel dans le Paraguay-Roux et la Palingénésie australe’ (A Picturesque and Industrial Journey to RussetParaguay and Austral Palingenesis), a savage pseudo-review, he defined what the France of his day lacked: a ‘dériseur sensé’, a sensible derider, a rational satirist, the ‘sensible and judicious mocker’ (Nelson 1972), who ‘has the good sense to mock others, to protest against the ignorance and folly of his contemporaries by a judicious contempt’. This seems to fit Nodier himself so well that critics have adopted it since Castex used it in his edition of Contes (1961). Cervantes, Butler, Swift and Sterne, Rabelais and Molière, are the models for the dériseur sensé, while ‘Voltaire and Beaumarchais have used this sort of criticism to excess, out of carelessness or spite.’40 In Nodier the French and English traditions of satire came together (pace Cervantes); Histoire du roi de Bohème (The History of the King of Bohemia) embodies the most profound manifestation of the influence of Sterne on French literature. While working as a secretary for Sir Herbert Croft in 1809, Nodier transcribed and translated vast quantities of English (Barrière 70), long before his 1821 trip to England and Scotland. Partridge shows he ‘drew considerably on English works’ (1924, 52). He translated Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield in 1838 and was thus associated with Sterne and Scott in the Panthéon littéraire edition of the major English fiction writers. When he quoted Sterne, however, he used the Frénais – de la Beaume translation. Nodier’s view of Sterne appears in CH, but his shandean achievements are left out. Barton dismissed Histoire as ‘hardly more than a tour de force’ even while providing a fair description of the book (1918). Nodier was seen as a precursor of surrealism mainly through his explorations of the power of dreams, even though his dislocating of traditional logic makes him also a forerunner of Jarry’s Ubu roi and Dadaism (Jasinski 1975).The sheer amount of research on Nodier since 1980 shows his relevance to the age of (post-?) postmodernism. Never taking himself completely seriously, he was the jester by the side of his famous Romantic friends. In 1831 Balzac considered Histoire to be one of the major texts of the eventful preceding year, along with his own Physionomie, Janin’s La Confession and Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir (Scarlet and Black).While they all express

40

‘La postérité aura sans doute beaucoup de choses à nous reprocher, au cas que nous ayons une postérité qui daigne s’occuper de nous; mais ce qu’elle remarquera de plus caractéristique dans notre époque, c’est l’absence presque totale du dériseur sensé qui a le bon esprit de se moquer des autres, et de protester par un mépris judicieux contre l’ignorance et la folie de ses contemporains.’ ‘Voyez Cervantes, voyez Butler, voyez Swift, voyez Sterne, ces gens-là ne se contentent pas d’émonder luxuriem foliorum; ils sapent l’arbre et le jettent mort sur la terre, sans semence ni rejetons. Ce genre de critique, dont Voltaire et Beaumarchais ont fait un funeste abus en l’appliquant par étourderie ou par méchanceté à tout ce qui nous restait d’idées sociales, avait chez nous des modèles, malheureusement fort difficiles à imiter, dans Molière et dans Rabelais’ (Nodier 1961, 460–61).

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‘the cadaverous smell of a dying society’, satire and ‘deafening humour’ characterize Nodier.41 The friendship between the two men lasted from 1830 to 1832, and Balzac then parted from the Romantics (Laisney 2002, 343–52). In this period, he often referred to Sterne, most notably with epigraphs: indirectly with three lines of dots for Le Chef-d’oeuvre inconnu (The Unknown Masterpiece) and directly for La Peau de Chagrin (The Wild Ass’s Skin) with Trim’s flourish tilted horizontally. Perhaps because of the central role played by oriental magic in this text, later editors transformed the flourish into a snake (Sangsue 1987, 23).This suggests that the familiarity of the bookworld with TS was lost by 1855 (Houssiaux’s edition of Balzac), but may have been spurred on by Balzac himself who, in a selfpromoting 1831 article, used the verb ‘serpenter’ (slither like a snake) to describe the book as a ‘drama which winds, undulates, whirls and to which one must surrender, as the very spiritual epigraph of the book indicates’. Three years later one reader at least made it clear that the relationship between Balzac and Sterne had been misunderstood: ‘few people saw that [Trim’s flourish] implies most men have to surrender to the serpentine pace of life, to the bizarre undulations of destiny’, a somewhat surprising interpretation of Trim’s representation of liberty (Balzac 1974, 415).42 Writers in the 1830s loved eccentric paratexts and games with epigraphs (Sangsue 1987, 20–25). A Sterne reconstituted from memory or from illustrations emerges from this context. Hugo probably invented a variation on the White Bear episode for his epigraph to the first chapter of Han d’Islande (1823) (Hans of Iceland): ‘Have you seen him? Who has seen him? Not I.Who then? I do not know. STERNE, Tristram Shandy.’43 An epigraph in Le Rouge et le Noir assigns the phrase ‘The grave of a friend’ to Sterne, possibly referring to a sentimental illustration,44 and Stendhal’s narrator in Vie de Henry Brulard comments on his digressive propensity in the last

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‘Charles Nodier a publié son Histoire du Roi de Bohème, délicieuse plaisanterie littéraire, pleine de dédain, moqueuse: c’est la satire d’un vieillard blasé qui s’aperçoit, à la fin de ses jours, du vide affreux caché sous les sciences, sous les littératures. Ce livre appartient à l’école du désenchantement … Nodier arrive, jette un regard sur notre ville … et par l’organe de Don pic de Fanferluchio et de Breloque … en poussant un rire éclatant: “Science? – Niaiserie! A quoi bon? Qu’est-ce que cela me fait?”’ (Richer 1962, 22–23). ‘[Un] drame qui serpente, ondule, tournoie et au courant duquel il faut s’abandonner comme le dit la très spirituelle épigraphe du livre’ (La Caricature, 11 August 1831). ‘… cette morale que peignait si énergiquement le caporal Trim, par le moulinet qu’il trace en l’air avec son bâton et dont M. de Balzac a fait une épigraphe si mal comprise par la plupart des lecteurs. Peu de personnes ont vu qu’après un tel arrêt porté sur notre organisation il n’y avait d’autres ressources, pour la généralité des hommes, que de se laisser aller à l’allure serpentine de la vie, aux ondulation bizarres de la destinée’ (Félix Davin, Etudes philosophiques [1834], quoted in Balzac 1974, 415). ‘L’avez-vous vu? Qui est-ce qui l’a vu? Ce n’est pas moi. Qui donc? Je n’en sais rien. STERNE, TS’ (Sangsue 1987, 22). ‘Le tombeau d’un ami’ for Chapter 37 entitled ‘The Dungeon’ (Stendhal 1952, 651).

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chapter:‘I am going to be born, as Tristram Shandy says, and the reader will come out of this childishness,’ thereby specifying the context of the final sentence of Chapter 2:‘After so many general considerations, I am going to be born,’ which leads to the narrator’s first memory.45 Vigny’s Stello was described as ‘a witty pastiche in which the manners of Sterne and Hoffman are very artistically blended’, a reaction to the discontinuity of the narrative.46 Gautier and Nerval, the younger generation of Romantics also encouraged by Nodier, carried ‘the manner of Sterne’ into the 1850s, adopting his serpentine progression and metatextuality. Eccentricity became an end in itself, emblematized by Gautier’s red waistcoat in the 1830 Hernani battle, and his 1832 ‘De l’originalité en France’ (On Originality in France). This reaction against the death throes of the ‘decrepit world’ opens with Yorick’s comparison of the French to old coins and expresses the prevalence of conformist thinking to the extent that Gautier imagines a future of ‘automata’ (1880). By 1852 the revolt associated with eccentricity was blunted, as evidenced by Champfleury’s series of sociological portraits Les Excentriques. He applied the term to Nerval retrospectively, introducing a strong causality between ‘humourism’, eccentricity and madness; the first, defined as ‘the observation of the self ’, caused the death of Sterne, Swift and Hoffmann (Les Vignettes romantiques in Sangsue 1987, 350–51). In the context of eccentricity, Sterne seemed to be a compulsory reference. Champfleury also used Sterne for derision, applying ‘Alas, poor Yorick’ to a castrated cat in Les Aventures de Mademoiselle Mariette (The Adventures of Miss Mariette, 1853). One way of expressing distance from a stifling society was to wield irony and flout the rules, mainly of fiction, in the wake of de Maistre and Nodier. Gautier’s Fortunio (1838) put the conventions of writing and the materiality of the book in the foreground: as with Nodier’s castles, the hero never appears, and the narrator constantly comments on this (Sangsue 1987, 342). Similarly, in Nerval’s Les Faux-Saulniers (The Salt Smugglers, 1850), the peregrinations of the narrator in quest of a book, the biography of the Abbé de Bucquoy, replace those of his character (Nerval 1993, 2.1313); in order to comply with a new law against serials, the point was not to tell a story.The ‘Life’ itself takes up the last third of the text, before which Nodier’s cascade of imitators is revived: And then … (This was the way in which Diderot began a tale, you will say.) – Go on anyway! – You have imitated Diderot himself. – Who had imitated Sterne… – He had imitated Swift… – Who had imitated Rabelais…

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‘Je vais naître, comme dit Tristram Shandy, et le lecteur va sortir de ces enfantillages.’‘Après tant de considérations générales, je vais naître’ (Stendhal 1961, 364, 23). ‘Un spirituel pastiche où se trouvent très artistiquement fondues la manière de Sterne et la manière d’Hoffman’ (quoted by Sangsue 1987, 28).

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– He had imitated Merlin Coccaie … – Who had imitated Petronius … – He had imitated Lucian. And Lucian had imitated many others … And even the author of the Odyssey … (Nerval 1993, 2.118–19, dots in text).47

But as Ulysses finally finds Ithaca, the narrator finds his book and can give his ‘historical serial’, a biography with many gaps.These polemical and ironic digressions disappeared when Nerval gave the story of the Abbé again in Les Illuminés (Visionaries, 1852) and of the quest in ‘Angélique’, Les Filles du Feu (Daughters of Fire, 1854), which ends on the cascade of imitators and refers the reader to Les Illuminés for the sequel.The fragmentary nature of Nerval’s writings stemmed from their first publication in magazines, but also from a deep sympathy with interruptions and non-linear progression. Tribute to Nodier is evident in the polysemy of the titles La Bohème Galante (Gallant Bohemia, 1852) and Petits Châteaux de Bohème (Little Castles in Bohemia, 1853); an earlier version compared the offer of fragments of sixteenthcentury poetry to ‘the sermon that the good Sterne mixed into the macaronic adventures of Tristram Shandy’.48 Nerval adopted Sterne’s manner to begin his travel narratives, and several references to ASJ confirm that this was one of his models. In the 1838 article which justifies writing ‘travelling impressions’, he praises Raynal’s evocation of Eliza on describing Anjinga as the introduction of ‘a certain number of sentimental ideas’, of subjectivity, at the end of the eighteenth century, and notes that Sterne, Hoffman, Dumas, Heine all have ‘a particular and unpredictable way of seeing and feeling’ which appeals to readers.49 Voyage en Orient (Journey to the Orient) (1851) opens with a refusal of the straight lines of railways and a trust in ‘the chances of stagecoaches, which, more or less full, may stop the next day.’50 The narrator of Lorely (Lorelei) (1852)

47

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‘Et puis … (C’est ainsi que Diderot commençait un conte, me dira-t-on.) / – Allez toujours! / – Vous avez imité Diderot lui-même./ – Qui avait imité Sterne… / – Lequel avait imité Swift… / – Qui avait imité Rabelais… / – Lequel avait imité Merlin Coccaïe … / – Qui avait imité Pétrone…/ – Lequel avait imité Lucien. Et Lucien en avait imité bien d’autres’ (Nerval 1993, 2.118–19, dots in text). ‘Ce fameux roi dont Charles Nodier a raconté l’histoire’ (Nerval 1993, 3.438). ‘J’en ai retrouvé quelques fragments qui intéresseront peut-être les lecteurs … comme le sermon que le bon Sterne mêla aux aventures macaroniques de Tristram Shandy’ (Sangsue 1987, 366). ‘Impressions de voyage’. Scott … Lamartine: ‘Il est vrai que … leur fortune les défend … des bizarres traverses qui peuvent émouvoir la fantaisie humoristique d’un touriste ordinaire.’ Sterne … Heine: ‘une façon particulière et fantasque de voir et de sentir, dont l’expression paraît avoir un grand attrait pour le public’ (Nerval 1993, 1.455). ‘Imagine-toi l’imprudence d’un voyageur qui, trop capricieux pour consentir à suivre la ligne, à peu près droite, des chemins de fer, s’abandonne à toutes les chances des diligences, plus ou moins pleines, qui pourront passer le lendemain!’ (Nerval 1993, 2.173).

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refuses ‘regular descriptions’ and claims to be merely ‘strolling’ after he has decided to cross the Rhine on an impulse which recalls Yorick’s decision to cross the Channel.51 Although intertextual links are made with German Romanticism rather than with Sterne, tobacco as a first contact with the locals and the title of the first section ‘Sensations d’un voyageur enthousiaste’ (Sensations of an enthusiastic traveller) evoke ASJ from the start. Lorely is moreover dedicated to Janin, on account of the devastating biographical sketch he had written in 1841, shortly after his translation of ASJ. Nerval quoted the passage which had made his bout of insanity public, introducing it with ‘Alas! Poor Yorick!’ in English, thus turning himself into a fictional character nearly smothered by the quasi-obituary of the journalist (Nerval 1993, 3.4). Gautier made the link, judging that the ‘charming caprices’ of Lorely equalled ‘the best chapters’ of ASJ.52 He described Nerval’s gait while writing as a series of ‘sharp zigzags’.53 Zigzags, excursions, digressions, arabesques, caprices, all constitute a reaction against the bourgeois mentality, both in form and in content. Gautier’s (1845) Zigzags, which became Caprices et Zigzags in 1852, explores Sterne and de Maistre’s digressive progression through detours and short-cuts (Sangsue 1987, 318). So as to put the text under Sterne’s banner, this traveller begins his journey to the tune of Uncle Toby’s Lillabullero.When reviewing Töpffer’s books, which included Voyages en zigzag (1843), Gautier called them ‘little masterpieces in which Sterne, Xavier de Maistre and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre happily blend in an originality with a specific local flavour.’54 Both Gautier and Nerval used Trim’s flourish for comparisons, the first with a reference to Balzac to describe a signature (Sangsue 1987, 287) and the second to protest against the suppression of direct itineraries between two small towns because of railways: ‘The celebrated spiral of Corporal Trim’s stick was not more capricious than the route one has to make, on one side or the other’ (Nuits d’octobre, 1852).55 The seeming contradiction with Nerval’s former claim is attributed to French readers’ desire for complete explanations, a token of Nerval and Gautier’s ironic care of their narratees. Sterne is a constant reference in eccentric texts, which keep up the old tradition of parody while being in tune with their times, thus being ‘the baroque of Romanticism’ (Sangsue 1987, 412–15).

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‘Je fais ici une tournée de flâneur et non des descriptions régulières’ (Nerval 1993, 3.15). ‘Ces excursions nous ont valu des pages d’un caprice charmant et qu’on peut mettre sans crainte à côté des meilleurs chapitres du Voyage Sentimental de Sterne’ (Notices romantiques, Sangsue 1987, 353). ‘Il allait, venait, faisait de brusques zigzags aux angles imprévus’ (Sangsue 1987, 389). ‘De petits-chef-d’œuvre où Sterne, Xavier de Maistre et Bernardin de SaintPierre se fondent heureusement dans une originalité d’une saveur toute locale’ (Sangsue 1987, 287). ‘La spirale célèbre que traça en l’air le bâton du caporal Trim n’était pas plus capricieuse que le chemin qu’il faut faire, soit d’un côté, soit de l’autre’ (Nerval 1993, 3.345).

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The 1841 translators’ quarrel At the time he frequented Nodier’s salon, Janin had not yet become ‘the prince of critics’ or a ‘recognised authority on English’ (Partridge 1924, 313). He was famous for his 1827 L’Ane mort et la femme guillotinée (The Dead Donkey and the Guillotined Woman) in which he grappled with ASJ, showing his generation’s horizon of expectation: You speak of Sterne’s ass; there was a time when its death, followed by its funeral oration, made sweet tears flow. I am also writing the story of an ass; but do not fear, I will not limit myself to the simplicity of ASJ … Speak to me on the contrary of a very terrible, dark and bloody nature.56

The text, republished throughout the century, illustrates the ‘frenetic genre’, a phrase coined by Nodier. In 1829 Janin approached Sterne much more closely when he wrote the biographical notices to Henrion’s edition of extracts from Sterne and Mackenzie. He developed this in the preface to his 1841 translation of ASJ. What probably motivated Janin’s new version were the illustrations, the eleven plates by Tony Johannot and 160 romantic vignettes by Charles Jacque (who signed most but not all the vignettes). With nearly every page illustrated, text and pictures interact much as in Nodier’s Histoire.The vignettes represent places or characters, and their disposition adds a playful dimension to the text: for example, the periwig-maker bears a horrified look while holding Yorick’s wig at arm’s length; two versos later, a pail against a marine background closes the chapter (Janin 1841, 119–22). Quite a few devils too make an appearance in the vignettes. Discrepancies between Johannot’s elegant prints and the lively vignettes suggest that the two artists worked separately: their renderings of the mourner of the dead ass and of the Patissier look quite different. Janin, Nodier and Johannot often worked together and Johannot also illustrated Janin’s Ane (Marie 1925, 57). In the Preface, Janin compared his task as a translator to ‘a dangerous duel’, claiming to have compensated for ‘a deep ignorance of the English language’ by ‘a deep and respectful perception of the grace, the delicacy, the finesse’ of French.57 In the foreword to his own translation published a few months later, Defauconprêt retorted that ‘translating in such a way is not translating, but inventing’, and slyly concluded: ‘those who wish to have an exact idea of the Journey will read our work; those who wish to have a very

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‘Vous parlez de l’âne de Sterne; un temps fut où sa mort, suivie de son oraison funèbre, faisait répandre de douces larmes. J’écris aussi l’histoire d’ un âne; mais, soyez tranquilles, je ne m’en tiendrai pas à la simplicité du voyage sentimental … Parlez-moi au contraire d’une nature bien terrible, bien rembrunie, bien sanglante’ (Janin 1829, 21–22). ‘Ce duel dangereux … cette ignorance profonde de la langue anglaise, remplacée par un profond et respectueux sentiment de la grâce, de la légèreté, de la finesse de notre langue’ (Janin 1841, 46).

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French idea of the Journey will read Mr. Jules Janin’s work’.58 He spoke from experience, having translated Scott.As evidenced in the first sentence of this chapter, Janin had no qualms about ‘frenchifying’ Sterne, in the wake of Frénais and eighteenth-century translation theories. Defauconprêt used a similar argument: ‘If there ever was a French book in any foreign literature, it is without doubt Sterne’s Sentimental Journey … it looks like a book translated into English from the French of Marivaux’.59 This was tit for tat: Janin had imagined the ‘persiflage’ between Crébillon fils and Sterne. True to his earlier views, Janin distanced himself from sentimentality. He stressed the value of ‘simple description’ in which Sterne replaced Goldsmith’s ‘sincerity’ by ‘mischief and sarcasm’. Defauconprêt’s Sterne was also associated with Goldsmith, for this Voyage was published with Nodier’s Vicar of Wakefield in Gosselin’s Bibliothèque d’Elite (Elite Library). Gosselin had made Scott fashionable in France (Chartier 1985, 182), and the English context of his Sterne was emphasized by Scott’s ‘Life’, whereas the ‘Life of Goldsmith’ was Nodier’s. Possibly to give the two authors an equivalent length, ASJ is followed by YE and EY, with the caveat that Eliza’s letters are ‘probably apocryphal’, and by the shortened continuation and the Lespinasse. Janin had included YE, ‘only to complete the volume to the liking of Messrs. the booksellers’ (33). Notwithstanding his criticism of the rival version, which contains ‘imprudent innovations’, Defauconprêt himself did ‘little more than assemble, in a common gallery, all the more or less faithful images’ of earlier translations (Soupel 1984, 137). Both chose to specify the end of the text by adding a masculine determiner to translate Sterne’s ambiguous possessive, and then adding marks of omission.60 Janin, however, rounded off his translation by explaining that the text is open at both ends. Like the artists in Nodier’s circle, he did not condemn incompleteness: ‘We, for our part, think on the contrary that the work thus broken is complete, precisely because it does not end.’And to drive his point home, he imagined possible endings:‘What pleasure would you derive from witnessing, say, Yorick’s marriage to Madame de L…, or to Eliza?’61 An elegant phrase captured the freedom and pace of Sterne’s text which appealed so much to the likes of Nerval and Töppfer: ‘it is a journey made

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‘Traduire ainsi, ce n’est pas traduire, c’est inventer … Ceux qui voudront avoir une juste idée du Voyage Sentimental, liront notre travail; ceux qui voudront avoir une idée très-française du Voyage Sentimental, liront la traduction de M. Jules Janin’ (Defauconprêt 1841, 4). ‘S’il y eut jamais un livre français dans une littérature étrangère, c’est sans contredit le Voyage Sentimental de Sterne … On dirait un livre traduit en anglais du français de Marivaux’ (Defauconprêt 1841, 3). ‘Si bien qu’en étendant le bras, je saisis la femme de chambre par le …’ (Janin 1841, 307);‘De façon qu’en étendant le bras, je saisis la femme de chambre par le … ’ (Defauconprêt 1841, 151). ‘Nous pensons, nous, au contraire, que l’œuvre ainsi brisée est complète, justement parce qu’elle ne finit pas. Le beau plaisir que vous auriez si vous assistiez, par exemple, au mariage d’Yorick avec Madame de L... ou avec Eliza!’ (Janin 1841, 309).

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in a gentle canter, the gentlest of gaits.’ At the same time, he evokes an idealized view of pre-revolutionary times through the eyes of Yorick, a journey ‘through eighteenth-century France, a country full of elegance, new ideas, scepticism, revolutions as yet unperceived’.62 Nostalgia did not characterize Wailly, whose ASJ terminated the 1841 translators’ quarrel. His TS came in 1842. His were the first faithful translations of Sterne in French. 1841–1908: Editions Wailly’s publisher was Charpentier, who started in 1838 to make world literature available to a much wider audience with his Bibliothèque Charpentier (Chartier and Martin 1985, 195).Wailly’s Sterne was regularly reedited, and it remained the authoritative text for nearly a century. In 1843, ASJ was followed by Paradise Lost, but from 1858 on, editions comprised TS, ASJ and YE. Scott’s ‘Life’ was included from the start in these ‘no frills’ editions.Wailly, himself a novelist and playwright, translated a lot of English literature. His ASJ leaves out the coat of arms but, following Crassous, keeps the starling’s ‘I can’t get out’ in English, giving the translation in a note. Like most of his predecessors, Wailly transforms Sterne’s ‘fille de chambre’ into ‘femme de chambre’, restricting ‘fille’ to translations of ‘girl’.This makes for a more harmonious French text but partly destroys Sterne’s innuendo; it reflects nineteenth-century usage (Littré 1863). The end is a disappointing dash. Most typographical devices are respected in TS, with several dashlengths, black characters, printer’s fists, wriggly lines and flourishes.Yet Wailly follows Scott (Ballantyne ed. 1823): the black pages are replaced by a single chequered one, to which the translator duly refers as such, when coming to the marbled ones, replaced by a marbled slip. Chapters are numbered continuously although volume divisions are respected. When the change was made from separate to joined texts in 1858, the format moved down from 12° to 18° and Wailly added explanatory notes to TS. They often explain the English usage, especially when the translator finds it impossible to render a double meaning (‘shift’ [TS, 6.3.495], ‘plain’ [TS, 7.43.648], or ‘asse’ [TS, 8.32.717] for example), or they trace a passage back to Rabelais. Many borrowings pointed out by Ferriar are indicated, most without any reference to Wailly’s source, but quite a few in which the translator’s mounting exasperation is expressed. Because Scott’s ‘Life’ is used as an introduction, the reader has encountered ‘Dr. Ferriar’s well-known Essay’ before he embarks on the text, and thus knows that Sterne ‘was, in fact, the most unhesitating plagiarist who ever cribbed from his predecessors in order to garnish his own pages’ (Scott, CH, 373). Wailly thus had two

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‘De ce voyage, au milieu de la France du dix-huitième siècle, dans ce pays tout rempli d’élégance, d’idées nouvelles, de révolutions encore inaperçues, est résulté le Voyage Sentimental … C’est un voyage fait à l’amble, la plus douce des allures’ (Janin 1841, 35; Fitzgerald 439).

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authorities to contend with, and he started with the Scottish monument, well known to his French readers.Annotating ‘shall we for ever be adding so much to the bulk – so little to the stock?’ (TS, 5.1.408), he comments:‘Scott … seems to have taken this plagiarism of a passage against plagiarists too seriously.What if, instead of being the height of impudence, it were simply humour!’63 He next confronts Ferriar directly, suggesting that his ‘indictment is … somewhat tainted by a scholar’s spirit of denigration and jealousy against a man of imagination’.64 Wailly then accuses Sterne himself for the Lady Baussiere borrowing (‘This is Sterne’s biggest sin … This oversteps the mark’65), but does not accept his forced solidarity with Ferriar for long, preferring a sound literary analysis: [Sterne] does not waste his time poring over manuscripts looking for arguments against erudition: this would be doing what he reproaches others with. All the erudition he needs as a text for his satires, he takes ready-made from Burton … The reader must believe that Mr. Shandy is a sort of Dr. Burton who has read much, and who, when he has to show his feelings, can only display his memory, while sensitive corporal Trim … makes the whole kitchen cry. Note the opening of the chapter … is this not a sort of warning?66

He then settles his score with Sterne’s detractor: ‘To an accusation of the same nature,Voltaire answered one day:“Do me the honour of believing that I would have been able to invent this myself.”’67 His final note makes the ending a double tease; the final ‘un coq-à-l’âne’ calls for ‘In English, a cock and a bull, which, with another innuendo I wish to be excused for not explaining, motivates Yorick’s answer.’68 This enduring version was definitely the work of a translator who saw himself as an interface between two cultures.

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‘Scott … nous semble avoir pris trop au sérieux ce plagiat d’un passage contre les plagiaires. Si, au lieu d’être le comble de l’impudence, c’était simplement un trait d’humour?’ (Wailly 1882, 1.387). ‘… si l’amour de la justice qui a dicté ce réquisitoire n’est pas un peu entaché d’esprit de dénigrement et de jalousie d’érudit contre un homme d’imagination’ (Wailly 1882, 1.388). ‘Ceci est le plus gros péché de Sterne … Cela passe la permission’ (Wailly 1882, 1.393). ‘Il ne perd pas son temps à pâlir sur des manuscrits pour y chercher des arguments contre l’érudition: ce serait faire ce qu’il reproche aux autres.Toute celle dont il a besoin pour servir de texte à ses satires, il la prend toute faite dans Burton … Le lecteur doit croire que M. Shandy est une sorte de docteur Burton qui a beaucoup lu, et qui, lorsqu’il s’agit de montrer du cœur, ne sait faire preuve que de mémoire, tandis que le sensible caporal Trim … fait pleurer toute la cuisine. Remarquez d’ailleurs le début du chapitre … n’est-ce pas là une sorte d’avertissement?’ (Wailly 1882 1.398–99). ‘A une accusation de même nature, Voltaire répondit un jour: “Faites-moi l’honneur de croire que j’aurais été capable d’inventer cela”’ (Wailly 1882, 2.102). ‘En anglais, a cock and a bull (un coq et un taureau), ce qui, avec une autre équivoque qu’on m’excusera de ne point expliquer, motive la réponse de Yorick’ (Wailly 1882, 2.291).

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Cheaper collections also included Sterne, often in abridged form: in 1849, Havard’s ASJ in Romans illustrés (Illustrated Novels), twenty-four pages with illustrations by Bertall and Lavieille (Soupel 1990) vied with J. Bry’s in Veillées littéraires illustrées (Illustrated Literary Evenings), both at 0.20 franc, while Charpentier’s volumes usually cost 3.50 francs and other publishers charged 7.50 francs (Chartier 1985, 195). Bry’s was the first volume of a collection which included the complete Scott (Chartier 1985, 196). In 1863 typographers of the Dubuisson printing house started the Bibliothèque nationale collection, with each volume at 0.25 franc. As a general rule they took no risks (Chartier 1985, 577–8); their choice of Sterne texts confirms this: ASJ came out in 1864 and TS (Frénais and de la Beaume) in 1884, with frequent reprints. Delarue’s Les Chefs d’œuvre de la littérature française et étrangère (Masterpieces of French and Foreign Literature – combinations of these words seem endless) gave ASJ (Frénais) ‘with vignettes’ in 1876, 1881 and 1882. Moreover, the phenomenon accompanied social changes: the 1884, 1886 and 1888 Voyage (Frénais) issued by Marpon and Flammarion may well have been part of the vast production of books for youngsters after 1870, often given as end-of-year school prizes (Chartier 1985, 476), also probably the case for the 1890 Oncle Tobie with fourteen prints from Barbou in Limoges (Chartier 1985, 465). In 1866, the far more ambitious Michel-Lévy Frères duly produced their ASJ, in a new translation by Fournier (1 franc). It came with Scott’s ‘Life’, the Eloge and YE; a short ‘post-scriptum by the translator’ described ASJ as ‘a collection of intimate, personal impressions, experienced on the run, day by day; a sort of journal of the soul … a thumbnail sketch’, not a work of art; he pointed out that the text did not call for a continuation and provided instead ‘Maria’ from TS.69 This translation was eclipsed by Wailly’s. In the same year, Hachette published a dreadful version in verse by Tasset, who had already produced Voyage en France à la recherche de la santé (A Journey in France in Quest of Health) in 1854: such a title would no doubt have been an asset in Hachette’s Bibliothèque des chemins de fer (Railway Library), begun in 1852 from the idea developed by Smith in Britain (Chartier 1985, 207). The 1866 version originated from a 1789 transposition (Soupel 1984, 136) and came one year after Tasset’s sequel to Scarron’s Virgile Travesti. The excuse for this Sterne travesti was ‘to a certain point, the attraction of novelty’ (p. v): this indicates how well known Sterne’s text was felt to be. Every price range offered at least one version of ASJ. In 1875, however, a new upmarket edition came out, translated by Alfred Hédouin with five etchings by Edmond Hédouin in the ‘Librairie des bibliophiles’. Jouaust the publisher was renowned for his charming collectors’ editions.This translator also felt compelled to justify himself:

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‘L’écrit de Sterne n’est pas une composition méditée à loisir, ni une œuvre d’art; c’est un recueil d’impressions personnelles, intimes, reçues en courant, au jour le jour; sorte de journal de l’âme … un ouvrage qui a pour but d’analyser des sensations multiples, fugitives, dues le plus souvent au hasard, et essentiellement isolées les unes des autres … une étude sur le vif ’ (Fournier 1866, 215–16).

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The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe We only wish that our work will not be found inferior to [Wailly’s excellent translation]. But by giving, for the first time, the names of the characters which Sterne had only indicated with initials, and by pointing to his borrowings … in ASJ, we hope to have given our translation a new character and attraction.70

He did achieve a slightly different text, notwithstanding the customary final dash. The main originality of this edition resides in the illustrations, with their ‘graceful treatment of moments of high “sentimental” ambiguity’ (Soupel 1990, 203). His introduction displays a good knowledge of the period’s reception and attempts to rescue Sterne from the ‘severe judgements’ of Thackeray and Taine: ‘To these malicious judges we are happy to oppose, in France, Diderot, … Nodier … and Balzac.’71 His interest in Sterne dated back to 1853, when he translated Koran for the Librairie nouvelle.As he referred to the 1818 Works, he did not know who had added the ‘few scraps’ which to his taste did not reflect Sterne’s ‘deep knowledge, fine wit, benevolence and divine charity’ (Hédouin 1853, 7), and he suspected no more than his predecessor that the text was spurious. In a review on Stapfer which also considered Hédoin’s Koran, Barbey d’Aurevilly questioned whether this was genuine Sterne – and whether the translation was worthwhile (1890). Hédouin was impressed by ‘Sterne’s’ conversation with Voltaire (Koran 1.59) and expatiated on the differences between ‘Yorik’ [sic] and Dr. Pangloss, thus voicing his view of Sterne as a moralist. ‘Sterne’s liberties’ he excused by the customary comparison to uncle Toby’s oath, calling upon the unusual ‘instructing angel’. After Janin and Defauconprêt, he claimed that Sterne should have been French, but through the odd conceit that, as England considers Sterne an eccentric writer,‘sentiment, – the most striking aspect of his genius, – makes [him] more French than English’.72 Anglomania often focused on English eccentricity, but the ‘eccentric texts’ in French examined earlier seem to have changed this perception. If Hédouin translated the Koran because ASJ and TS had already been translated satisfactorily, he apparently changed his mind not only for ASJ twenty-two years later, but also for TS after fifteen more years, in 1890.The publisher Lemerre had established his reputation with the Parnasse poets when Hédouin’s VS came out, and was known for his refined page layout where blanks played an important role (Chartier 1985, 368), definitely an advantage for Sterne, in contrast to the cramped cheap editions. In this TS, each instalment begins by mentioning the original publisher, all typographical

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‘Notre ambition se borne à désirer que notre travail ne soit pas trouvé inférieur à son excellente traduction. Mais en donnant, pour la première fois, les noms des personnages indiqués par Sterne par de simples initiales, et en signalant les emprunts faits par lui, dans le Voyage Sentimental, … nous espérons avoir donné à notre traduction un caractère et un attrait nouveau’ (Hédouin 1875, ix). ‘A ces juges malveillants de Sterne, nous sommes heureux de pouvoir opposer, en France, Diderot … , Nodier … et Balzac’ (Hédouin 1875, iv). ‘Le sentiment, – le côté le plus saillant de son génie, – rend même Sterne plus Français qu’Anglais’ (Hédouin 1853, 15).

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devices appear (with a few additional ornaments), and pages skip from 232 to 243 for the missing chapter: Hédouin thus strove to recreate an authentic Sterne in the wake of Fitzgerald, whose many mistakes he regrets. The biographical sketch expressed his view of a benevolent, sentimental Sterne. Over nearly forty years, he provided, albeit on a small scale, a consistent image of Sterne as a victimized moralist. Although Blémont, a minor Parnasse poet, often published with Lemerre, his 1884 VS was produced by Launette’s Librairie artistique. Leloir’s prints were clearly more important than an exact text in this luxury edition.Twelve full-page photo-engravings and 220 vignettes interact with the text. Leloir plays a subtle game with hands, beguiling the peruser of the book from page to page. For example, the same opening juxtaposes a hand ‘immers [ing the wig] into the ocean’ against a background of ship and setting sun on the left page, with the barber holding it over ‘a pail of water’ on the right (Blémont 1884, 86–87). The vignettes at the end of ‘The Mystery’ and ‘The Act of Charity’ set off the parallel: one female hand dropping one coin into the beggar’s hat doubles up into two female hands doing the same (Blémont 1884, 162, 183). Soupel underlines the suggestiveness of the illustration for ‘Le Mari’, ‘The Husband’, and of the final print, in which the ‘fille de chambre’ is seen from the back, walking towards ‘the narrow passage’ (1990). In the British Library copy, she is clearly heading for Yorick’s outstretched hand (Blémont 1884, 208–9), not visible in the Bibliothèque Nationale copy. This hand nearly touches the girl’s shoulder in the final vignette; she now faces the reader, her night-dress having slipped over her shoulder so as to almost reveal her breast. She clutches her garment in front of her crotch and her look certainly suggests that she is lusting after Yorick (p. 210). Different states of the prints exist, with varying degrees of undress, a counterpoint to this translator’s adoption of Janin and Defauconprêt’s masculine determiner before the final dash. Leloir also reversed views for ‘The Remise Door,’ with Yorick and the lady holding hands facing the reader at the beginning of the episode and seen from the back at the end, their looser attitude already suggesting that the characters’ story continues outside the text (Blémont 1884, 29, 31).This edition vies with that of Janin (reprinted 1854 and 1894), while Hédouin’s, re-edited in 1887, was more ‘appropriate and academic’ (Soupel 1990, 203). At the other end of the price range, some of the cheap editions were clearly didactic. In 1887, Gauthier’s Nouvelle bibliothèque populaire à dix centimes (New Popular Ten-cent Library) (0.10 franc) gave a very condensed version of Sterne in ten episodes, removing all digressions from Frénais’ TS in ‘Mon Oncle Tobie’ for example. The title, Sterne: Œuvres humoristiques (Comic Works), unwittingly describes this ‘fast-forward’ version in thirtytwo pages, in contrast with the intelligent two-page Notice biographique et littéraire, which mentions the main translators and indicates further readings, both in French and in English. Moreau-Christophe’s ASJ appeared again with a few extracts from TS in Chefs-d’œuvre classiques de l’amour (Classic Masterpieces of Love; Dentu: 1884, 1886), while Frénais featured again in the Petite Collection Guillaume (E. Dentu) in 1893, illustrated by Marold. These prints also accompanied an English edition by Guillaume in 1894. 1908 was the last year to see several editions of Sterne: the last Dubuison

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ASJ, Garnier’s TS and ASJ. Barton summed up the reputation of Sterne in France before the First World War: ‘TS is not much read today, but ASJ is still popular. One can find five or six different editions in any important bookshop’ (1911, 99). Also published in 1908 was the selection by Simond for Les Prosateurs illustres français et étrangers (Famous French and Foreign Prose-writers). Sterne’s ‘ranking’ justifies giving only extracts: According to the judgement of English critics, Sterne is a second-class writer, at an equal distance from Fielding and Swift, the two great names of eighteenth-century English literature … The first category contains authors frequently read – but less than they are said to be – Fielding and Goldsmith. Those which the public reads very little or not at all are Addison and Smollett. The third class consists of names known by scholars only: Richardson is typical of it. Will Sterne in future keep him company in his solitude? No, for TS is infinitely better than Clarissa Harlowe, which only had a temporary success. By ridding Sterne of the many worthless passages which partly caused the early fame of the book, we are left with some pages of the first order which will not die out.73

As Simond seems to disapprove of both books, one wonders why he edited Sterne at all. ‘What do we care about white pages with just a chapter heading? Or black, marbled or chequered ones? … If Sterne’s popularity in eighteenth-century England rested on such madness, what should we think of such a public’s taste?’ Toby is a likeable character, if we forget the page where he shows ‘sentiment for a fly’. Likewise, ASJ is judged too sentimental, and a mere sketch.74 Sterne’s works had clearly lost the appeal they had for Nodier and his friends, which illustrates the impact of Realism and Naturalism, and appears in the negative appraisal of literary critics.

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‘Au jugement de la critique anglaise, Sterne est un écrivain de second rang à égale distance de Fielding et de Swift, les deux grands noms de la littérature anglaise au XVIIIe siècle … la première catégorie comprend les auteurs lus assez fréquemment – moins qu’on ne le dit toutefois – il faut y ranger Fielding et Goldsmith. Ceux que le public lit peu ou pas du tout, c’est Addison et Smollett. La troisième classe renferme des noms connus des érudits seuls: le type en est Richardson. Sterne ira-t-il dans l’avenir lui tenir compagnie dans la solitude? Non, car TS vaut infiniment mieux que Clarissa Harlowe, qui n’eut qu’un succès passager. En rejetant de Sterne les trop nombreux passages sans valeur qui firent jadis en partie le retentissement du livre, il reste des pages de tout premier ordre qui ne passeront point’ (Simond 1908, xxii). ‘Quel intérêt ont pour nous des pages blanches intercalées dans son livre et ne portant tout juste que le numéro du chapitre? Et les pages noires ou marbrées ou en damier … si vraiment la popularité de Sterne dans l’Angleterre du XVIIIe siècle eut reposé sur de telles folies, que devrait-on penser du goût de ce public? … Du sentiment pour une mouche! Cette page il faut l’oublier’ (Simond 1908, xvi–xxi).

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1863-1911: Critical reception First and foremost came Taine, with views close to Thackeray’s but with his own agenda. Histoire de la littérature anglaise (History of English Literature, 1863) situates each writer in terms of race, milieu and moment. Sterne and Smollett are contrasted with Fielding and Richardson. Where Smollett is ‘coarse’, Sterne is a sick humorist and an eccentric, an ecclesiastic and a rake, a violin player and a philosopher, who ‘weeps on a dead ass and neglects his living mother’, egotistic, sensitive in words only, and one who takes opposite views of himself and others in all things. His book is like a great bric-a-brac shop.

Most of all, Taine resents being manipulated: ‘The mischievous buffoon draws and tangles up the strings of all our feelings and makes us go here and there, baroquely, like puppets.’ The critic recommends Sterne for ‘days of caprice, spleen and rain, when by dint of nervous irritation, you are disgusted with reason’.75 Hédouin’s complaint had some basis, although Sterne was far from being the only writer of whom Taine disapproved.Yet hostility did not prevent him from publishing a friend’s ‘Notes on Paris’ as the extremely successful Vie et opinions de M. Frédéric-Thomas Graindorge (Life and Opinions), once more relying on the familiar title from Sterne to make its way. After Fitzgerald’s biography of Sterne (1864), a kinder view was called for. Montégut undertook this in one of his many biographical articles for the authoritative Revue des deux mondes. Taine had introduced Sterne thus: ‘Imagine a man who begins a journey wearing a pair of glasses with an extraordinary magnifying power.’ Montégut turned this into: ‘everything in him is on a microscopic scale: small characters, small personalities, small philosophy, small methods’. As the Revue was wide-ranging, he compared TS to Dutch art with its precision and finish, while ASJ rivals French eighteenth-century painting and is judged to be ‘Sterne at his purest, Sterne filtered, clarified, reduced to the state of an essence’. TS is associated with a muddle (long before Forster) and an ambivalence akin to Thackeray’s prevails:‘One would love to insult Sterne even as one cannot but admire the extraordinary art with which his stories and bawdy rambles are spun.’76

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‘Sterne est un malade humoriste et excentrique, ecclésiastique et libertin, joueur de violon et philosophe, “qui geint sur un âne mort et délaisse sa mère vivante”, égoïste de fait, sensible en paroles, et qui en toutes choses prend le contre-pied de lui-même et d’autrui. Son livre est comme un grand magasin de bric-à-brac … Le malin bouffon tire et brouille tous les fils de nos sentiments, et nous fait aller de ci, de là, baroquement, comme des marionnettes … Aussi, pour lire Sterne, faut-il attendre les jours de caprice, de spleen et de pluie, où, à force d’agacement nerveux, on est dégoûté de la raison’ (Taine 1878, 146–49). ‘Figurez-vous un homme qui se met en voyage ayant sur les yeux une paire de lunettes extraordinairement grossissantes’ (Taine 1878, 144–45). ‘Tout chez lui est à l’état microscopique, petits personnages, petits caractères, petite philosophie, petites méthodes … Le Voyage Sentimental c’est du plus pur Sterne, du Sterne filtré, clarifié, réduit à l’état d’essence … un fouillis … On injurierait volontiers Sterne au moment même où l’on ne peut s’empêcher d’admirer l’art extraordinaire avec lequel sont filées ses histoires et ses dissertations scabreuses’ (Montégut 1865, 927–61).

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Reluctance also characterizes the entry on Sterne in the 1868 Nouvelle biographie générale. Only British sources are cited (‘Life’ from Letters to his Friends, Ferriar, Scott, Fitzgerald) and his influence is judged severely: he ‘created digressive literature, which has been one of the scourges of our times’. Yet the final judgement is positive: ‘none of his pale imitators has managed to unite strength and animation, mirth and melancholy, as powerfully as Sterne, who remains, despite his oddities, an original writer par excellence.’77 Two years later, Stapfer published his doctorate on Sterne and included a fragment which Cross accepted. Even if it is not very convincing, the fragment may have changed Stapfer’s view. His ‘total indifference for [Sterne’s] person’ and greater ‘antagonism than admiration for his works’ gradually gave way to appreciation: ‘A noble and comforting idea underlies all of Sterne’s books: he believes that man is capable of benevolence and of happiness.’ He deems TS surprising, but so boring that no reader will finish it, especially in a French translation. ‘Flashes of genius’ will appear – and disappear as quick as lightning.78 Qualification of the style echoes the scandalized reception of the likes of Manet’s (1862) Déjeuner sur l’herbe: The bizarre inventions, the extravagances of which [Sterne] is so proud, do not entitle him to claim originality any more than the new idea of introducing a sudden cacophony in the middle of a musical composition would entitle a composer to make this claim, or a painter for drawing little people making faces at the viewers in each of the four corners of a painting.79

Because Stapfer’s artistic ideal consisted in ‘showing nature and hiding the artist’, he responded better to ASJ. Perhaps unwittingly, he described Sterne with a term which enthusiastic followers had adopted: Sterne ‘shoots across

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‘Sterne a créé en France la littérature digressive, qui a été l’un des fléaux de notre époque; aucun de ses pâles imitateurs n’a allié au même degré de puissance la force et l’animation, la gaîté et la mélancolie, et il n’en reste pas moins, malgré ses bizarreries, un écrivain original par excellence’ (Hoefer 1868, 491). ‘Une indifférence parfaite pour sa personne et plus d’antipathie que d’admiration pour ses œuvres … Une idée noble et consolante se trouve au fond de toutes les œuvres de Sterne: il croit que l’homme est capable de bonté et capable aussi de bonheur.’ ‘L’étonnement d’un Français qui lit TS n’a d’égal que l’ennui où cette lecture le plonge … Il est bien douteux qu’il aille jusqu’au bout … mais s’il continue machinalement à lire … le génie de Sterne lui apparaîtra dans un éclair … le volume terminé, notre lecteur le fermera pour le rouvrir à cinq ou six pages qu’il a marquées, jamais pour le relire’ (Stapfer 1870, 300–1, 133–35). ‘Les inventions bizarres, les extravagances dont il est si fier, ne lui donnent pas plus de titre à l’originalité, que n’en donnerait à un compositeur l’idée neuve d’introduire au beau milieu d’une morceau de musique une cacophonie soudaine, ou à un peintre celle de dessiner aux quatre coins de son tableau des bonshommes faisant des pieds de nez au public’ (Stapfer 1870, 203).

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the history of literature like a quickly zigzagging star’.80 ‘Extreme originality’ serves as a justification for not using Taine’s theory of evolution on Sterne. A generation later,Texte’s Rousseau et les origines du cosmopolitisme littéraire (Rousseau and the Cosmopolitan Spirit in Literature) showed the impact of artistic revolutions: while noting the neologism, he called Sterne ‘the most “impressionist” writer of his century.’Addressing de Staël’s theses after nearly a century, the link between Sterne and Rousseau seemed obvious: ‘France took [Sterne] for a sort of prophet of the new religion Rousseau had just made fashionable, the religion of the self.’ Another confirmation that the view of Sterne had changed resides in this critic’s preference for TS.81 Barton also deemed TS the more important book. In keeping with the academic requirements of the period (Bonel-Elliott 2000, 71–72), he adopted a comparatist point of view and studied the influence of Sterne on French eighteenth-century writers: the true merit of Sterne does not reside in his sentimentality, admired as it was in his time … ASJ belongs to the type of works which one reads with a particular interest, but which cannot be either well analysed or well imitated. TS on the contrary is a source of precious suggestions for a novelist … This is why the influence of Sterne in France – something very distinct from his popularity – largely stems from [TS].82

Barton ranked De Maistre highest, and amplified his dissertation with articles (1916, 1918). The many references he points to have proved extremely helpful for the present study. Although the work of Stapfer and, more convincingly, Barton, shows that the French university system did accept research on Sterne,Taine’s powerful voice resounded well into the twentieth century, during which Sterne appeared in histories of literature and anthologies mainly as a minor novelist. 1860s–1920s: Influence? While recent studies of turn-of-the-century reactions to Realism and Naturalism often refer to Sterne, direct influence on authors of this period seems scant. Fillaudeau (1985) parallels the irruptions of Gide’s narrators into

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‘L’extrême originalité de la personne et des écrits de Sterne nous semblait autoriser un tel isolement … petite figure purement littéraire, il traverse l’histoire littéraire comme une étoile au zig-zag rapide’ (Stapfer 1870, ix). ‘Il est … si l’on peut lui appliquer ce néologisme, le plus franchement “impressionniste” des écrivains de son siècle.’ ‘La France le prit pour une manière de prophète de cette religion nouvelle que Rousseau venait de mettre à la mode, la religion du moi’ (Texte 1895, 350, 342). ‘Le vrai mérite de Sterne ne tient pas à sa sentimentalité si admirée de son temps; … Le Voyage Sentimental appartient à cette classe d’ouvrages qu’on lit avec un intérêt tout particulier, mais qui ne peuvent être ni bien analysés, ni bien imités. TS, au contraire, est une source de suggestions précieuses pour le romancier … Voilà pourquoi l’influence de Sterne en France – chose tout à fait distincte de sa popularité – part en grande partie de [TS]’ (Barton 1911, 98–99).

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their stories with Tristram’s metatextual games, but Paludes (Marshlands), Prométhée mal enchaîné (Prometheus Misbound) and Les Caves du Vatican (The Vatican Cellars) predate Gide’s reading of TS in 1920. This coincided with a revision of Paludes, without any evident consequence (Gide 1979, 1.111). Gide apparently only overcame Taine’s avowed influence quite late, but then appreciated TS enough to quote it twice in a 1932 entry to his journal (2000, 3.232). Full appraisal came in ‘Imaginary Interviews’ (1942), where TS heads the list of ‘pseudo-novels of genius breaking with the rules’, to be relished in solitude, in contrast to novels one can read aloud, in a group.83 Sangsue (2000) examines references to Sterne by fin-de-siècle writers, such as the Goncourts, but insists on the limited impact on these texts, which mainly explored decadence. Eccentricity became a theme and took on a seriousness which precluded explicit reference to shandean fun in the antinovels of Gide, Renard and Vallès. Jouve’s VS (1922) referred to Sterne only through its title, for his meandering text is probably more closely related to Nerval’s ‘travelling impressions’. Similarly, the balance between derision and seriousness in Sterne, Diderot and Heine did not suit the aesthetics of surprise advocated by Surrealism (Raimond 1985, 246). The twentieth century The reduced familiarity of the French with Sterne in this period also appears in the way critics refer to his works. For instance, Berthier (1920) clearly did not expect his readers to know the stories from TS he alluded to in his biography of de Maistre. This confirms information from well-read nonagenarians. De Reul (1929) noted that TS was out of print. He provided a far more sympathetic edition of extracts than Simond had, despite replacing ‘maudlin’ or ‘excessive’ passages with summaries; in this guise, TS and ASJ belonged to Les Cent Chefs-d’œuvre étrangers (The One Hundred Foreign Masterpieces). ASJ seems to have been mainly of interest as a vehicle for erotic illustrations (1927, 1929, see Goring 1994, 64). The change in the perception of sentimentalism, already apparent with Barton, was formalized in the authoritative (1921) Histoire de la littérature anglaise (History of English Literature) by Cazamian and Legouis, which remained in use for decades. The ambivalence which Thackeray and Taine disliked so much was seen as Sterne’s strength by Cazamian: With him, the sentimental novel reaches the extreme limit of its principle … An intellectuality, and with it a coldness, creeps into the very heart of a literature which represents itself as animated by a communicative ardour … Psychological duality is the characteristic feature of an attitude such as that of Sterne; and consciousness or artifice does not exclude with him the sincerity of emotion. (1926, 854–55)

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‘Ce qui ne m’empêchait nullement, retiré dans ma chambre … en solitaire, de goûter pleinement et d’admirer tel pseudo-roman de génie en rupture de ces règles, que ce fût Tristram Shandy, Pantagruel, Les Ames Mortes, le Grüne Heinrich, Marius the Epicurean ou A la recherche du temps perdu’ (Gide 1999, 352).

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When Digeon produced a new translation of ASJ in 1934 for the bilingual Aubier collection, he also insisted on the artificiality of sentimentality, possibly echoing Woolf. TS he found at this date only half-convincing, its typographical oddities harmless but ‘no longer amusing’. Moreover,‘only the extraordinary suppleness of his genius can make us accept certain jostles of thought or style … which clash with the rules of logic to which our mind is accustomed.’84 Digeon’s translation is still the one most widely available today. Ambivalence also appeared in his evaluation of ‘Shandeism’ as more akin to Voltaire’s snigger than to Rabelais’ laughter, but saved by Sterne’s ‘passionate love of life’. He distanced himself from Victorian strictness to stress that ‘a modern reader, curious about the secret windings of the soul, must be deeply interested’ by Sterne. His own interest seems to have developed into a deeper sympathy for TS in his histories of literature. In 1940, he presented Sterne as an ‘inventor and destroyer’: TS brought ‘a ferment of dissolution’ to the newly established genre of the novel. In 1947, this became a distinctly positive trait, with which Sterne endangered – or possibly saved – the novel, by incorporating the pleasure of multiplicity into his very style. Digeon’s preference for ASJ only transpired through a suggestion that it is ‘possibly his masterpiece’. Most important was Sterne’s style and his ‘clever use of the dash’, which ‘he multiplies to the point of chopping up the sentence into tiny fragments’, thus ‘freeing it from the constraints of syntax and breaking the rhythms of the traditional period – just as he had freed his plot from the classic laws of composition’.85 As a major academic in French English studies, Digeon influenced many scholars both through his textbooks and his translation. Charles Mauron did not write on Sterne, but his 1946 TS remains the standard version today. He founded psychocriticism, translated Woolf, Mansfield, Forster, and some of his own work was translated for the Hogarth Press. Like Wailly a century before them, Digeon and Mauron gave their times enduring and faithful translations of Sterne’s fiction. When Le Club français du livre (The French Book Club) republished Mauron’s TS in 1955, Jean-Louis Curtis’ Preface stressed the modernity of the text, putting it on a par with Ulysses and surrealist objects. His mistakes about the dates of Frénais’ translations are less important than his insight in presenting Sterne as ‘a precursor’ and linking him to de Maistre and Nodier (the collection included Histoire in 1950). In 1961 came Fluchère’s monumental doctoral thesis, Laurence Sterne: de l’homme à l’œuvre (Laurence Sterne: From the Man to the Work). He was already known for translations of Eliot, Powys, Tourneur, Everyman, and

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‘Seule l’extraordinaire souplesse de son génie peut nous faire accepter certaines bousculades de pensée ou de style, tel passage où il heurte trop brutalement les règles logiques auxquelles notre esprit est accoutumé’ (Digeon 1934, ix). ‘Par l’utilisation ingénieuse du tiret, qu’il multiplie jusqu’à hacher la phrase en menues parcelles, il la libère des contraintes de la syntaxe et rompt les rythmes de la période traditionnelle – comme il avait libéré son intrigue des lois classiques de la composition’ (Digeon 1940, 66).

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critical essays on Shakespeare. Although he wrote one century later, he felt the need to distance himself from Taine: his own aim was to examine the ways in which Sterne’s life explains the books.The biographical part comes from Cross and Curtis, and also, without acknowledgement, from Oates’s hand-written catalogue. It serves as a basis for the second part,‘Essai d’interprétation de TS’, judged important enough to be translated in 1965 for OUP (possibly also thanks to Fluchère’s position in Oxford). Yet this thorough analysis of TS seems to have had little impact on Sterne studies in English. A baffled review showed that Sterne was far from being recognized as a major author in French English studies, a point that New chose to stress (1969).The very complete bibliography is still useful. Mayoux, whose 1962 assessment was republished by Traugott in 1968 without any mention of Fluchère, represented France for The Winged Skull. At the same time, delight in formal constraints brought the writers of the Oulipo (Ouvroir de la Littérature Potentielle) to acknowledge Sterne as an innovator like themselves. Queneau saw TS and Richter’s Levana as the first examples of typographic poetry in his quest for ‘literary madmen’ (1965). Perec included TS in his list of models for La Disparition, but would not have done so had the title contained an ‘e’ (1973) (as all words containing an ‘e’ were banished from his text – an extraordinary feat). He chose Sterne as one of the twenty authors to quote nine times in his combinatory La Vie mode d’emploi (Life: A User’s Manual). Some references are easily spotted (Walter’s clockwork sex-life, Yorick, the map of Namur) and/or indexed (Gastripherius, Phutatorius, Rubenius …), while others require the user’s meta-manual, Cahier des charges de La Vie mode d’emploi or remain mysterious. Genette also called on Sterne, especially to debunk the illusion of the atemporality of narration. Like Jean-Louis Curtis, these authors transmitted the perception that Sterne’s major achievement was TS, a laboratory where metafiction was first brewed. More recently, the Parisian publisher Corti has skirted around Sterne in the Collection romantique, with Voyage autour de ma chambre (1984), Moi-même (1985) and a very odd translation of BJ (1987, with Eloge), the introduction of which is riddled with mistakes. Simultaneously, and far more satisfactorily, Soupel also translated BJ, along with A Political Romance, for the small Grenoble publisher Cent pages (One Hundred Pages), and re-edited Digeon and Mauron’s translations (1981, 1982). His 1983 doctorate, Apparence et essence dans le roman anglais de 1740 à 1771 (Appearance and Essence in the English Novel from 1740 to 1771), showed a marked interest in Sterne, which has not waned. He has supervised dissertations, including my own ‘TS: Créations et Imitations en Angleterre au dix-huitième siècle’ (1992) (TS: Creations and imitations in England in the Eighteenth Century) and Descargues’ 1993 Etude Critique de la correspondance de Sterne dans son œuvre (Critical Study of the Correspondence of Sterne in his Work). In 1984, Dupas published part of his doctorate as Sterne ou le vis-à-vis (Sterne or the vis-à-vis). Theses are now underway under the supervision of Professors Soupel, Ogée or Détis, with a focus on the relationship between text and image, and Tadié’s Sterne’s Whimsical Theatres of Language has come out. French research is in part driven by the national syllabus of the difficult qualifying examination for career academics, the Agrégation: the choice of TS

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as a set text in 1984 and of ASJ in 1994 triggered an upsurge of French articles on Sterne (The Shandean 6). To this serious research must be added Jouvet’s (1998) new translation of TS for Les Editions Tristram, the second volume of which has been firmly announced for several years: the comic and zany side of Sterne is alive and (probably) kicking, to the dismay of Soupel, the guardian of faithful translation (2001b). Jouvet’s version is a mad one, with burlesque vocabulary and systematic over-translation. His notes cover slightly more pages than the text in far smaller type, encompass world philosophy and literature, take into account recent events and relate them to Sterne, revitalizing the text in a way similar to Rowson’s comic-book version. The drawback, of course, is a resolutely non-academic rendering, and some unacceptable readings. Names, for example, are systematically transposed:Trim becomes ‘l’Astiqué’ (trim and proper) as a note explains, differentiating him from the Trim of A Political Romance (pp. 242–45);‘Kunastrokius’ is given a French equivalent (‘Cunnusbranlius’), which makes the bawdy pun accessible to readers with insufficient English; Doctor Slop becomes ‘docteur Bran’, a literal translation with Rabelaisian undertones. One example of over-translation is that of Toby’s ‘****’, where Jouvet adds a hand – and asks for one: ‘any French sentence, however imperfect, which can be understood in the two meanings [offered by Sterne], will do; all decent proposals welcome.’86 Although usually well informed, the notes sometimes contain surprising misinterpretations. For instance, when he insists on the metatextual character of the mock dedication, he takes it to be addressed to Pitt, while he quotes Sterne’s 1759 letter to Dodsley and gives the correct history of the first edition.87 Enthusiastic reviews have recently aroused interest, and journalists mention Sterne on a fairly regular basis. Les Editions Tristram appeared some years before Jouvet’s volume came out (but probably while it was in the making), and the editor seems very relaxed about the delays: a truly shandean venture. The Nodier revival has also emerged from small publishers. Notwithstanding his absence from the prestigious Pléiade collection (Gallimard), Sterne is fully recognized as one of the inventors of the modern novel, both in university circles and in the wider literary world. After its immense success in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ASJ has lost ground to TS, seen as an exciting and experimental text, relevant to twentyfirst century readers and calling for regular festive revival.

86

87

‘– sans doute répugne-t-il à ma belle-sœur, parce que cela révolte sa pudeur, ajouta-t-il, qu’un homme lui vienne mettre la main ****.’‘Toute phrase française, si imparfaite soit-elle, pouvant être entendue dans les deux sens, est bonne à prendre; le concours est ouvert à toute proposition décente’ (Jouvet 1998, 147–48, 326). Nouvelle dédicace à William Pitt: dédicace de dédicace, dédicace interne, et déduite du texte, ou produite par le texte lui-même, et qui est la négation de la dédicace et l’affirmation absolute du texte’ (Jouvet 1998, 246).

3

‘Sterne-Bilder’: Sterne in the German-Speaking World Duncan Large

Sterne was not greatly interested in the German-speaking world, but by contrast the German-speaking world has been very interested indeed in Sterne. In one of the earliest assessments of his impact on German literature, Thomas Stockham Baker claims that Sterne ‘affected in a greater or lesser degree, nearly every German writer from 1765 to the close of the century’ (1899, 41), while Lawrence Marsden Price goes so far as to assert that Sterne ‘proved to be a larger factor in German than in English literary history’ (1953, 193). The acknowledged breadth and depth of Sterne’s influence on German-language writers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries makes the story of his reception in the German-speaking countries in one sense the most familiar aspect of his continental European reception, for compared to the situations elsewhere, even in France and Italy, it forms the subject of, by some margin, the largest number of existing studies. Collectively, these have resulted in a consistent received opinion about the nature and extent of Sterne’s impact on the German-speaking countries which can be found summarized, for example, in the short entry for Sterne given in one of the standard literary reference works, The Oxford Companion to German Literature. Here we find Sterne characterized as follows: English clergyman and novelist, whose mixture of whimsical humour and sentiment exhibited in Tristram Shandy (1760–7) and A Sentimental Journey (1768) influenced German writers from the Sturm und Drang to the Romantic movement. C. M.Wieland, M.A. von Thümmel,Th. G. Hippel, and Jean Paul show his influence. (Garland and Garland 1997, 800)

Such a thumbnail sketch is typical, yet I would argue that several of its features are worthy of comment – features both of its periodization and of the literary figures it chooses to highlight as ‘showing Sterne’s influence’. Aside from the fact that the two do not readily fit together – none of the cited writers could properly be described as belonging to either of the cited movements – what is perhaps most notable about the periodization is that it is neatly end-stopped, ‘from the Sturm und Drang to the Romantic movement’. The period so described does take in, it is true, a key halfcentury in the establishment of modern German literature (which actually

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begins – as does Sterne’s influence in Germany – before the Sturm und Drang, in the late Enlightenment), nevertheless the strong impression is conveyed that Sterne’s importance for German literature and culture is strictly confined and of historical interest only, petering out before the mid-nineteenth century. Moreover, the figures who are singled out here are now little known outside Germany, indeed the minor comic novelists Thümmel and Hippel are little known inside Germany, so all in all this assessment would very likely leave one with the impression that Sterne’s impact did not amount to much – that the German-speaking world, at least, bears out Samuel Johnson’s celebrated appraisal: ‘Tristram Shandy did not last’. A corrective to this necessarily – although I would argue still excessively – narrow initial characterization is to some extent provided if one turns instead to the more substantial treatments of the topic of ‘Sterne in Germany’, which people the period with a much longer cast list of ‘influencees’.There have been four notable monographs so far on German Sterne reception; in chronological order, these are: Thayer (1905), Hallamore (1936), Michelsen (1962) and Montandon (1985). Together, these studies broaden the scope of the enquiry immeasurably, with a wealth of detail to complement the paucity of that in the Oxford Companion.Yet the mere titles of the first three still confirm their limitedness in chronological scope – Thayer and Michelsen deliberately confine themselves to the eighteenth century; Hallamore goes further, up to Romanticism – and although Montandon’s title suggests he will proceed further still, in fact he, too, concludes with Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), as indeed does Alan B. Howes, for the useful selection of excerpts from German authors which he includes in CH, 422–50. Even if one adds to these the major monographs treating Sterne’s influence on individual German writers (such as Pinger’s Laurence Sterne and Goethe, 1918) and the major article-length pieces (such as Price’s chapter on ‘Sterne and the Sentimental Novel’ [1953, 193–206] and Fabian’s ‘Tristram Shandy and Parson Yorick Among Some German Greats’, in The Winged Skull [1971, 194–209]), then the picture – chronologically, at least – remains unchanged.1 The broad consensus of critical opinion to date, then, has been that German reception of Sterne, intense as it was in the initial period, nevertheless came to a close by the mid-nineteenth century, with Heine as the last major figure in German letters to have been receptive to Sterne’s charms.As Thayer puts it, ‘Sterne’s influence in Germany lived its own life, and gradually and imperceptibly died out of letters, as an actuating principle’ (1905, 156). In what follows I want to argue that this characterization of German Sterne reception is untenable, for although it is undoubtedly true that – for

1

Very rarely do any of these studies stray beyond the Romantic period: Thayer mentions Wilhelm Raabe (1905, 153); Price mentions Raabe, again, and Thomas Mann (1953, 355f., 378).

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the sake of argument, from Heine onwards – there has not been any similar concentration of literary talent professing such an impassioned allegiance to Sterne’s writings at any one time, to extrapolate from this the death of Sterne’s influence is very short-sighted. The earliest reception of Sterne in Germany undoubtedly needs to be considered in the light of the nigh-on ravenous appetite for English literature which existed in Germany in, roughly speaking, the second half of the eighteenth century, and in the 1760s in particular, the decade which Thayer describes as ‘the very heyday of British supremacy in Germany’ (1905, 10). The move away from French literary models characteristic of this period’s search for a new grounding to German literature is generally allied to the concomitant lionization of Shakespeare – in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s ground-breaking Hamburgische Dramaturgie (Hamburg Dramaturgy, 1767–68) and the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) movement of the 1770s, with Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) and Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832) at its head.Yet a narrow concentration on Shakespeare and the drama belies the full extent of the appreciation of English literature in this period, when the German novel, it is fair to say, was not so much being reinvented as rather invented in the first place, with due deference being paid to English precursors such as Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Goldsmith, Swift and, precisely, Sterne.2 So much is, I think, unproblematic, but what seems to me striking about Sterne in particular in this company, what distinguishes his reception in Germany from that of, say, Defoe, Fielding and Goldsmith, is its longevity. The German-speaking world took Sterne to its bosom in the late 1760s, in the waning days of the late Enlightenment period, and the two have never really fallen out since. Sterne has proved somewhat of a man for all seasons, constantly reperceived, reinvented, reappropriated by successive generations of German intellectuals and the broader reading public, so that there is an Enlightenment Sterne, a Sturm und Drang Sterne, an Empfindsamkeit Sterne, a Romantic Sterne, a Biedermeier Sterne, and so on – so many images of Sterne, so many ‘Sterne-Bilder’ (‘constellations’, from which I take my title) into which Sterne has been integrated.An interest in Sterne, I want to argue, can be mapped against all the major periods in German culture since his time, right through to twentieth-century modernist and, now, postmodernist appropriations – he has proved a constant resource to whom writers (and by no means just writers) can return. The traditional account of Sterne’s reception in the German-speaking world, then, needs to be supplemented by a consideration both of its persistence beyond the mid-nineteenth century, and of its extent beyond the circles of ‘Dichter und Denker’ (poets and thinkers).To do justice to such a project would of course easily exceed the scope of this piece, but I hope that my account will provide at least a starting point, broadening the focus to

2

Though not Smollett: see Price (1953, 50).

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encompass aspects of Sterne’s role in German-speaking intellectual and cultural history more generally from the late eighteenth to the early twentyfirst century. It should also be emphasized that this account discusses Sterne reception in ‘the German-speaking world’ and does not confine itself to Germany – what would become ‘Germany’ over a century after Sterne’s death – for the impact of Sterne in Austria and German-speaking Switzerland has been substantial, too. The first German translation of Sterne’s Sermons was published in Zurich while he was still alive (1766–67), running to a third edition by 1773,3 and in our contemporary period the Zurich-based publishers Diogenes, Manesse and above all (till its untimely demise in 2001) Haffmans have continued to carry the torch for Sterne’s work in German, while in 1790s Vienna English teacher Rudolph Sammer published in quick succession English editions of ASJ, the Letters and TS, collected together (with The Koran) into a nine-volume English edition of Select Works (1798), and his editions would provide the basis for translations into Hungarian and other languages in the nineteenth century. Literary reception, 1762–1840 Let us begin our chronological survey by briefly considering some of the more familiar aspects of early Sterne reception in the German-speaking world, by literary writers from the 1760s to Heine, before moving on, beyond what I shall characterize as the opening chapter in this as yet unfinished story, to the less familiar territory beyond. Pace the Oxford Companion, Sterne’s reception in Germany did not set in with the Sturm und Drang movement in the 1770s. The first mention of Sterne in a German periodical comes as early as 1762 (Thayer 1905, 12), and his reputation was forged to quite an extent in the literary periodicals of the time, on the basis of reviews of the English editions and excerpted translations, independently of and even before the first full translation – Das Leben und die Meynungen des Herrn Tristram Shandy (TS), by the Berlin physician Johann Friedrich Zückert (1737–78) – began appearing in Berlin in 1763. Zückert’s translation was widely condemned (the level of familiarity with Sterne’s original on the part of its readers was already extensive); the leading novelist, poet and Shakespeare translator Christoph Martin Wieland (1733–1813) planned a rival translation of TS, but it did not materialize. Instead, Sterne’s reputation really took off in the German-speaking world with the widely acclaimed translation of ASJ by Johann Joachim Christoph Bode (1730–93), published as early as 1768, and this was to prove an instant and runaway success, stretching to six editions before the century was out. Bode was very well connected in literary circles, and by the time his translation of TS began to appear in 1774 he had accumulated a long list of over 650 subscribers, including most of the literary luminaries of his day,

3

On Zurich as a historically important centre for the transmission of English religious culture, see Price (1953, 45).

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many of whom (such as Herder,Wieland and Goethe)4 already owned copies of the novel in its English original. As Wolfgang Hörner points out in his bibliography of ‘Lorenz Sterne’ in Germany up to 1800 (1992a, 20), Bode’s translations proceeded to sweep all before them and held the field till at least the turn of the nineteenth century.5 One of Bode’s close friends and erstwhile business partners was Lessing (indeed, Bode printed and published Lessing’s Hamburgische Dramaturgie), and it was Lessing who – as Bode recounts in the preface to his translation – famously suggested the translation of ‘sentimental’ which Bode would use for ASJ, ‘empfindsam’ (Bode 1986, 6f.; cf. Jännecke 1946), which in turn would rapidly become a label for the spate of imitative sentimental literature to follow, as the Sterne vogue entered full swing.6 Under ‘Nachahmungen’ (Imitations) Michelsen (1962, 74–116) gives an exhaustive list of forgeries (which appeared under Sterne’s name) and imitations, from which it is clear that the main English examples of both kinds were rapidly translated into German, together with further examples from the French, and native German productions. As far as the forgeries are concerned, the hapless Zückert translated the spurious ninth volume of TS in 1767, and it went through two further editions in the early 1770s; the ‘Continuation’ of ASJ was translated by Bode immediately after it appeared, published in the second edition of his ASJ (1769) and thereafter routinely reprinted together with the two volumes of Sterne’s original. Before the 1760s were out, German translations appeared of both Yorick’s Meditations Upon Various Interesting and Important Subjects and Murray’s Sermons to Asses; the 1770s would see two translations of Griffith’s The Koran and Bode’s translation of EY. The most discerning of the early German translators was deceived by such forgeries, so it is not surprising if writers of the calibre of Jean Paul, Goethe and Nietzsche were in turn fooled later on. These titles soon passed into an expanded German canon of Sterne’s writings which would prove much more accommodating than its English equivalent. As Michelsen argues, ‘the influence of Sterne on German literature cannot be separated from that of the Sterne forgeries’,7 and this helps to explain the undoubted exaggeratedness of many of the home-grown epigones. Imitations of both TS (a spate of titles beginning Leben und Meinungen ...) and ASJ (a spate of Empfindsame Reisen: see Sauder [1983] and [1991]) proliferated up to the turn of the nineteenth century (and beyond):8 Michelsen lists twenty separate translations of English imitations and a dozen from the 4

5 6

7

8

For details of English editions of Sterne in their respective libraries, see Vivian (2002), Bauch and Schröder (1993), Ruppert (1958) and Hennig (1974, 555). On Bode as translator, see Wihan (1906) and Katte (1970). This was not the only word to achieve currency in German thanks to the Sterne vogue: the same was true of the German for ‘hobby horse’,‘Steckenpferd’ (Grimm and Grimm 1919, 1352–57). ‘Der Einfluß Sternes auf die deutsche Literatur ist von dem der SterneFälschungen nicht zu trennen’ (Michelsen 1962, 102). See, for example, the two contributions to the genre by the Schubert poet Ludwig Rellstab (1836, 1837).

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French, to which must be added no fewer than forty-one German examples (1962, 76–101). These latter include relatively well-known examples such as Johann Georg Jacobi’s Die Winterreise (The Winter’s Journey) – which appeared less than a year after Bode’s ASJ (1769) and was closely followed by the same writer’s Die Sommerreise (The Summer’s Journey, 1770)9 – Johann Gottlieb Schummel’s Empfindsame Reisen durch Deutschland (Sentimental Journeys through Germany, 1771–72), Christian Friedrich Nicolai’s Das Leben und die Meinungen des Herrn Magister Sebaldus Nothanker (The Life and Opinions of Sebaldus Nothanker, 1773–76), Johann Karl Wezel’s Lebensgeschichte Tobias Knauts (Biography of Tobias Knaut, 1773–76), August von Kotzebue’s Die Geschichte meines Vaters, oder wie es zuging, daß ich geboren wurde (The History of My Father: or, How It Happened that I Was Born, 1788),10 and Adolf Freiherr von Knigge’s Die Reise nach Braunschweig (The Journey to Brunswick, 1792). Imitations of Sterne fuelled the rise of the comic novel in German, yet it is fair to say that these productions restrict themselves for the most part to imitating what one might call the surface features of ‘Sternean’ style (or at least what was perceived as such) – whimsicality, digressivity, eccentricity of characterization, not to say grotesquery, convoluted time-schemes, selfreferentiality, sentimentality (depending to an extent on whether TS or ASJ served as the model). The most successful of these imitations was Schummel’s Empfindsame Reisen durch Deutschland, to the extent that it incurred the wrath of (probably) the young Goethe, who penned a hostile review in the Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen in 1772, defending Sterne’s original against the upstart pretensions of what seems by now a relatively harmless homage (‘he has stolen everything from the good Yorick’).11 The hero of Karl Philipp Moritz’s autobiographical novel Anton Reiser also lines up with Goethe against Schummel; in the second part (1786) we are told: ‘since he [Anton] had read Sterne’s Sentimental Journey two or three times with great enjoyment, he also borrowed from the bookseller Schummel’s Sentimental Journeys through Germany’, but he dislikes it, and it teaches him only to be a more discerning literary critic: ‘Thus he gradually learnt by himself to distinguish the mediocre and the bad more and more clearly from the good’ (1997, 142f.).12

9 10

11

12

On Johann Georg Jacobi and Sterne, see Longo (1898). Howes (1958, 99 n. 9) singles out Kotzebue as one of the Sterne imitators whose work was in turn translated into English and re-imported; Nicolai’s Sebaldus Nothanker received the same treatment; see Kotzebue (1798), Nicolai (1798). ‘Alles hat er dem guten Yorick geraubt’ (Pinger 1918, 12). On the disputed authorship of this review, see also Michelsen (1962, 117) and Hölter (1997, 46f). ‘weil er Yoriks empfindsame Reisen mit großem Vergnügen zwei bis dreimal durchgelesen hatte, so lieh’ er sich auch von dem Antiquarius die empfindsamen Reisen durch Deutschland von S… … So lernte er nun von selbst allmählich das Mittelmäßige und Schlechte von dem Guten immer besser unterscheiden’ (Moritz 1981, 178). On Schummel and Sterne, see Kawerau (1886, 148–63), Michelsen (1962, 117–40) and Hölter (1997).

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Such imitations as Schummel’s may have fallen foul of high literary taste, but they were clearly greatly appreciated by the broader literary public as the Empfindsamkeit movement got properly under way in the 1770s.13 Meanwhile more subtle literary responses to Sterne’s work emerged during this first wave of his popularity in Germany, too, and these include works by the four writers mentioned in the Oxford Companion, namely Wieland (1774), Thümmel (1791–1805), Hippel (1778–81, 1793–94) and Jean Paul, ‘the first full appreciator of Sterne’ (Price 1953, 195).14 Jean Paul (Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, 1763–1825) was undoubtedly the most gifted of the early comic writers to fall under Sterne’s sway – to such an extent, indeed, that he was soon regarded as ‘the German Sterne’ and would come to be preferred by some, such as Friedrich Schlegel in his Gespräch über die Poesie (Conversation on Poetry, 1800), who liked their comic talent home-grown.15 Outside the main lines of the development of the German novel, Sterne was adopted as ‘one of their own’ by the rising generation of young dramatists making up the Sturm und Drang – Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (1737–1823), one of the subscribers to Bode’s TS, Friedrich Maximilian Klinger (1752–1831), who praises in his notebook ‘such a deep and true grasp of the human heart, which one so often finds in this writer!’,16 and Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1751–92), who eulogizes Sterne in his Anmerkungen übers Theater (Notes on the Theatre, 1774) and whose comedy Der neue Menoza (The New Menoza, 1774) shows marked Sternean features.17 Friedrich Schiller’s admiration for Sterne was more muted, yet that does not prevent him quoting ‘Yorik’ amicably in a 1785 letter to Huber (1956, 184), and indeed in his influential critical essay Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung (On Naive and Sentimental Poetry, 1795–96) he counts Sterne a true ‘genius’, together with Shakespeare and Fielding (Price 1953, 192). Moving outside of belles lettres strictly defined, though, Sterne’s early reception among philosophers and theorists was no

13

14

15

16

17

On sentimentalism in Germany generally, see Sauder (1974–80); on the role of Sterne as spur, especially the fad for Lorenzo snuff-boxes (whose authenticity is disputed by Day in Chapter 13 of this volume), see especially Thayer (1905, 84–89), Findeisen (1958) and CH, 429–31. On all four of these writers, see the last four chapters in Michelsen (1962, 177–394) – who is, I suspect, the source of the list in the Oxford Companion entry. On Wieland and Sterne, see also Bauer (1898), Behmer (1899) and Harries (1973); on Thümmel and Sterne, see also Kyrieleis (1908), Thayer (1909) and Sauder (1968); on Hippel and Sterne, see also Czerny (1904), Schneider (1915), Beck (1980 and 1987); on Jean Paul and Sterne, see also Czerny (1904), Westphal (1924), Schmitz (1930), Hayes (1939), Brandi-Dohrn (1964), Boehm (1965), Montandon (1987), Montigel (1987), Pott (1990) and Ogut (1999). On Schlegel and Sterne, see Neubauer (1984), Montandon (1985, 293–316), Frock (1992), and Chapter 14 of this volume. ‘Ein ebenso tiefer als wahrer Griff in das menschliche Herz, deren man bei diesem Schriftsteller so viele findet!’ (Klinger 1958, 62; cf. 471). See Lenz (1992, 374) and Girard (1968, 341). On Lenz and Sterne, see also Rudolf (1970, 71f.).

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less rapturous than among literary writers.As Bernhard Fabian demonstrates (1971, 201), Sterne’s early reception by the German intelligentsia in general – even by a literary theoretician like Christian Friedrich von Blanckenburg (1744–96) – was more as a moralist than as a novelist. Johann Georg Hamann (1730–88), Herder, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819), Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) and Moses Mendelssohn (1729–86) were early champions, and even Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) used Sterne as an example in his lectures on philosophical anthropology and pedagogics (Fabian 1971, 204f.).18 The excesses of the Empfindsamkeit movement inevitably brought about a backlash which did some damage to Sterne’s reputation (Thayer 1905, 156–82, Loveridge 1982), although the more discerning – such as Goethe (1948, 10: 321f.) – were able to separate Sterne’s work from the follies, literary and other, committed in his name. Nevertheless, by the turn of the nineteenth century the new generation of German Romantic writers was decidedly more ambivalent about Sterne than the generation which preceded it. Price comments:‘Of all the British novelists the German romanticists felt themselves most strongly drawn toward Sterne’ (1953, 303), but by now Jean Paul was increasingly seen as offering a rival fictional model. Cases have been made for the influence of Sterne on Ernst August Friedrich Klingemann (1777–1831, author of the pseudonymous Nachtwachen: von Bonaventura [Night Watches of Bonaventura, 1804]), Clemens Brentano (1778–1842) and Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853):19 like Friedrich Schlegel, though, Tieck became disaffected with Sterne. In his early novel Peter Leberecht (1795), the title character apostrophizes Sterne thus: O, philanthropic Sterne! how dear you have always been to me above all writers because you do not try to excite our indignation toward human follies and weaknesses, because you do not wield the scourge of satire, but you laugh at and pity yourself and your fellow men alike. (CH, 440)20

By the time of Tieck’s 1828 essay ‘Goethe und seine Zeit’ (Goethe and His Time), though, he is setting Goethe off against Rabelais, Jean Paul and Sterne, arguing that the former’s fictions are to be preferred to those of the latter three for they benefit from being organized around a focal point (Blackall 1983, 167).

18

19

20

In including Hamann in this list I am following Thayer (1905) and Price (1953), rather than Isaiah Berlin, who argues (on flimsy evidence) that Hamann ‘disliked Sterne’ (1993, 101). The publication of John Vivian’s work on their relation will oblige a thorough reappraisal. For Klingemann, see Hunter (1974) and Katritzky (1988); for Brentano, see Kerr (1898, 72–79) and Grob (1980); for Tieck, see Lussky (1932). ‘O menschenfreundlicher Sterne, wie lieb bist du mir von allen Schriftstellern immer dadurch geworden, daß du uns nicht gegen Schwächen und Thorheiten zu empören suchst, daß du nicht die Geisel der Satire schwingst, sondern dich und die übrigen Menschen auf eine gleiche Art belächelst und bemitleidest’ (Price 1953, 202).

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As far as Goethe himself is concerned, the story of his relation to Sterne, which spanned his writing career, is, not surprisingly, complex and fascinating, and I have discussed it in detail elsewhere (Large 2000), so will confine myself here to a brief encapsulation. Goethe came into contact with Sterne very early, via Herder: he read both TS and ASJ in Strassburg in 1770/71, soon after they first appeared, and re-read both at least twice, in 1817 and then in the last years of his life (respectively, 1830 and 1828). From his first acquaintance with them he was praising Sterne’s works to his friends, reading from them to gatherings, and alluding to characters and episodes from them in his letters.There are passing references and allusions to Sterne throughout Goethe’s writings thereafter – Pinger (1918) lists a total of 148 – but it is not until towards the end of his life, in the late 1820s, that Goethe begins to acknowledge the extent of his personal indebtedness to Sterne, in the one-page essay of 1826 simply entitled ‘Lorenz Sterne’ (1948, 12: 345f.), then in the aphoristic collection ‘Aus Makariens Archiv’ (From Makarie’s Archive), included in the expanded 1829 edition of his last novel Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years), which contains a series of laudatory reflections on Sterne: Yorik-Sterne was the most beautiful spirit ever active; anyone who reads him immediately feels free and beautiful; his humour is inimitable, and not all humour frees the soul … He is a model in nothing and a guide and stimulator in everything.21

This last remark seems to me to characterize Goethe’s response to Sterne as a whole, for he does not fall into the trap of slavish imitation à la Schummel – indeed the ‘influence’ of Sterne on Goethe is so indirect that it has generally been denied by commentators – yet Goethe himself feels the need to ‘return to Sterne’ at the end of his life, to pay homage to a writer people might not otherwise associate with him. Goethe’s argument is a development of the early praise (from Moses Mendelssohn, Lessing and others) for Sterne’s originality (Fabian 1971, 195–97) – he recognizes that a true original is least likely to serve as a model, so that one can only learn from such a figure by going one’s own way.22 A similar argument can be made, I think, for the relation to Sterne of E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822), another writer in what one might call the second wave of Sterne appreciation, at one remove from the first and subtler in their homages. Steven Paul Scher (1976a) carefully sketches in the facts concerning Hoffmann’s first reading of Sterne in the mid-1790s, and the actual references to Sterne in Hoffmann’s works, especially in his correspondence with Hippel (in which, for example, he compares his troublesome uncle Otto Wilhelm [O. W. or ‘O Weh!’, ‘Oh dear!’] Dörffer to Sterne’s

21

22

‘Yorik-Sterne war der schönste Geist, der je gewirkt hat; wer ihn liest, fühlt sich sogleich frei und schön; sein Humor ist unnachahmlich, und nicht jeder Humor befreit die Seele … Er ist in nichts ein Muster und in allem ein Andeuter und Erwecker’ (Goethe 1948, 8: 480, 485). On Goethe and Sterne, see also Klingemann (1929), Boyd (1932), Montandon (1985, 232–62) and Pörksen (1980).

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Uncle Toby); Scher also instances the mimeticism in Hoffmann’s early writing. As Scher is quick to point out, though: I do not regard Sterne as a precursor of Hoffmann, nor Hoffmann as a romantic reincarnation of Sterne.To locate Hoffmann in the company of the numerous Sterne imitators on the late eighteenth- and early nineteenthcentury German literary scene would be as futile as to claim that Tristram Shandy or A Sentimental Journey are mere ‘sources’ for Kater Murr or, say, Prinzessin Brambilla. (1976a, 310)

I agree with Scher here: Hoffmann’s Sterneanism is much more subtle, more intangible than that; as with Goethe, I would argue that it is a parallelism at one remove – not so much thematic as methodological, indeed metamethodological. Both Sterne and Hoffmann attempt to allay ‘the anxiety of influence’ by addressing it in their work (specifically TS and Kater Murr [The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, 1819–21]), teasing the reader, inviting the reader through their self-reflexive narratives to reflect in turn on some of the most fundamental readerly questions: questions of influence and imitation, originality and plagiarism, borrowing and theft.23 Despite the best efforts of Goethe and Hoffmann, by the 1830s the reception of Sterne among literary writers in the German-speaking world was undoubtedly running out of momentum. Karl Leberecht Immermann’s Münchhausen (1838–39) is still recognizably Sternean in conception – the novel begins with Chapters 11–15, then after a discussion between the author and publisher the ‘oversight’ is corrected and Chapters 1–10 follow – but the interweaving of contrasting narrative strands owes more to Hoffmann’s Kater Murr, and the whole – ironically enough, for a writer whose previous novel was entitled Die Epigonen (The Epigones, 1836) – smacks of an epigonal age.24 In his slight comedy Leonce und Lena (1836), Georg Büchner (1813–37), author of the much better known dramatic fragment Woyzeck (1835–37), has the character of Leonce make a passing reference to Walter Shandy winding up the clock (1980, 102), but Maurice Benn sees this as merely evidence of the ‘limited fertility of Büchner’s comic imagination’, commenting: ‘To readers unfamiliar with Sterne it is simply unintelligible; to those who have read the novel it can only seem a rather clumsy adaptation of a thought that was much more appropriate and amusing in its original context’ (1976, 180f.).25 It is hardly surprising, then, that so many critics have hailed Heinrich Heine as the last of the great German Sterneans.Thayer ends the main part of his discussion with the casual remark,‘Heine’s pictures of travel, too, have something of Sterne in them’ (1905, 155), and it is indeed the Reisebilder (Pictures of Travel, 1826–31) which have been the focus of later critics’ attention in this regard. On the first of them, Die Harzreise (The Harz Journey, 1826), for example, Ritchie Robertson comments:

23

24 25

I have developed this argument at greater length in Large (2003). On Hoffmann and Sterne, see also Scher (1976b) and Görgens (1985). On Immermann and Sterne, see Bauer (1896). On Büchner and Sterne, see also Majut (1955, 35f.).

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The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe Heine shares Sterne’s wit and irony, and his associative leaps (already tried out in the Letters from Berlin); but he deepens Sterne’s sentimental emotionalism into a heartfelt response to nature, to legend, and to the qualities of German working people. (1988, 11; cf. 1993, 12)

There are again a great many references to Sterne scattered across Heine’s writings, and of his other works the critical study on Die Romantische Schule (The Romantic School, 1836) is most apposite here, for in it he defends Sterne against those such as Friedrich Schlegel before him who had compared Sterne to Jean Paul and found the former wanting: Some critics wrongly believe that Jean Paul possessed more genuine feeling than Sterne because the latter, as soon as the subject he is treating reaches tragic heights, suddenly switches to the most humorous, chuckling tone; whereas Jean Paul gradually begins to snivel and quietly permits his tear ducts to drain dry whenever his humour becomes the least serious. Nay, Sterne felt perhaps more deeply than Jean Paul, for he is a greater poet. He is, as I have already mentioned, of equal birth with Shakespeare; Laurence Sterne was also raised on Parnassus by the Muses. (CH, 449f.)26

Popular, philosophical and academic reception in the nineteenth century If we move on now to consider what happens to Sterne’s reputation and reception in the German-speaking world after Heine, we find that in the second half of the nineteenth century the literary trail does indeed go rather cold. There are isolated favourable remarks on Sterne to be found in the correspondences and diaries of the dramatists Franz Grillparzer (1911, 297, 322) and Friedrich Hebbel (1966, 48, 88, 94, 232), for example, but not even those in the cases of many of the main prose fiction writers of the mid- to late nineteenth century, such as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer (1825–98), Adalbert Stifter (1805–68) or Theodor Storm (1817–88). Georg Lukács (1964, 340) attributes the turn away from Sterne at this point to (what a later generation of writers would term) a new sobriety in the post-1848 period, marking the turn, in literary-historical terms, to Realism and Poetic Realism. Gottfried Keller (1819–90) disparagingly remarks by 1851 that it was an unfortunate and gloomy period when people had to seek solace in Sterne and Jean Paul; ‘may the gods forbid that it might flourish again after

26

‘Mit Unrecht glauben einige Kritiker, Jean Paul habe mehr wahres Gefühl besessen als Sterne, weil dieser, sobald der Gegenstand, den er behandelt, eine tragische Höhe erreicht, plötzlich in den scherzhaftesten, lachendsten Ton überspringt; statt daß Jean Paul, wenn der Spaß nur im mindesten ernsthaft wird, allmählich zu flennen beginnt und ruhig seine Tränendrüsen austräufen läßt. Nein, Sterne fühlte vielleicht noch tiefer als Jean Paul, denn er ist ein größerer Dichter. Er ist, wie ich schon erwähnt, ebenbürtig mit William Shakespeare, und auch ihn, den Lorenz Sterne, haben die Musen erzogen auf dem Parnaß’ (Heine 1968, 268). On Heine and Sterne, see also Vacano (1907) and Ransmeier (1907).

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the Olmütz Punctation and the Dresden Conferences.’27 Theodor Fontane (1819–98), the pre-eminent German novelist of the later nineteenth century, is likewise no more than lukewarm when he writes in an 1879 letter to his wife, reaching back to the Romantics’ distinction between ‘humour’ and ‘wit’ for a stick with which to beat Sterne:‘Sterne is also far more witty than humorous, and only by stretching out a witticism into a double entendre can he make many things seem more humorous than they actually are.’28 As Price points out (1953, 345–60), German literary writers of the later nineteenth century continued to be interested in English-language novelists, but tastes had changed and it was now above all Dickens who commanded attention; the only major writer of prose fiction in the German-speaking world to show a Sternean allegiance in the second half of the nineteenth century was Wilhelm Raabe (Price 1953, 355f.; Doernenburg 1931, 1939). We must return at this point to matters bibliographical, though, for it is quite clear that even if literary writers mainly lose interest in Sterne in the second half of the nineteenth century, this is by no means the whole story for Sterne reception in the German-speaking world in that period. Sterne was being read in German schools as early as the 1790s – the first edition of ASJ clearly intended for school use, in English but published ‘with [German] explanatory notes and a glossary for young people’, appeared in Halle in 1794. The first half of the nineteenth century saw editions of Sterne’s works in English proliferating in Leipzig and across the central German publishing heartland – editions, moreover, not just of TS and, above all, ASJ, but of the Letters (many of them misattributed) and Sermons (ditto) as well.This activity culminated in the publication of TS and ASJ by the Leipzig firm of Bernhard Tauchnitz (respectively in 1849 and 1861), whose ‘Collection of British Authors’ editions sold so well, and so enduringly (into the twentieth century in both cases), that they killed off all competition (Todd and Bowden 1988). At the same time new translations of Sterne’s works into German were crowding into the market: five new TS translations were published between 1801 and 1881 (the majority of which, it must be said, derived more or less directly from Bode), but no fewer than eleven new translations of ASJ between 1802 and 1868, including four in the period 1840–42 alone, to satisfy the Biedermeier bourgeoisie. Again the seal was set on this intense popular interest by the inclusion of Sterne’s two novels in inexpensive, high-volume series, notably the ‘Bibliothek ausländischer Klassiker in deutscher Übertragung’ (Library of Foreign Classics in German Translation) published by the Verlag des Bibliographischen Instituts (TS 1865, ASJ 1868), and Philipp Reclam’s ‘Universal-Bibliothek’ (Universal Library: ASJ 1867, TS 1881).29 27

28

29

‘Verhüten di Götter, daß sie nach der Olmützer Punktation und den Dresdner Konferenzen noch einmal aufblühe’ (Lukács 1964, 340). ‘Sterne ist auch weit mehr witzig als humoristisch und nur das Hinüberspielen des Witzes aufs Gebiet des Zweideutigen läßt manches humoristischer erscheinen, als es eigentlich ist’ (Fontane 1980, 31f.). German presses were even publishing translations into other languages during this period, to serve the growing appetite for Sterne in other European countries. See e.g. Gregorini (1822),Wisl/ocki (1845).

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Sterne had a mass-market appeal throughout this period, but at the other end of the spectrum he continued to appeal to the leading German thinkers of the age, too. For Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), at a crucial point in the argument of the Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik (Aesthetics) – which, incidentally, it seems Heine attended when studying in Berlin from 1821 (see Robertson 1988, 4) – Sterne and Hippel together represent ‘the end of romantic art’: the peculiarity of which we may find in the fact that the artist’s subjective skill surmounts his material and its production because he is no longer dominated by the given conditions of a range of content and form already inherently determined in advance, but retains entirely within his own power and choice both the subject-matter and the way of presenting it. (1975, 602)30

For Schopenhauer, in equally laudatory vein in the Parerga und Paralipomena (1851), TS is to be grouped rather with Don Quixote, La nouvelle Héloïse and Wilhelm Meister as ‘crowning the novelistic form’.31 Schopenhauer is fond of dropping Sternean dicta, in English, into his arguments, both elsewhere in this text (‘an ounce of a man’s own wit is worth a tun of other people’s’ [1891, 511]) and in his correspondence (‘there’s something in names’, he writes to David Asher in 1860 [1987, 481; cf. 121]). As he was partially brought up in England, Schopenhauer’s English was excellent and he clearly read TS in the original (see Hübscher 1981). As early as 1824 he suggested to his publisher Brockhaus that he might translate the novel himself, but (more’s the pity!) Brockhaus was not interested (Safranski 1987, 409). The young Karl Marx was a passionate devotee of Sterne, and when Marx was looking for a new project to distract him from his lectures in 1837, as Francis Wheen reports: ‘He dashed off a short “humoristic novel”, Scorpion and Felix, a nonsensical torrent of whimsy and persiflage that was all too obviously written under the spell of Sterne’s Tristram Shandy’ (1999, 25; cf. Prawer 1976, 15). Perhaps it was as well that it remained in Marx’s bottom drawer, but Wheen argues for the persistence of a Sternean impulse in Marx which he sees emerging even – indeed especially – in Das Kapital: ‘Like Tristram Shandy, Capital is full of systems and syllogisms, paradoxes and metaphysics, theories and hypotheses, abstruse explanations and whimsical tomfoolery’ (1999, 308). A provocative argument indeed, but one need not resort to such ingenuity to see the Sternean impulse in later nineteenthcentury German philosophy in the work of another thinker, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), who could explicitly characterize Sterne as ‘the freest writer of all time’.32 With this formulation, from the 1879 supplement

30

31 32

‘das Ende der romantischen Kunst’, ‘deren Eigenthümlichkeit wir darin finden können, daß die Subjektivität des Künstlers über ihrem Stoffe und ihrer Production steht, indem sie nicht mehr von den gegebenen Bedingungen eines an sich selbst schon bestimmten Kreises des Inhalts wie der Form beherrscht ist, sondern sowohl den Inhalt als die Gestaltungsweise desselben ganz zu ihrer Gewalt und Wahl behält’ (Hegel 1837, 228). ‘die Krone der Gattung’ (Schopenhauer 1891, 469; cf. 296n.). ‘der freieste Schriftsteller aller Zeiten’ (Nietzsche 1988, 424).

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to Menschliches, Allzumenschliches: Ein Buch für freie Geister (Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits), Nietzsche is deliberately harking back to Goethe’s appraisal of Sterne in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, and seeking to top it, although this emphasis on Sterne’s ‘freedom’ is also remarkably reminiscent of Hegel’s evaluation in the Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik – and ironically so, for Hegel was a philosopher from whom Nietzsche was otherwise always very keen to distance himself.33 I strongly suspect it is due to Nietzsche’s influence that Richard and Cosima Wagner began reading TS – which Nietzsche had acquired at the tender age of fifteen (1994, 117, 119, 129, 151, 154f.) – to occupy the winter evenings at Tribschen (near Lucerne) a decade later, in December 1869. Richard Wagner was orchestrating Siegfried and sketching out Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) during the day, so he clearly turned to Sterne’s novel by way of light relief (the couple read it directly after Don Quixote). Initially their impression of the novel is favourable, as one can read in Cosima’s diaries: ‘In the evening much enjoyment with Tristram Shandy’, for example, on 20 December. Nietzsche comes to visit on Christmas Eve and stays for ten days, but no sooner has he left than the Wagners begin to tire of Sterne (7 January: ‘In the evening Tristram Shandy, pleasure alternating with dissatisfaction.Talent, but no genius’), before finally giving up, on 9 January 1870:‘In the evening finally laid Tristram Shandy aside with a feeling of aversion, and began on Vita nuova (pedantically mystical, says R.)’ (Wagner 1997, 46f.). Wagner’s disciple Hugo Wolf (1860–1903) would persist with Sterne, and counted him among his favourite writers from the moment he first discovered him, in the summer of 1880 (Walker 1992, 104). Before leaving the nineteenth century we must consider one aspect of Sterne’s reception that has not yet figured in this account, namely his reception in academia, for it was at the fin de siècle that academic studies on Sterne by German-language writers began to burgeon. Until this point, academic accounts were largely confined to literary periodicals, histories of English or German literature and editorial matter accompanying German editions of Sterne’s works, but the last decade of the nineteenth century saw the first German-language monographs on Sterne to appear (Bauer 1896 and 1898; Longo 1898; Behmer 1899). Initially these studies were predominantly comparative in nature, exploring aspects of Sterne’s influence on German-language writers, and a number of the authors were schoolteachers, but university dissertations soon began to appear, too, venturing to address Sterne in his English-speaking context (Heinrich 1904). German-language Sterne reception in the twentieth century (and beyond) Over the course of the twentieth century academic writers in the Germanspeaking world would go on to make substantial contributions to Sterne

33

Again, I have developed this material elsewhere (Large 1995). On Nietzsche and Sterne, see also Hargreaves (1992), New (1994),Vivarelli (1998).

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studies. To judge by the number of new Sterne editions and translations which continued to appear, popular interest in his works showed no sign of abating, either, or of being unduly affected by political developments. The market for Sterne recovered quickly after both world wars, for example; the century’s most popular TS translation, by Rudolf Kassner (1873–1959), was first published in Nazi Berlin (1937), but after the war it would become the standard translation available in East Germany. The founding fathers of the century’s brave new theoretical discipline, psychoanalysis, had surprisingly little interest in Sterne – both Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) had to have their attention drawn by others to passages in TS which accorded with their ideas (Freud 1960, 213; Jung 1973, 248) – but other thinkers continued to find Sterne worthy of study: in a letter of 1916 Walter Benjamin (1892–1940), for example, calls him ‘a great writer who has seen the authentic so accurately that he could almost renounce all criticism’ (Eagleton 1981, 155 n. 79).34 The main development in the twentieth-century reception of Sterne in the German-speaking countries, though, was the resurgence of interest from literary writers. In 1903 the poet and novelist Otto Julius Bierbaum (1865–1910) announced his Sternean credentials to the new century (and its new technologies) with a pastiche of ASJ, Eine empfindsame Reise im Automobil (A Sentimental Journey by Automobile), which was followed by a pastiche of TS, Prinz Kuckuck (Prince Cuckoo, 1907–08), and he rounded off the decade by editing a new edition of TS itself, in Bode’s translation, just before his untimely death. Pastiching Sterne titles became fashionable again in this period (see also e.g. Kandt 1904; Schaukal 1907) – ironically enough, at precisely the time Thayer was writing his obituary of Sterne’s influence in Germany – and the practice continued into the later twentieth century, as well (Vietta 1937; Koeppen 1958; Drach 1966), but by the postSecond World War period, at least, any remaining connections to Sterne indicated in this way were highly attenuated. More significantly, a predilection for Sterne was being evinced, once again, by leading literary writers of the modernist (and subsequently postmodernist) period. Although Hermann Hesse’s (1877–1962) novelistic practice is far from Sternean, he admired Sterne and reviewed new editions favourably (1970, 12: 109f.; cf. 8: 352); similarly in the case of Thomas Mann (1875–1955) – who owned a copy of Bierbaum’s TS edition, as well as both of Sterne’s novels in the original – we read in his diaries, correspondence and lectures from the early 1940s that during the period when he was completing his own massive mythological tetralogy Joseph und seine Brüder (Joseph and His Brothers, 1933–42) he, like Wagner before him, was reading TS for light relief and savouring its ‘humoristic magnificence’, its ‘genuinely comic technique’.35 In Robert Musil’s (1880–1942) case the balance is

34

35

‘Ein großer Schriftsteller, der das Echte so sah daß er kaum mehr Kritik üben konnte’ (Benjamin 1966, 132). ‘humoristische Großartigkeit’, ‘echt komische Technik’ (Mann 1982, 383). On Thomas Mann and Sterne, see Seidlin (1947), Booth (1951), Price (1953, 378), Riley (1965) and Vaget (1995, 197f.).

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reversed, and his explicit comments on Sterne are few – in his notes for the 1933 essay ‘Bedenken eines Langsamen’ (Reflections of a Slowcoach), for example, he simply includes Sterne in a long list of writers termed ‘grandfathers of today’.36 Rather, it is in Musil’s prose fiction – for example the opening chapter of his magnum opus, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man Without Qualities, 1930–33), entitled ‘Eine Art Einleitung’ (‘A Kind of Introduction’) – that the comic feints and indirections reveal the heritage of Sterne.37 This heritage is assumed after the Second World War above all by Günter Grass (1927– ), whose first novel, Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum, 1959) – a fantastical, picaresque response to the National Socialist regime – has been linked to Sterne by a number of commentators. Grass himself has acknowledged in an interview the importance of TS for him in the composition of what many still regard as his masterpiece (Neuhaus 1993, 13), and Sterne’s novel was mentioned explicitly in one of Grass’s later works, Der Butt (The Flounder, 1977, 223). Of Die Blechtrommel, the critic Keith Miles writes: Many novelists have tried to thumb a lift from Tristram Shandy, but there are times in The Tin Drum when Grass actually seems to be behind its driving wheel. There is the same idiosyncratic autobiographical approach, with the narrator constantly reminding us that he is undertaking a literary work ... Grass, too, shares Sterne’s delight in documentation, his capricious attitude to the novel’s structure, and his merciless mockery of folly, pretension and authority. (1975, 51)38

With writers of the calibre of Grass and Arno Schmidt (1914–79),39 the German comic novel reasserted its Sternean pedigree in the second half of the twentieth century, and in the period since the reunification of Germany writers such as Thomas Brussig (1995) and Frank Schulz (2001) have continued to draw inspiration from Sternean techniques. Conclusion At the beginning of the twenty-first century, then, Sterne reception in the German-speaking world remains buoyant. While ASJ was the novel which mainly appealed to the nineteenth century, in the course of the twentieth century the balance of interest in Sterne’s novels shifted decisively in favour of TS, and this is reflected in the fact that while two editions of ASJ are currently in print, there are no fewer than seven of TS – which was even made available as an unabridged audiobook in 1987. In total over a dozen German translations of each of the novels have now been produced, and the most recent, Michael Walter’s translation of TS (1983–91, prompted by Arno

36

37 38

39

‘Großväter des Heute’ (Musil 1978, 1417, 1429). For evidence of Musil’s knowledge of Sterne, see also Musil (1981, 82) and (1983, 584, 902). On Musil and Sterne, see Arntzen (1960 and 1982, 79), Howes (1992). On Grass and Sterne, see also Hollington (1980, v, 21, 23, 27, 37, 45), Engel (1997, 149f.). On Schmidt and Sterne, see Jauslin (1989), Eisenhauer (1992).

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Schmidt), has been hailed as ‘the best translation Germany has ever had’ (Hörner 1992b, 263). Sterne is on the syllabus at many schools and universities, and since the Second World War some of the finest German-language critics have written on him (Stanzel 1954; Meyer 1961; Warning 1965; Fabian 1969; Iser 1987), making important contributions to Sterne studies in the English-speaking world, too (Fabian 1971; Iser 1988; Pfister 2001). The reception of Sterne in the German-speaking world by no means died out with Heine, but simply shifted focus, and what I have called the Sternean impulse has continued to flourish, to provide German literature, thought and culture in general with a constantly renewed provocation.

4

Sterne in the Netherlands Peter de Voogd

This history of Sterne in the Low Countries could begin, appropriately enough, with his conception in Flanders in February 1713, when his father’s regiment was billeted at Dunkirk.While Laurence was in utero the Treaty of Utrecht caused the demolition of the fortifications of Dunkirk, and the regiment’s removal to Ireland where, on November 24, he was born. Alternatively, this history could begin before his conception, with Dutch King William’s campaigns and uncle Toby’s involvement in them. It is clear from Sterne’s writings that he was fully aware of his Dutch connection: he pondered taking his fictitious alter ego back to Flanders (if only to skate against the wind), satirized ‘Dutch commentators’ but also cited a host of Dutch scholars, and apparently had read at least one of them in Dutch (which is the only way in which one can account for the puzzling appearance of Johan van Beverwyck in ASJ, 116–17, in a passage on ‘Bevoriskius’ and sparrows – the reference is only found in a Dutch text and was never translated into another language, nor found in other sources). But this chapter must move the other way, and discuss the impact Sterne had on Dutch culture. The first problem that presents itself is that as of old much ‘foreign’ literature has always been read in the original in the Netherlands, so that the existence of translations is only partly significant. A brief sketch of the history of the translations, however, is in order. In the 1770s Bernardus Brunius was the first to translate Sterne, and the only one so far to do not only the novels, but the sermons as well. In the same period French publishers active in Amsterdam (D.J. Changuion, Garnier, and M. Rey) brought out Frénais’ translation of ASJ, as did C. Plomteux in Liege in collaboration with an Amsterdam publisher, E. van Harrevelt.Towards the end of the eighteenth century Sentimentalism struck even in the Netherlands, and Sterne was taken up by leading authors in the movement: Bellamy, Ockerse, Nieuwland and Feith. The latter triggered off a heated discussion about Sentimentalism with De Perponcher, who translated parts of ASJ to prove his points. In the 1830s ASJ was newly translated by the librarian of Leiden University, Jacob Geel, and in the 1850s TS was translated by Mark Prager Lindo, an Englishman who had settled in Holland, after which there would be no more translations until the end of the twentieth century.

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Rijklof Michael van Goens and Bernardus Brunius The first Dutchman known to have read Sterne is the precocious Rijklof Michael Van Goens (1748–1810), who commented on the first volumes of TS, which he obviously read as they came out, in his Bedenkingen van den Philosophe sans Fard (Thoughts of a no-nonsense philosopher) of 1764 (when he was 16). He calls TS just less unintelligible than Rabelais and equally unsuitable for imitation in Dutch. He got to know ASJ via Wieland whom he met and befriended in 1769.They corresponded in French, and Wieland told Van Goens that he wanted to translate TS. In 1774 Van Goens wrote enthusiastically about ASJ in the introduction to his translation of Volkman’s Reis-boek door Italien (Travels through Italy), comparing ‘my friend Sterne’ favourably with Smollett and Sharp, and commenting on Yorick’s catalogue of travellers (Introduction to vol. 6, 1774). In 1773, he mentioned Sterne as a prime example of the ‘humourist’ in an unpublished treatise ‘Over Humour en Laune’ (On Humour and Wit). Considering his position (Van Goens was a professor at the University of Utrecht), it would not seem unlikely that his enthusiasm saw to it that Sterne was already well known in intellectual circles in Holland before the first translations came out. These were made, after the original English texts, by Bernardus Brunius (1747–85), who died in Amsterdam in the New Workhouse where he had been confined at the request of his sister and her husband, in August 1784, because of misconduct and financial problems caused by his alcoholism. In the next century, in 1845, the Amsterdam patrician M.C. van Hall, commemorating the governor of the Workhouse, said that it was owing to him, who had allowed his prisoner to translate literary texts rather than beat hemp, that we are now in the possession of ‘that excellent translation of the works of Sterne that appeared appeared in 1779’, which is a pleasing story but probably untrue (Zwaneveld 1986). Brunius’ TS appeared between 1776 and 1779, his ASJ in 1778, and his translation of the Sermons (in two volumes) in 1779–80. His publisher was A.E. Munnikhuisen (of whom little else is known than that he was of German descent and originally called Münchhausen; see Zwaneveld 1996). He brought out Sterne with more attention to typographical detail, including a handmarbled page in vol. 3, than has been usual since. Het Leven en de Gevoelens van Tristram Shandy, uit het Engelsch van den eerw. Heere Laurens Sterne, A.M. (The Life and Feelings of Tristram Shandy, from the English of the Reverend Laurence Sterne) and Sentimenteele Reis, door Frankryk, en Italien. Gedaan door den Heer Yorick (Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, made by Mr Yorick) first appeared in parts, and were carefully marketed in conjunction with the publication of the Dutch translation of Blum’s Spaziergänge (Sentimental Wanderings, 1774), and more surprisingly of a translation of Thomas Amory’s The Life of John Buncle, one of Sterne’s lesser known models.The title pages do not mention the translator’s name. In the second part one may find a note asking the reader not to send it to the binder yet, since the publisher would provide an engraved titlepage in due time. This page, which does mention Brunius’s name, and a striking frontispiece engraving of Sterne by Fritzsch after the 1760 Reynolds portrait, duly followed when the entire TS in nine parts, bound in four

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volumes, and a fifth volume containing the two parts of ASJ came out in 1779. Fritzsch, originally from Hamburg, had settled in Amsterdam around 1745. Brunius’s Sterne followed the original very closely in nearly all of its many typographical details.The prefatory ‘Kort Verslag van het Leven en de Schriften van den Eerwaerden Heer Laurence Sterne, A.M. &c.’ (Brief Account of the Life and Works of the Rev. Mr. Laurence Sterne, 1: i–xviii), is a literal translation of the English ‘Account of the Life and Writings’ that accompanied the pseudonymous continuation of ASJ from 1769 onward. There are a few explanatory footnotes. Thus ‘Billy’ is explained as being short for William (1.1:113). Other names are glossed as well, often rather unhelpfully so:‘Nick’ is glossed as short for Nicholas, but its colloquial sense of ‘Devil’, which is relevant, is not mentioned (1.1:120–21), and the explanation of the legal names of ‘Nyky en Simkin’ is incorrect (1.1:111). Brunius was the only Dutchman to translate the complete Sermons, and it is note-worthy that he did two different versions of the ‘Abuses of Conscience’ sermon, which also appears in TS. End of the eighteenth century There were a few (positive) reviews of Brunius’s translations, the most interesting one being a review of the second volume of TS in Vaderlandsche Letter-oefeningen (National Literary Exercises, 1777): This piece, written in the same manner as the previous one, also includes numerous flashes of wit and whimsical humorous inventions that are primarily intended to ridicule many characters and to mock many people’s ways of thinking and reasoning. Most writers think for their readers, but the creator of this work can almost be said to write in order to make his readers think.1

Two years later the same magazine reprinted from Brunius the ‘Brief Account’ of Sterne’s life. In contemporary discussions about humour and wit (a popular topic, apparently, and one mostly treated in deadly earnest), Sterne’s name crops up as expected, mostly as an example of whimsicality, as in Hieronymus van Alphen’s treatise Over den luim (On Wit) of 1778. Curiously, a notable interest in Sterne is discernible in Dutch politics, which by the end of the century focused on a quarrel between adherents of the House of Orange and the more Republican-minded so-called Patriots.

1

The English is that of CH, 451.‘Dit Stukje, in denzelfden smaak opgesteld als het voorgaande, behelst op nieuw eene menigte van geestige invallen, en schertsende bedenkingen, die grootlyks ingerigt zyn, om het belachlyke van veele characters, en het bespotlyke van veeler denk – en redeneerwyze, in een treffend licht te stellen. Veele Schryvers denken voor hunne Leezers, maar de Opsteller van dit Geschrift mag eenigzins gezegd worden veel eer te schryven, om zyne Leezers te doen denken’ (6A: 516).

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Pieter Frederik Gosse comments in De Ouderwetse Nederlandsche Patriot (The Old-Fashioned Dutch Patriot) on an opponent’s article as being unintelligible: I had to read it thrice before I could find any order or sense in it. I’ve never read anything like it. Afterwards someone told me there’s a piece, presumably translated into our tongue, and called Tristrum Sjendi, which is written in like manner, and which he thought you perhaps had tried to imitate … but then that Tristrum, I am told, isn’t in any sense a political piece.2

Similarly, the Nieuwe Nederlandsche Spectator (The New Dutch Spectator) of 1788 contains an anonymous letter with the intriguing remark: ‘... shall I hide my political feelings so well, that it will never be discovered whether I’m an Orangist or a Patriot, just as it has never been discovered whether a certain person indicated in Tristram Shandy was a man or a woman’.3 There was a host of imitators, mostly gathered around a Utrecht students’ society called ‘Dulces ante omnia musae’ (Love the Muses above all else). They were led by Jacobus Bellamy (1757–86), who knew Sterne’s work intimately, refers to it in his correspondence, and (like Sterne himself) embraced Shandeism as an antidote to melancholy. He wrote a series of Sternean imitations, and defended Sentimentalism in several publications. His friend W.A. Ockerse (1760–1826) mentioned Sterne in Characterkunde (On Character, 1788) and in the autobiographical Vruchten en resultaten van een zestigjarig Leven (The Rewards of a Life of Sixty Years, 1823), defending Sterne against Leibnitz’ criticism of Sterne’s supposed posturing (see CH 452–53). Ockerse placed Sterne in the company of Shakespeare, Rousseau and Richardson. Boudewijn Donker Curtius imitated Sterne (rather badly) in 1784 with a lengthy novel called Het Legaat van Gillis Blasius Stern (The Legacy of Gillis Blasius Stern), reviewed in Vaderlandsche Letter-oefeningen as ‘a second cousin of that famous genius Yorick Sterne … he doesn’t want wit, but doesn’t come even close to his great-uncle’,4 as did Willem Kist in his digressive novel De Ring van Gyges wedergevonden (The Ring of Gyges Lost and Found, 1805–08). Buisman lists a full survey of the many lesser literary figures who adopted a Sternean pose, with little critical success. Vaderlandsche Letter-oefeningen (1789, 4A: 84) reviewed Het Leven van Richard (The Life of Richard) by ‘Justus Scherterowitz’ (pseudonym of Martinus Nieuwenhuyzen) (1788) in which there ‘isn’t even found the shadow of the

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‘Ik heb het wel driemalen moeten lezen, eer ik ‘er slot of zin aan vinden kan. Ik heb nooit iets dergelyks gezien of gelezen. Naderhand heeft my iemand gezegd, dat ‘er een een zeker werk was,‘tgeen ook in onze taal moet overgezet zyn, en dat Tristrum Sjendi heet, ‘t welk op denzelfden trant geschreeven is, en ‘t geen hy meende dat gy had willen navolgen. ... die Tristrum, naar ik hoor, is in’t geheel geen politiek werk!’ ‘... zal ik mijne politieke sentimenten zo kostelijk bedekken, dat men zo min ontdekken zal, of ik een Prinsman of een Patriot ben, als men ooit ontdekt heeft, of zeker persoon, in den Tristam Shandij bedoeld, een manlijk of vrouwlijk weezen geweest zij’ (47: 4). ‘Een Agterneef van het beroemde Vernuft Yorick Stern ... Hy is wel niet van vernuft ontbloot, maar schiet by zyben Oud-Oom verre te kort’ (1784, 6A: 89).

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humour that entertained and instructed the readers of Tristram’.5 Foreign imitations were commented upon, and translated into Dutch as well. Thus, Vaderlandsche Letter-oefeningen of 1794 (656) reviewed a Dutch version of Gorjy’s Nouveau voyage sentimental en France, and considered it ‘far beneath the original’ (‘verre beneden de eersten’). Pseudo-Sterne does not seem to have entered the Netherlands, except for some of William Combe’s forged letters. The Vaderlandsche Bibliotheek (National Library) (1793, 55.2: 26–28) prints a translation of one of Combe’s fakes as a letter of ‘the immortal Sterne’ (‘den vereeuwigden Sterne’). All these imitations, but in particular the publication in 1783 of an important sentimental novel, Rijnvis Feith’s Julia, triggered off a major discussion between Feith, the leading Sentimentalist author, almost the only one still generally known, and an influential man of letters,Willem Emmery de Perponcher (see Meijer, passim, and especially 149–50). Between 1786 and 1789 they discussed in a series of articles the niceties of the sentimental terminology, the character and significance of the new literature, the English and German texts that form its original sources (Richter, Gellert, Sterne, Richardson), its role in Dutch literary and social life. Above all, they worked out a subtle distinction, between the ‘true’ sentimental (which involves piety and moral and social duty) and ‘false’ sentimentalism, which is mere pathos and considered essentially un-Dutch. Sterne came off well in this debate. Clearly both men had read him in the original, but for their audience they quoted him in Dutch. Feith uses Brunius, slightly modernized, whereas Perponcher, who had an incomplete set, translated nine major scenes from ASJ himself to support his case (Father Lorenzo and the snuff box,Yorick’s giving alms to the beggars, the business about the passport and the starling, the story of the sword, La Fleur’s Sunday, the supper and the grace, and of course Maria). His translation is good enough to merit more attention than it has received so far. In the debate the distinction between ‘true’ and ‘false’ was applied with baffling certainty, both by Feith and De Perponcher and by numerous commentators who joined the fray. A rare exception was Pieter Nieuwland, whose relatively late essay on the ‘Over de gevoeligheid van hart’ (‘Sensibility of the Heart’, 1794, reprinted 1824) shows an awareness that much of the argument was quite subjective. Geel and Nayler The provincial dullness of the Dutch literary scene was considerably disturbed by a librarian and a publisher: Jacob Geel, librarian of Leiden University and titular professor, and B.S. Nayler, an Englishman who had set up as a publisher in Amsterdam. Together they produced Geel’s famous translation of ASJ (four editions: 1837, 1842, 1870, 1946) and a series of fascinating other publications. Geel’s translation was controversial. The scandal was caused partly by Nayler’s sharp practices, which led to a refusal

5

‘zelfs geen schaduw van die geestigheid in gevonden wordt, welke de Leezers van Tristram op eene leerzaame wyze vermaakt heeft.’

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by the influential journal De Recensent, ook der Recensenten (The Reviewer, also of Reviewers) to print a positive review of Geel’s ASJ.This in turn led to Geel’s very amusing Mededeeling aan alle recenserende geleerden in ons vaderland (Announcement to all the reviewing scholars in our realm), which Nayler immediately advertised on the back cover of the 1837 Dutch ASJ (see Buisman 1939, 61–63 and Van den Berg 1990). One year later Nayler published one of the liveliest pamphlets of nineteenth-century Dutch literary history, Pillen, voor Recenserende Geleerden te slikken; en Beenen, voor Heeren Boekhandelaren te kluiven: Toegediend door een wezenlijk voorstander der Nederduitsche Letterkunde (Pills for reviewing scholars to swallow and bones for gentlemen booksellers to chew: provided by a true supporter of Dutch Letters). The title page contains a motto in English, taken from Blair: ‘Criticism is a liberal, not a captious Art’. Amsterdam University Library ascribes the pamphlet to Geel, the Royal Library to Nayler; stylistic analysis, and characteristic phrases, however, point both ways and it is by no means unlikely that author and publisher collaborated in their campaign to boost the book. Pillen en Beenen, in which Brunius is consistently misspelled ‘Bruinius’, calls Geel’s translation masterly (‘meesterlijk’, 7), tells the full story of the advertising campaign for the book, and exclaims: Hundreds of our compatriots could have translated Sterne’s Journey (if one may call the transposition of words translating), but there was but ONE person who ‘dared’ let Sterne speak in our own tongue. Gentlemen, do have a look at this jewel, and reread!6

At least one reviewer was not convinced.7 Another reviewer, who wished to remain anonymous, considered the book improper and unfit to give to young women (‘Geen werk, om aan jonge meisjes of vrouwen in handen te geven’; Vriend des Vaderlands [Friend of the Nation], 1837, 2: 814), just as another Anonymous in De Gids (The Guide, 1838, 2: 43–44) had linked Sterne and Geel with Jean Paul Richter, but complained of Sterne’s indecency. Brunius and Geel were explicitly contrasted by J.R. Thorbecke who reviewed Geel’s ASJ in Algemeene Konst- en Letterbode, voor het Jaar 1838 (General Review for Art and Letters): In order to translate Sterne one must be creative and be able to say in our tongue what hasn’t been said before by anyone. We were happy with the old translation by Bernardus Brunius.When one compares his with this new one,

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‘Honderden onzer landgenooten zouden “Sternes Reis” hebben kunnen vertalen (indien men het “overzetten van woorden” vertalen moge noemen) doch er bestond slechts EEN die Sterne in onze hedendaagsche taal “durfde” te laten spreken. Zie het juweel na, MH. lees en herlees het.’ See ‘B. Brunius. Mededeeling van één “recenseerend Geleerde”’ (the irony is directed at Geel) in De Gids. Nieuwe Vaderlandsche Letteroefeningen (1838, 71, dated 7 January 1838 and signed ‘C.’ (W.J.C. van Hasselt; see Zwaneveld 1988, 238 and note).

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one notices how much our language has gained for the better during the last part of the previous century … The older translation is quite good. But compared with the new one, that one looks like a wooden doll, this one is like a marble statue. Dry and stiff rather than fluent and supple. The elegant dancing movement of the English periods had become in Brunius slow and dragging. The old translation was a transposition, the new one lets Sterne speak Dutch. (1838, 21–23)8

Nayler also brought out English-language editions of the Beauties (1836) and ASJ (with Black and Armstrong in 1842, in conjunction with the second edition of Geel’s translation), as well as an anthology of English prose and poetry for use in schools. The Beauties prints Walter Scott’s criticism of Sterne (1836, v–viii) and begins (startlingly) with the notorious ‘Witty Widow’ letter. Facing the title page is a motto by ‘B.S.N.’ (i.e. Nayler): ‘He who understands Sterne, may be “a plain, blunt man”; but he who apprehends Sterne, must be “One picked out of a thousand”.’ Scott’s Introduction objects to Sterne’s alleged plagiarism, but still describes him as ‘one of the most Affected, and one of the most Simple writers – as one of the greatest Plagiarists, and one of the most Original geniuses whom England has produced’ (ibid., vii). Nayler’s ASJ begins with a curious note by ‘The Editor of this Edition’ (ibid., 5–8), who claims to be the first to understand Sterne’s system of dashes (although both Nayler and Geel conclude ASJ with a very long dash which shouldn’t be there at all) and prefigures modern editions when he says: ‘were Sterne’s meanings elucidated, the Commentary would exceed the Text!’ (ibid., 5). He states that ‘To this day, Sterne’s Sentimental Journey is used as a Schoolbook in Holland! a striking proof that the masters themselves know not what they teach’ (ibid., 6), which opens up a new area of research. He also cites at length the fake memories of ‘La Fleur’ (see LY, 124, n.45), takes issue with Scott’s claim of ‘originality’ and stresses the realism of ASJ (‘contains more matter of fact than fiction’ – probably to the Dutch Protestant mind this would make Sterne the better writer). The only known instance of Sterne as a textbook source in Holland at this time, besides anthologies containing the usual purple passages such as the ‘Death of Le Fever’, is a primer by a translator and primary school teacher in Rotterdam, Lodewijk Hakbijl, whose Gemeenzame Brieven ter

8

‘Om Sterne te vertalen is noodig, dat men scheppe met de taal, dat men wete te zeggen, wat nog niemand in onzen tongval gezegd heeft. Wij waren blij met de oude vertaling van B.B. Wanneer men deze met de nieuwe vergelijkt, ziet men, hoeveel onze taal, sedert het laatste derde gedeelte der vorige eeuw, gewonnen heeft in eene rigting, waarin zij achterlijk was. ... De oude vertaling heeft groote verdiensten. Doch bij deze is zij eene welgesneden houten pop, vergeleken met een marmeren beeld. Droog, hard en stijf, waar deze lenig, buigzaam en vloeijend is. De zwevende, dansende beweging der Engelsche volzinnen was, bij B.B., een zware, slepende gang geworden. De oude vertolking is eene overzetting, en de nieuwe laat Sterne Nederduitsch spreken’ (1789, 4A: 84).

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Vertaling in het Engelsch (Familiar Letters for Translating into English, 1843) contains six of Sterne’s letters in Dutch, with useful suggestions for translating them back into the original (pp. 159–72). The selection is interesting: all letters mention Mrs Sterne positively and highlight Sterne’s French travels. Nayler was also active in an ‘English Literary Society’ which met in Amsterdam, and yielded one important publication: Verhandeling, uitgesproken in The English Literary Society; door den Hoogleeraar N.G. van Kampen, op Woensdag, 8 Februarij, 1832: benevens de vertaling in het Engelsch; door B.S. Nayler, met Aanteekeningen. Uitgegeven, op verzoek van de leden, door Nayler & Co. te Amsterdam. 1836 (Lecture delivered in The English Literary Society by Professor N.G. van Kampen, on Wednesday 8 February, 1832, with the English translation by B.S. Nayler, with notes. Published as requested by the members).This rare booklet includes a short account of the Society, a list of the works read and discussed (no Sterne there), a short note by Nayler on translating, and Van Kampen’s lecture, titled ‘On the influence of English literature upon the literature of the Dutch’. Of particular interest is Nayler’s Note XXXVII (pp. 94–95), which gives a potted biography of Sterne, and the information that At one period, the rage for Sterne was prodigious in this City; the liberally educated young gentlemen forming themselves into Sterne-Clubs; familiarly calling each other by the Names of distinguished characters in Sterne’s Writings; and marking even their apparel with some peculiarity from Sterne: among other things, the facetious Yorick showed me his Name, today, in his Silk handkerchief, which, with a parcel of others, was manufactured expressly for one of the Amsterdam Sterne-Clubs.

If the ‘Note to the Notes’ (p. 116) is to be believed, these remarks were not written in the year of publication of the booklet, 1836, but ‘rapidly penned in February, 1832’. There is an echo here of the German Lorenzo cult (see Chapter 13 in this volume), but extensive research has unearthed no further traces of these clubs. Lindo The next person to try his hand at Sterne was Mark Prager Lindo (1819–77). His background for translating Sterne into Dutch was exemplary: a native speaker of English, but born and educated in Germany, he was teaching modern languages at the Grammar School in Arnhem and working on a dissertation on Shakespeare (a text edition of Macbeth, which he defended at the University of Utrecht in 1853) when he translated TS.The Preface to his translation has the dateline ‘Arnhem, 15 Sept. 1852’. In view of Uncle Toby’s martial hobby-horse he should have waited some years, as he became Professor of History at the Military Academy at Breda in 1853, and in view of Walter Shandy’s pedagogical hobby-horse even longer, as he became Inspector of Primary Schools in 1865. Lindo liked to see himself as Man of Letters, wrote humorous pieces in the style of The Spectator and translated Scott, Fielding, Goldsmith and Thackeray. In his obituary of Lindo in 1877, C. Busken Huet, whilst positive about his role in Dutch letters, was

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rather critical of his gifts as a translator, saying that his Dutch was too shaky, and his literary conscience underdeveloped.9 There are three (textually identical) editions of Lindo’s Het leven en de gevoelens van den heer Tristram Shandy, which is paginated as two volumes, but first came out in six parts between March 1852 and January 1853, published by A.C. Kruseman in Haarlem. In that month it could also be had in two volumes complete, with a frontispiece portrait of Sterne by W.F. Wehmeijer, and the translator’s ‘Voorrede’ (‘Preface’). This edition was reprinted for G.L. Funke in Amsterdam from the same type in 1857. For his translation Lindo used one of the six-volume editions that appeared after the 8th edition when, on Sterne’s death, Strahan and Becket shared the copyright, and thus the text. Kruseman had borrowed a set of Brunius from a friend, which Lindo used, so he was fully aware of the novel’s original division, as a footnote to that effect makes clear, but he did not change the text accordingly. He was also much more casual about Sterne’s typographical experiments than Brunius had been, but in all fairness it must be said that he did give the right number of asterisks to make a sentence when one is needed (2:41).The marbled page was transformed into a neatly symmetrical printed design (hardly a ‘motley’ emblem of the work), the black page is equally odd. Lindo did not introduce the book. His Preface rather feebly attempts to be funny, but there are some explanatory footnotes scattered through the text, mainly to get the more untranslatable ambiguities out of the way. In the case of the word ‘bridge’, for instance, which in TS either refers to baby Tristram’s nose, or to the illfated drawbridge in Uncle Toby’s bowling green, Lindo quite simply gives up, unaccountably saying that Sterne’s word game is untranslatable (1:204). On the other hand,‘Nick’ is correctly glossed as indicating the Devil (1:57) and ‘Lillabullero’ is lengthily explained (1:70). Lindo also edited a textbook for secondary schools, Readings in English Prose and Poetry, selected from the best writers, with explanatory notes (Arnhem: D.A.Thiele, 1867) which contains Trim’s oration on death, and from ASJ the passages about the pie-man and the sword (ibid., 122–26). The rest of the nineteenth century yields little material for this chapter. Perhaps it is noteworthy that the library of the most influential literary magazine in Holland, De Nieuwe Gids (The New Guide) contained a set of Sterne’s complete works (London: Tegg, 1823 – the title pages are signed ‘Willem Kloos, 23 Nov. 1881’; Kloos was the main editor of the journal as well as a leading Dutch poet), and that one of the few writers of obvious international stature, Eduard Douwes Dekker whose Max Havelaar appeared under his pseudonym of Multatuli in 1860, has often been described as having been influenced by TS, even though he first read that book, with mixed pleasure, in 1876. Like most Dutch intellectuals of the time his

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Busken Huet, Litterarische Fantasien. Nieuwe Reeks, Derde Deel. Amsterdam: G.L. Funke, 1878, 180–86: ‘Zijne kennis van onze taal, ofschoon voor een vreemdeling bewonderenswaardig, was niet voldoende om klassieke buitenlanders klassiek te kunne vertolken. Ook klemde voor zulk soort van werk zijn litterarisch geweten niet genoeg.’

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models were French and German, rather than English – a cultural paradigm that was to change only after the Second World War. The twentieth century At the beginning of the twentieth century three scholarly monographs were devoted mainly to Sterne. Of these Buisman’s is most relevant for this chapter as she discusses exhaustively all Dutch translations and imitations between 1780 and 1840. De Froe’s dissertation is justly famous for extensively quoting Sterne’s sexier passages without seeming to notice they are funny (or sexy); unfortunately one has to agree with Hartley’s verdict that ‘it is limited in psychological background and application to McDougall’s analysis of instinct as found in his Outline of Psychology and it is based on something less than the soundest elements of psychoanalysis’ (Hartley 1966, 114). Most curious of all is Hazewinkel’s dissertation, which purports to delineate a psycho-pathological ‘map’ of ‘the humoristic writer’ and thus come to a typological characterization of all humorists, from Sterne to Dickens. Jongejan’s thesis also focuses on ‘humour’ but more sensibly discusses Sentimentalism while mentioning the translations in passing. It is only recently that Sterne has been studied in any depth. Jan Starink’s pioneering short monographs on Brunius and Lindo were meant for the faithful listeners to his radio programmes, and are now collector’s items. Starink also published an early draft of his brilliant TS translation, with commentary, in ‘Tristram Shandy vertalen’ (Translating TS, Raster, 1979b, 11: 94–108). The academic and novelist Frans Kellendonk published his version of ASJ in 1982. In his Preface he stated his indebtedness to Brunius and Geel and to Stout’s scholarly edition but his Preface contains some glaring errors: Yorick is said to die in the middle of (‘halverwege’) TS, Sterne is said to have suffered from syphilis when he wrote ASJ; Sterne’s intricate syntax of dashes was simplified almost out of existence, and there is little annotation.A drastically revised edition came out in 1991. In the previous year Jan and Gertrude Starink had brought out their translation of TS, as Het Leven en de Opvattingen van de Heer Tristram Shandy; the first one since Brunius to do full justice to all the typographical features (including colourful marbled pages) and informed by a very thorough knowledge of English and brilliant solutions to the many traps and pitfalls of Sterne’s text. In 1993 a generous selection from Sterne’s letters as well as BJ were translated by Pieter Verhoeff. Besides the late twentieth-century translations (and the host of positive reviews these elicited) there have been three dissertations (Meijer on Sentimentalism in the Netherlands, Zwaneveld on Bernardus Brunius and his publisher Munnikhuisen, René Bosch on the early English reception), inaugural lectures devoted to Sterne (Hunt, de Voogd), and a small number of scholarly articles. The literary impact of Sterne, which was obvious only during the brief period of Dutch Sentimentalism, is difficult to trace in the modern period. Recent Dutch literature finds its subject matter either in the Second World War and the traumatic period of German occupation of the

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Netherlands, or in descriptions of the stifling influence of religion; it finds its form in a rich amalgam of foreign influences, mostly French and German, some Joycean, and a great deal of Latin American magical realism. It is typical that Kellendonk, who translated ASJ, adopted none of the Sternean mannerisms in his fiction; perhaps the only ones to have said they were influenced in their writings by Sterne are the postmodernist authors Sybren Polet, Atte Jongstra and Willem Brakman. It should surprise no one that none of the Dutch editions of Sterne are available nowadays. They had limited print runs to begin with, and have by now been remaindered, as is the way of the world.

5

Sterne’s Nordic Presence: Denmark, Norway, Sweden Paul Goring with Eli Løfaldli1

From the early years of Sterne’s European reception, his works have received a modest and localized welcome in the Scandinavian countries.That he has had a reception there at all might well have surprised Sterne – his writing suggests his sense of Scandinavia as a serious place full of serious people who would be unlikely to engage readily with his heteroclite fictional creations. Tristram Shandy, for example, endorses a view of the Danes as a worthy but rather dull people, and he notes the chasm of difference distinguishing the mercurial Yorick – supposedly descended from his namesake in Hamlet’s court – from modern Danes with their ‘cold phlegm and exact regularity of sense and humours’.Yorick, indeed,‘seem’d not to have had one single drop of Danish blood in his whole crasis; in nine hundred years, it might possibly have all run out’ (TS, 1.11.27). Nonetheless – and whatever the temperamental gap between the Scandian and the Shandean – readers from Denmark, Norway and Sweden have, at various points in their intertwined national histories, shown considerable interest in Sterne. Among Sterne’s early Scandinavian admirers was the Danish King Christian VII, whose grand tour of Germany, England and France, begun in 1768, is said to have been inspired by ASJ and Volume 7 of TS.2 Christian’s countryman, the poet Jens Baggesen, was likewise a fan of Sterne, enthusiastic to the point of following Yorick’s fictional tracks through France – only to be disappointed in Moulins when he found that none of the locals had heard of the poor Maria (Baggesen 1847, 111–13). With a capacity to engage readers to this extent, it is no surprise that Sterne’s works have been reprinted, translated, and imitated in Scandinavia. Nowhere in Scandinavia has Sterne been quite the publishing sensation he has been in France and Germany, but there have undoubtedly been significant pockets of enthusiasm – the most notable in late eighteenth-century

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Please see Acknowledgments. p. xi for thanks due with this chapter. The Swedish novelist Per Olov Enquist records the detail in his historical novel concerning Christian VII (Enquist 1999, 121).

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Denmark and Sweden – and Sterne was reasonably well represented in the twentieth century through further translation and through the critical interest his works inspired both in their original English and in translation. Sterne’s Scandic reception itself has thus far attracted little scholarly attention – either in Scandinavia or beyond. That Sterne’s works were translated into Danish and Swedish relatively soon after their original publication is occasionally mentioned in accounts of late eighteenth-century Scandinavian literary cultures; similarly, passing reference is sometimes made to a Sternean influence upon certain eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Scandinavian authors. But a focused investigation of Sterne in Scandinavia has not, to our knowledge, been undertaken until now. Much of what follows, therefore, is in the nature of groundwork, as we have attempted to chart the general contours of Sterne’s long reception in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. We have included Swedish-language Finnish publications within the parameters of the Scandinavian reception; we have not identified a significant Icelandic or Faeroese reception of Sterne. In terms of the source material we have drawn upon, our account is more a history of translation than a history of reading (or readings), but we have worked from the assumption that translation is itself a form of reading, and we have attempted throughout to extrapolate from translations – alongside other sources – details of the ways in which Sterne’s work was assimilated within Scandinavia, and details of the various versions of ‘Sterne’ that gained cultural status there. In addressing translations, we have necessarily devoted more attention to older works than to more recent ones. Typically, more uncertainties cling to older translations than to new ones: the identity of the translator, the identity (and sometimes language) of the source text, and so on.We have aimed to shed light on such uncertainties, and we hope that by exploring the case of Sterne in, particularly, late eighteenth-century Danish and Swedish literary cultures, we have not only added to knowledge of this author, but have refined the picture of these literary cultures and of the mechanics of literary translation operating there. The early Danish/Dano-Norwegian reception The history of Sterne in the Scandic languages begins in 1775 in Copenhagen with a Danish translation of ASJ by Hans Jørgen Birch. But before this translation appeared, Sterne evidently had already become known to some extent in Denmark – it was not only King Christian VII who must have encountered Sterne first through non-Scandinavian editions. In November 1767, for example, a German edition of Sterne’s sermons – the two-volume Predigten von Laurenz Sterne published in Zürich (1766–77) – was announced in the leading literary periodical Kiøbenhavnske Efterretninger om lærde Sager (Copenhagen’s News of Learned Matters). The manner in which this short announcement addresses readers suggests that by this time, the year in which the final installment of TS was published in England, Sterne’s writing had become well known among readers in Copenhagen although its author still required some introduction. ‘The writer of the famous novel, Tristram Shandy’, it states, ‘is a vicar in England and is called

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Lorenz Sterne’ and the announcement goes on to explain the singular manner by which Sterne lent acclaim to his sermons by including one in TS.3 If TS had become famous in Copenhagen in the 1760s, it had almost certainly done so primarily via the early German translation by Johann Friedrich Zückert (1763–67). Copenhagen at this time was the political and cultural centre of a complicated, widely spread monarchy which encompassed the Danish kingdom, modern Norway, Iceland, as well as Schleswig-Holstein.4 It was a sophisticated and prosperous city which, by virtue of Denmark’s foreign trade and other international concerns, was necessarily multilingual, and its increasingly lively literary culture was fed both by native writing and by the importation of works from elsewhere in Europe, particularly Germany. Probably around half of the printed works circulating in late eighteenth-century Denmark were German-language publications, either imported or printed in Denmark. A smaller proportion of published works were in French, but knowledge of French must have been fairly widespread, for French drama (along with German drama) thrived in Copenhagen, and numerous French and German plays were printed there in their original language. As in Sterne’s home country, the print market in eighteenth-century Denmark was dominated by religious and theological works – hence, we can assume, Sterne’s promotion there as a sermonist. But from the mid-century, fiction, philosophical works, and polite periodicals – along the lines of the English Spectator (1711–12) – claimed an increasing share of the market. As Mitchell has written, by the last quarter of the century there had arisen in Denmark a significant ‘bourgeois desire to acquire knowledge and to orient oneself on the new currents of thought at home and abroad, as well as to be entertained and stimulated through the printed word’ (1992, 148). It is generally accepted that early Danish readers’ exposure to fiction from England was largely mediated through German translations, and there is evidence to suggest that German editions were the prime route for TS’s initial entrance into Denmark. In 1776, the same periodical that had earlier announced the German edition of Sterne’s Sermons, drew the attention of the Danish literati to the 1774 Hamburg edition of TS, newly translated into German by Johann Joachim Christoph Bode (and subscribed to by a number of Danes). The Danish reviewer displays an ability to judge this work’s faithfulness to the English original, but is mainly concerned with comparing its merits with those of the earlier translation by Zückert. ‘One

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‘Forfatteren til den bekiendte Roman, Tristram Shandy, er Præst i Engeland og hedder Lorenz Sterne. Han havde, førend han udgav dette sit Skiemte-Skrift, ladet trykke nogle Prædikener, men Ingen agtede dem værde at lægge Mærke til. Neppe var een af dem indrykket i Tristram Shandy, førend alle yttrede en Begiærlighed til at læse de øvrige. Paa denne sælsomme Maade har Hr. Sterne ved en Roman skaffet sine Prædikener Bifald’ (Anon. 1767, 788). Our outline of early Danish literary culture is generally indebted to Jensen (1983) and Mitchell (1992).

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gives great praise to this translation [i.e. Bode’s]’, the writer asserts, ‘as the one which, with correct and fitting expressions, naivety and melodiousness, perfectly matches the original, and in this respect it is notably better than the German translation of the same work which has earlier been published in Berlin [i.e. Zückert’s]’.The writer is not wholly enthusiastic about the new translation, however, and complains of its many typographical errors ‘some of which even change the meaning’.5 With these German translations available to readers in Denmark, TS was not translated into Danish until 1791 – and even then the translation was incomplete – but from the mid-century a growing number of English works, fiction and non-fiction, were being translated into Danish. Between 1742 and 1743, a Danish version of The Spectator was published in Copenhagen, and this was followed by translations of many of the central works in the traditional male-dominated canon of eighteenth-century English fiction. Richardson’s Pamela was translated by Barthold Johan Lodde, a clergyman and prolific translator, for a Danish edition of 1743. Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison appeared in Danish somewhat later: 1783–88 and 1780–88 respectively. Fielding’s Joseph Andrews was published in Danish in 1749 and, as with Richardson, there was a considerable gap before Fielding’s longer works were issued in translation: the first Danish Tom Jones appeared in 1781, while Amelia became Amalia for an edition of 1782–83. Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe was published in Danish in 1744, while Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels waited until 1768, the year of ASJ and Sterne’s death, before it reached Danish readers in their native language. Smollett’s novels gained a wider Danish public late in the eighteenth century due to the efforts of Johan Clemens Tode, a productive man of letters and science, who translated Peregrine Pickle, Sir Launcelot Greaves and Humphry Clinker in 1787–95, 1790 and 1796–98 respectively. So when the first Danish version of ASJ was published in 1775, it was feeding a market that can be said to be growing, but, as the translator’s Preface to the work indicates, it was by no means a certain market. This translator, Hans Jørgen Birch, was trained as a priest and, clearly a keen entrepreneur, he established his own book business at the age of nineteen and remained in the trade for all of his life – although, like Sterne, he never abandoned his role as priest (Andersen 1934, 586). As a writer, his output was comprised predominantly of religious and theological works – many of them aimed at children – and as such he was working within a fairly safe sector of the market.There was no guarantee, however, that a Danish version of ASJ would attract readers; or, at least, this appears to be an anxiety in

5

‘Man roser meget denne Oversættelse, som den, der i rigtige og træffende Udtryk, Naivetet og Velklang Fuldkommen opnaar sin Original, og skal i den Henseende have mærkeligt Fortrin for den tydske Oversættelse, der tilforn af samme Skrift er udkommen til Berlin. Men man beklager, at man ey har kundet levere dette smukke Arbeyde uden saa mangfoldige Trykfeyl, af hvilke nogle endogsaa forandre Meeningen’ (Anon. 1776, 528).

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Birch’s Preface, which is constructed as a type of Shandean dialogue between the translator and a friend: Yorick’s sentimental journey in Danish – that idea was not so bad, said one of my acquaintances! But – where will you get readers, who will – feel and – buy it? – But in England, I replied, in France, in your fatherland (my friend was a German) there have been so many reprints – two, three translations, and these again reprinted two or three times? – But in Denmark? True enough, I said, and shrugged my shoulders, … but the costs are not so large and besides – who knows what mood my compatriots might get into? – The desire to read has apparently been rising for a few years – maybe, said my friend, but what about the desire to buy?6

An attempt to profit from a Danish translation of Sterne, the Preface suggests, was like trying one’s luck in a lottery (‘Tall-Lotteriet’), but Birch and the then young publishing house Gyldendals Forlag (now the largest publisher in Denmark) was willing to take on the gamble. Birch’s translation is taken ‘Af det Engelske’ (‘from the English’) – as the title-page proclaims – and in the Preface Birch insists that he has ‘read – again read – and yet again read my author in his original language – in order, if possible, to imbibe a good deal of his sentimentality’.7 But there is evidence to suggest that, as he worked, Birch also referred to one or more German translations of ASJ, including the two volumes of the anonymous Yorick’s Sentimental Journey Continued (1769) as Germanized by Bode. Certainly Birch’s Preface contains a passage – an epitaph for Yorick – which is derived from Bode’s translation of the continuation.The extent to which Birch referred to the German when translating the main text of ASJ is not so clear, but his earlier work shows that he was certainly well used to translating from German (Gellert 1774, for example, was translated from the German [‘af det Tydske’] by Birch), and it appears that he drew at least slightly upon Bode’s text when working on ASJ. In general, Birch’s translation relates to the English original fairly closely – we do not doubt that Birch did base his translation upon an English text – but there are certain points of variation where the German text may have had an influence upon the Danish.8

6

7

8

‘Yoricks følsomme Reise paa dansk – det Indfald var ikke saa galt, sagde en af mine Bekiendtere! men – hvor vil De faae Læsere, som – føle og – kiøbe den? – Men i Engeland svarede jeg, i Frankerig, i Deres Fædreneland (min Ven var en Tydsker) saa mange Oplag – to, tre Oversættelser, og de igien to tre gange oplagte? – Men i Dannemark? Sandt nok, sagde jeg, og trak paa Skuldrene, … dog Bekostningerne ere ikke saa store, og desuden – hvem veed hva Lune mine Landsmænd kan blive i? – Læselysten er dog vist stegen i nogle Aar – maaskee, sagde min Ven, men Kiøbelysten?’ (Birch 1775, 3–4). ‘[J]eg har læst – igien læst – og nok eengang læst min Forfatter i hans Original Sprog – for om mueligt, at gjøre en god Deel af hans Følsomhed til min – ’ (Birch 1775, 4–5). The use of Bode’s translation of ASJ by Scandinavian translators (Birch and Johan Samuel Ekmanson) is discussed and exemplified in a note in The Shandean 14 (2003).

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Birch’s treatment of Sterne, then, provides further confirmation that the importation of English literature into Denmark was largely mediated through German: even when Danish readers were for the first time being given ASJ in their own language, at least one German-language version played a part in its translation. Birch’s work also serves as an indication of the general status in Denmark of French, as a language which was known but which could not be assumed to be known by all.‘I have … put most of the French words into Danish’, Birch tells his readers, ‘as we live a couple of miles further from France than the English’, and he adds his hope that none will be offended by the intervention.9 This translation policy throws up occasional oddities in the text – not least where one can be forgiven for expecting a Danish pastry. In Birch’s version of the chapter ‘Le Patisser’, the Chevalier de St. Louis is not selling ‘pâtes’ (‘pastries’ or ‘pies’) as in Sterne’s original; rather he is transformed into a ‘posteiselger’: a seller of paté (as in ‘meat paste’) – one might fear for the ‘propreté’ of the Chevalier’s ‘white damask napkin’ (ASJ, 105; Birch 1775, 151–56). Expressing his aspirations to soak up Sterne’s sensibility and mourning Sterne as a tender man of feeling, Birch proffered a sentimental version of Sterne, and it is as a sentimentalist that Sterne was received into 1770s’ Danish literary culture. The success of Pamela suggests that Danish interests in sentimentalism had been developing for some years, and Yoricks Følsomme Reise (Yorick’s Sentimental Journey) was clearly entering a quite buoyant ‘culture of sensibility’ – a culture which was vigorous enough to support the translation of further literary classics of British sentimentalism.10 Published in 1779 was a Danish version of Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield, a work which, like ASJ, can be read as more satirical than sentimental, but it also shares with Sterne’s work an early reception dominated by sentimental readings. And adding bulk to literary sentimentalism in Denmark, a translation of Henry Brooke’s The Fool of Quality was published between 1779 and 1781. Birch’s translation of Sterne may have expanded the market for such new works, but it does not appear to have expanded interest in Sterne per se, or at least not an interest significant enough to inspire immediate further translation of his work into Danish. No new editions of Birch’s translation were published and, so far as notices in Kiøbenhavnske Efterretninger om lærde Sager can be used as a measure of an author’s standing in Denmark, Sterne’s reputation was apparently not greatly advanced by the translation. In 1778, the periodical announced the 1776 Leipzig edition of Sterne’s letters in German (Weiße 1776), and when in 1785 it advertised the letters of Ignatius Sancho it mentioned that ‘Sterne exchanged letters with him’,11 but these are very isolated references. It was not until 1791 that the periodical published a ‘Subskriptions Plan’ for the first Scandic translation of TS.

9

10

11

‘Jeg har ogsaa sat de fleste af de franske Ord paa dansk, da vi boer et Par Mile længer fra Frankerig end Engelænderne’ (Birch 1775, 5). In Denmark, as in Britain, Pamela prompted considerable Pamela/anti-Pamela debate; spin-offs from Richardson’s work were also translated into Danish, for example the anonymous Anti-Pamela for a Copenhagen edition of 1749. ‘Sterne vexlede Breve med ham’ (Anon. 1785, 365).

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Although published in Copenhagen, this subscription plan was not written there, and its origin is significant to the early reception of Sterne in Scandinavia for it reveals that knowledge of Sterne’s work had spread a considerable distance beyond the Danish monarchy’s literary and cultural centre. Dated 19 November 1790, the subscription plan was sent to the periodical from Stavanger, an important seaport on the south-west coast of modern Norway. Its author, Christian Magnus Zetlitz, was not a man of notable literary experience or distinction; rather, Zetlitz was a pharmacist.12 And it was most likely pharmacy that brought interest in Sterne to Stavanger. Following the profession of his stepfather who had bought a pharmacy business in 1763, Zetlitz travelled to Copenhagen and took a pharmaceutical exam in 1778 – it was probably here that Zetlitz was exposed to the works of Sterne. In 1779 Zetlitz joined a pharmacy business back in Stavanger where he remained for most of his life, becoming an important member of the community, with involvements in road building, education, the law and poor relief. His venture in the 1790s into literary translation seems to have been an attempt to launch a new career; it was conducted in a businesslike and deferential manner, and it is not clear why the enterprise was curtailed before even TS had been completed. Zetlitz’s subscription plan offers his translation of ‘one of England’s greatest writers, the famous Laurence Sterne’ in six small volumes, and it attempts to lure subscribers by stressing that it will be a luxury edition in which ‘the clarity of the script and the purity of the print will be handled with the most thorough care’.13 For those willing to undertake the gathering of subscriptions themselves, there would be an added incentive: every eleventh copy would be free. Subscribers could sign up at either of two Copenhagen addresses, one that of the work’s printers, M. Møller & Son. In 1794 the first of the six planned volumes of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, hans Levnet og Meninger was published, and, as promised to the subscribers, it was produced with great care and was handsomely printed in a generously spaced gothic script. Zetlitz translated from the tenth English edition of TS which had been published by James Dodsley in 1775.This choice of sourcetext explains why Danish readers were given a somewhat eccentric one and a half volumes of Sterne’s original, with Zetlitz’s volume concluding at the end of Chapter 11 of the original Volume 2. Since Dodsley’s eighth edition of 1770, TS’s nine volumes had been compressed into six and this new division of the work clearly underlies Zetlitz’s plan for a six-volume Danish edition. (As in the English edition, the new division produces certain curiosities. Zetlitz does not signal where the original Volume I concluded; the first chapter of Sterne’s Volume 2 merely runs on as Zetlitz’s Chapter 26 and so Tristram’s opening line here – ‘I have begun a new book …’ (TS, 2.1.93) – may have been rather bewildering to Danish readers).

12

13

At the time of writing, information on Christian Magnus Zetlitz is available at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~kielland/slekt/per00247.htm#0 ‘[E]n af Engelands største Skribentere, den bekiendte Laurentz Sterne … For Skriftens Tydelighed og Trykkens Reenhed skal drages nøieste Omsorg’ (Zetlitz 1791, 192).

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Prefacing the translation, which follows the original very closely, is a modest address from Zetlitz to his readers. Framing his appeal in legal terminology, Zetlitz lays his effort before the tribunal of the public and invites a sentence to be passed upon him.The whole of the work has been translated, he tells them, but he will not publish more than the first volume until he has received readers’ comments and corrections, which, if allowed by the original text, he will incorporate into his revision of the translation. ‘My anxious longing to discover my destiny as a translator,’ he continues, ‘forces me to make this request.’ Humbly awaiting his fate, Zetlitz seeks a guarantee that the ‘Danish costume’ he has lent TS is worthy of Sterne’s original.14 Zetlitz’s future as a translator appears to have been something of a nonevent. No further volumes of TS were published, and we have found no records of other publications in which Zetlitz had a hand.Yet his translation of TS was not deemed bad – at least not by the reviewer in Kiøbenhavnske lærde Efterretninger (the new name for Copenhagen’s journal for ‘learned matters’). Indeed, this reviewer is highly enthusiastic about the whole enterprise: he is an admirer of Sterne, finds the translation to be sound and, interestingly, is delighted to have Sterne translated into Danish which he regards as a positive step towards eroding the cultural influence of Germany within Denmark. In fact, in this review we witness how the translation of foreign works into the native tongue could function as a cultural cement which might strengthen national identity and autonomy. Fired with Danish patriotism, the reviewer declares that ‘what is good about Danish it has from itself, and it has acquired its flaws from German’, and he claims of Sterne that his ‘simple but emphatic language can hardly be translated into any other European language so readily as into Danish’.15 (Interestingly, Bente Ahlers Møller, a later Danish translator of Sterne, has remarked, in an altogether less nationalist vein, that generally ‘English and Danish are so structurally and rhetorically close that English can be rendered without drastic changes of wording and rhythm’ [2002]). Zetlitz’s reviewer further suggests that his attitude is quite common in Denmark and that ‘the public seized this translation hungrily’.16 But whatever the nationalist aspirations for which Sterne’s work might have been appropriated, Zetlitz’s TS remained incomplete and indeed a full translation of the work into Danish was not completed until as late as 1976. The early translation of Sterne into Danish, then, was a fairly limited enterprise but Sterne’s works nonetheless proved to be inspirational and 14

15

16

‘Min ængstelige Længsel efter at erfare min Skiebne som Oversætter, afnøder mig denne Begiering:At Deres Kiendelse over min Oversættelse maatte anticiperes, saa meget mueligt de flere for Deres Domstoel inappellerede, og den tidligere eller sildigere Opfyldelse af denne sidste Punkt, blive mig Borgen for, hvorvidt de ansee denne min Danske Dragt, Bogen værdig’ (Zetlitz 1794, Preface). ‘[H]vad got der er ved det Danske det har det af sig selv, og Fejlene har det faaet af det Tydske … Hans simple men eftertrykkelige Sprog kan neppe oversættes i noget andet europæisk saa let som i Dansk’ (Anon. 1794, 729). ‘Begjerligt greb Recens. efter denne Oversættelse’ (Anon. 1794, 728).

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exerted some influence over other writers within the Danish monarchy.We have not located any full-blown imitations of Sterne’s writing in the Scandic languages – works, that is, of the kind represented in Britain by, for example, Yorick’s Sentimental Journey Continued – but certain Scandinavian authors were clearly impressed by the example of Sterne and either attempted a semi-Sternean mode of authorship or invoked Sterne or his characters in their own writing. Johannes Ewald, the successful Danish dramatist and poet who in 1775 established in Copenhagen the Danish Literary Society, entitled his autobiography Levnet og Meeninger (Life and Opinions), and Sterne’s influence upon Ewald clearly ran deeper than merely this title. Ewald had much in common with Sterne – theological training, military connections, a lifelong illness – and he was clearly a keen admirer of his writing (which he most probably read in German). He wrote Levnet og Meeninger – really a collection of autobiographical fragments – between 1773 and 1777, but it remained unpublished until it was issued posthumously from 1804 to 1808. This work is peppered with literary references, drawing on a wide range of classical and modern European literature, and it shows Ewald’s intimacy with and deep affection for Sterne’s writing. And Ewald’s local allusions to Sterne reveal him treating TS not simply as a literary model but moreover as a source of spiritual sustenance. Writing of a painful, past love affair, for example, Ewald halts in his recollections declaring: I must equip myself with a better humour before I can write about this matter – lend me a glimpse of that spirit, my Yorick, that taught you to flee from Death to the banks of the Garonne! – lend me that, so that I can flee this deadly thought, which pursues me – this murderous recollection of the times that have disappeared!17

It is, of course, not Yorick but Tristram who leads Death ‘a dance he little thinks of … to the banks of the Garonne’ (TS, 7.1.577), but in his search for literary succour, Ewald, like many of Sterne’s contemporaries at home, seems blithely to confuse ‘Sterne’, ‘Tristram’, and ‘Yorick’. Elsewhere in Levnet og Meeninger, it is more obviously Sterne’s characters from whom Ewald draws strength. ‘I wish my readers a good, peaceful night’, he concludes a passage, ‘– I shall refresh my heart by conversing for an hour or so with Uncle Toby and with the honest Corporal Trim’.18 We have already mentioned a further Danish author who drew inspiration from Sterne’s work: Jens Baggesen, a popular poet, satirist, and transla-

17

18

‘[J]eg maae ruste mig ud med meer Luune, førend jeg kan skrive herom – laan mig dog et glimt af den Aand, min Yorik, som lærte dig at flye for Døden, til Breddene af Garonne! – laan mig det, at jeg maae flye for den dræbende Tanke, som forfølger mig – for den mordiske Erindring af de Tider, som ere forsvundne!’ (Ewald 1969, 74–75). ‘Jeg vil ønske mine Læsere en god roelig Nat – Jeg vil forfriske mit Hjerte, ved at snakke en Times Tid med vor Oncle Tobby, og med den ærlige Corporal Trim’ (Ewald 1969, 62).

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tor, and an avid traveller. Baggesen travelled particularly in Germany – in fact, in 1800 he left Denmark and settled there – and it was primarily his German experiences that he recounted in Labyrinten (The Labyrinth, 1792–93), a classic of Danish travel writing and the work in which Baggesen’s greatest debts to Sterne are embedded. Baggesen draws on ‘the perceptive Sterne’ when he seeks to describe himself as a traveller. He paraphrases passages from the catalogue of travellers from Yorick’s (delayed) Preface to ASJ – and, with his infirmity of both mind and body and with his ‘inevitable necessity’, he finds that he fits within all of the categories!19 Elsewhere in Labyrinten are passages which seem, if not to allude, to be in part derived from TS. For example, Baggesen digresses to reflect upon how everyone ‘rides through the world upon his own individual hobbyhorse; and one is remarkably mistaken if one believes that, when it occurs to him to go abroad, he leaves it behind at home’.20 And there are many less demonstrable features of Labyrinten which, while they cannot definitively be linked to an origin in Sterne, nonetheless suggest a certain Sterneanism in Baggesen’s approach to narrating the self and the experiences of the self abroad. Baggesen’s first-person narrator – a figure named ‘Baggesen’ but not necessarily a realistic self portrait – is acutely self conscious and is interested in charting the relationships between inner and outer experience. He shares with Sterne’s narrators a whimsical eccentricity and a tendency to focus upon minutiae, upon small details and gestures of the body, and also upon the accidents of the world. And he even encounters en route many of the same problems that beset characters in Sterne. On his way to the packet boat that will carry him out of Copenhagen, Baggesen finds that he has forgotten his passport – ‘Passport?’ said I,‘I never dreamt about bringing a passport! Is a passport necessary for getting away alive from Copenhagen?’ – and it seems that this is an author almost wishing himself into Yorick’s shoes.21 In Labyrintens Fortsættelse (The Labyrinth’s Continuation) – a work compiled posthumously from Baggesen’s diaries and letters – are found further references to Sterne, and it is here that Baggesen’s disappointing visit to Moulins is recorded.‘In memory of Sterne, I took a stroll round and about’, Baggesen writes, and he enquired after the famous Marie, whose name echoes in the groves and chimney corners of Europe … whose experience my own sister has wept over, and whose picture I carry upon my tobacco box – but in vain! … I asked the landlord about her

19

20

21

‘Den skarpsindige Sterne har indeelt alle løse og ledige Personer, som forlade deres Hiem, i 4 Hoved-Klasser: dem nemlig, som enten reise formedelst legemlig eller aandelig Brøstfældighed, eller af uomgiængelig Nødvendighed, eller af nogen anden eller af slet ingen Aarsag. Jeg hørte virkelig i strengeste Forstand til alle disse Klasser’ (Baggesen 1965, 23). ‘Enhver Menneskelig Rytter rider igiennem Verden paa sin særegne Kiephest; og man tager mærkelig Feil, om man troer, at han, naar det falder ham ind at reise udenlands, lader den staae hiemme’ (Baggesen 1965, 16). ‘Pas? sagde jeg; jeg har ikke drømt om Pas! Er et Pas nødvendigt for at komme levende bort fra København?’ (Baggesen 1965, 25).

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– I asked the bookseller – I asked the lady bookseller – I asked a little young girl, whose acquaintance I made outside the inn – in vain! – Marie of Moulins was to all of them as unknown as Dorothee from Aarhuus.22

The sentimental ‘cult of Maria’ was apparently buoyant in Denmark, while the locals of Moulins were overlooking a potential tourism opportunity. Other writers within the wider Danish monarchy to have been influenced by Sterne include the Norwegian nationalist Nicolai Wergeland and his more famous son Henrik, the poet who vigorously advanced his father’s efforts in the cause of Norwegian independence and who became in the process a key figurehead and symbol of the nationalist struggle. Nicolai Wergeland was originally from Bergen and he studied theology in Copenhagen where he became an active member of ‘The Norwegian Society’ (‘Det Norske Selskab’), an influential club of Norwegian writers, teachers and students which existed in the city from 1772 until 1812. As with Zetlitz, then, Wergeland’s awareness of Sterne’s works probably arose from the necessity of travelling to Copenhagen to study (there was at that time no university in Norway). And it was in Copenhagen in 1805 that Wergeland, in his mid twenties, published the first volume of Haldor Smeks Smaae Tildragelser i Livet, Eventyr, Bemærkninger og Meninger (Haldor Smek’s Small Occurrences in Life, Adventures, Remarks and Opinions), a work which its subtitle declared to be ‘a humorous piece of writing in the manner of Yorick’. The explicit Sternean influence is conspicuous in this comical, pseudo-autobiographical account of Haldor Smek – indeed, this now littleknown work is far more obviously, self-consciously and persistently Sternean than the works of Ewald and Baggesen. Beginning ab ovo, dwelling upon the characters of his parents, and including musings on the business of writing, Smek’s narrative pays clear homage to TS, and even where syntactic minutiae are concerned Wergeland seems to have aspired to follow Sterne. In Wergeland is often found, for example, one of Sterne’s favourite techniques for representing dialogue: a short phrase from the speaker, followed by a clause locating the speaker and listener, followed by the repetition of the phrase before its continuation. For example: ‘I vore Dage, sagde min Fader til mig og min Moder – I vore Dage, rette Menneskene sig temmelig nøje efter Tiderne’ (‘In our days, said my father to me and my mother – In our days, …’; Wergeland 1805, 7). Wergeland further follows Sterne in producing a text of immense typographical playfulness. He makes ample use of the dash, often grouping two or three together; he wryly purifies his text with almost half a page of asterisks punctuated only with a question mark; an

22

‘Til Erindring om Sterne, gjorde jeg en Spadseretour rundt omkring … Jeg erkyndigede mig om den berømte Marie, hvis Navn gjenlyder i Europas Lunde og Kakkelovnskroge … hvis Tildragelse min egen Søster har grædt over, og hvis Billede jeg bærer paa min Tobaksdaase – men forgjeves! … Jeg spurgte Verten om hende – jeg spurgte Boghandleren – jeg spurgte Boghandlersken – jeg spurgte en ung lille Pige, som jeg gjorde Bekjendtskab med udenfor Vertshuset – forgjeves! – Marie de Moulins var dem alle ligesaa ubekjendt, som Dorothee fra Aarhuus’ (Baggesen 1847, 111).

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airborne putto is represented pictorially; there is an elaborate hieroglyph of Smek’s own design, and a passage of runic characters supposedly transcribed from a stone; there are squiggly lines (more geometrical than Tristram’s); and among other textual devices there are frequent lists and numerous pseudoscholarly notes. The second and final volume of Haldor Smeks Smaae Tildragelser i Livet was published in 1810, not in Copenhagen but in the Norwegian town of Kristiansand.Ardently anti-Danish,Wergeland returned to Norway where he became deeply involved in the development of Norway as a selfgoverning nation leading up to and following the 1814 Treaty of Kiel which ceded the land from Denmark to Sweden. Wergeland was one of the founders of Norway’s first university in Christiania (now Oslo), and he was among those who formulated the Norwegian Constitution in 1814. During this period Wergeland was also bringing up his children, and in this regard might be traced a further influence of Sterne – or at least of Walter Shandy with his plans for Tristram’s education and his never-completed pedagogic tract, the Tristrapædia. According to Harald S. Næss, Wergeland ‘devised for his oldest child, Henrik, a private “Henrikopaedia,” forty-three rules of benevolent pedagogy’ (1993, 88). Since Henrik turned out to be a hugely celebrated writer, a zealous nationalist and, it seems, a fan of Sterne, Nicolai was no doubt pleased with the results. Henrik Wergeland did not model his literary output upon Sterne to the extent to which his father had done. Primarily a poet – indeed Norway’s foremost Romanticist – his Sternean leanings are really apparent only in the fragmented autobiography he wrote on his early deathbed, Hassel-Nødder: Med og uden Kjerne, dog til Tidsfordriv, Plukkede af min Henvisnede Livs-Busk (Hazelnuts: with and without Kernel, though for Diversion, Picked from my Withered Life Bush). Published in 1845, Hassel-Nødder is a diverse collection of humorous memoirs which, as Yngve Sandhei Jacobsen has shown, uses Sternean techniques to break away from a formulaic, rigidly chronological, ‘undertaker style’ of life writing (2000, 174). Like Tristram,Wergeland faces the frustrations of trying to contain his life within writing when life is forever exceeding the bounds of representation, overflowing beyond words. And facing imminent death – as Sterne long feared himself to be – Wergeland’s textual persona deploys the same tactic, in the form of a flight to France, that Tristram uses in trying to hinder his demise and, with it, the abrupt conclusion of his narrative (Jacobsen 2000, 174). Some small typographical eccentricities suggest further debts to Sterne: when, for example, Wergeland seeks to describe a stream he does so with a double wavy line. In Hassel-Nødder, however, there is nothing like the investment in visual devices that is found in Haldor Smeks Smaae Tildragelser i Livet. And indeed, as Morten Claussen (translator of ASJ into Norwegian) remarks, the slight Sterneanism of Hassel-Nødder probably represents the final trace of Sterne’s early influence within Norway.23

23

‘Sannsynligvis finner vi de siste spor av Sterne i Norge i … Hasselnødder’ (Claussen 1992, 16).

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The early Swedish reception In Sweden, an enthusiasm for Sterne arose later than in Denmark, with the first translation into Swedish appearing in 1791. The nature of Sterne’s reception was also rather different there. As in Denmark, Sterne was assimilated primarily as a sentimentalist (there was no Swedish translation of TS until 1980), but the early editions of Sterne’s writings from publishers in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Lund reveal a far greater fascination with Sterne as a personality than is evident in the early Danish reception. Indeed, with translations of Sterne’s letters and even of the spurious Yorick’s Meditations (1760), it can be said that a significant ‘cult of the author’ grew up around Sterne in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Sweden. The early Swedish reception is distinctive, furthermore, because where Denmark drew cultural nourishment primarily from Germany, Sweden had developed its foremost continental relationship with France, in fact, as will be seen, the Swedish reception of Sterne is, in part, the Swedish reception of the French reception of Sterne. Sweden was by no means divorced from German culture; indeed, German-language publications were widely read there. But French cultural models and the French language became increasingly integral to Swedish culture in the latter half of the eighteenth century, a period in which Francophilia coincided with a recovery from economic decline and with increased investment in the arts, particularly during the reign of Gustav III, a keen patron of the arts and a writer himself. Ingemar Algulin writes: All who sought education made the pilgrimage to Paris.The French language began to affect Swedish – just as German had earlier – to such a great extent that a hybrid language arose. In aristocratic and other cultivated circles, people often spoke and wrote French. The styles and tastes of French Classicism manifested themselves all the more strongly as the leading aesthetic doctrine. (1989, 38–39)

‘French, it can almost be said, is our mother tongue’, avers Sterne’s first Swedish translator.24 But templates for cultural mimicry and incorporation were also drawn from Britain, not least within the field of literature. ‘It was on English models’, Algulin maintains, that a Swedish press with newspapers and journals began to emerge. English literature, partly through translations, also started to gain a footing. English writers were introduced on a broad front, and Swift,Addison and Steele, Pope and others became models for Swedish writers. (1989, 39)

Foreign precedents, then, contributed to the development in Sweden of a significant trade in bourgeois literature,25 and, with regard to British literature, it was not only these early-century authors who would be assimilated

24 25

‘[F]ranskan är ju snart sagt – vårt modersmål’ (Ekmanson 1791, I:10). ‘Massengale argues that the ‘bourgeois media developed strongly during the 1770s and 1780s, but their domination of the literary scene became evident only during the last decade of the century’ (1996, 130).

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there. As in Denmark, Richardson proved to be popular in Sweden, where the production of native novelistic fiction was slight (Massengale 1996, 112). The first part of a translation of Sir Charles Grandison was published in Stockholm in 1779, to be followed by a Swedish Pamela in 1783. And Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield preceded Sterne’s translation into Swedish in an edition first published in 1782 and reissued several times subsequently. Such works fed an expanding market for fiction, much of which reached readers via commercial circulating libraries which, following official sanctioning, became established within Sweden from the 1780s. Records from such libraries in Stockholm reveal that Sterne’s works were known and read in Sweden prior to their being translated into Swedish, and they show that other-language editions remained in use after translations began to be published. In an exhaustive study of Stockholm’s circulating libraries, Margareta Björkman has analysed a number of proprietor’s catalogues from between 1783 and 1809 and she records significant holdings of Sterne’s works in French, German and English editions.26 From a library run by Magnus Swederus could be borrowed French and German translations of TS and a French translation of ASJ (Björkman 1992, 226). In another library, under the proprietorship of the German-born Friedrich August Cleve, could be found a German edition of ASJ together with English editions of TS, Letters and YE (Björkman 1992, 257).27 The library of Carl Conrad Behn held editions of TS both in English and in German. The catalogue suggests that these were not the most popular works among Behn’s borrowers; nonetheless Behn augmented his holdings with French and English editions of ASJ when they were published in Lund in 1800 (Björkman 1992, 304). The proportion of English-language editions of Sterne here is relatively high, considering the overall status of Englishlanguage works within these libraries: in Cleve’s library only 6 per cent of the holdings were in English; in Behn’s library it was only 4 per cent. Literary works written originally in English clearly became very popular in late eighteenth-century Sweden, but as Björkman maintains, Englishlanguage skills were possessed by only a small minority. In this period of Sweden’s literary history, then, the assimilation of English-language authors such as Sterne occurred principally through the mediating languages of French or German, or through new translations into Swedish. It was Johan Samuel Ekmanson, a Stockholm bookseller, publisher and author, who added to the stock of translated British fiction with the first translation into Swedish of ASJ.28 Introducing not only Sterne but also the 26

27

28

All points regarding circulating libraries here are indebted to Björkman 1992. Björkman shows 1783–1809 to have been the period when commercial circulating libraries became established as an institution in Stockholm and, through detailed analyses of libraries’ stock records, she shows the novel to have been their predominant genre. The last work is recorded as Letters from Yorick which we take to be short for YE. Björkman records a further German work in Cleve’s library recorded simply as ‘Yorick’ which we have not identified. We have derived these few details from the Swedish Royal Library’s records of publications involving Ekmanson.

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new word ‘känslosamma’ (sentimental) to the language, the two-volume Yoricks Känslosamma Resa igenom Frankrike och Italien (ASJ), was published in Stockholm in 1791 by Anders Zetterberg, and it was offered as part of a ‘Selected library for male and female readers of all classes’.29 Ekmanson’s translation, together with his long Preface, is significant for a number of reasons: it contributes to the apotheosis of Sterne as a master painter of the heart; it shows the cosmopolitanism of Swedish literary culture (together with the translator’s aim that Sweden should not be culturally marginalized); and it is very likely another example of circuitous translation. As was seen in the case of Birch’s Danish ASJ, the translation of literary works can sometimes follow indirect linguistic paths, employing the stepping stones of intermediary other-language editions in the forging of the new text. There are features of Yoricks Känslosamma Resa which suggest that Ekmanson referred to Birch’s text as he translated; this Swedish version, then, is indebted to a Danish version which itself is indebted to a German version of the original English text.30 Ekmanson’s employment of Birch’s text might suggest an image of the translator creatively producing a specifically Scandinavian Sterne by selecting preferred variants from other available translations. Or alternatively it might prompt an image of eighteenthcentury Swedish literary culture as a remote, parochial figure in a game of Chinese whispers which, geographically marginalized, receives English literature only after it has been filtered and transformed through a succession of different languages en route to the north.Where Yoricks Känslosamma Resa is concerned, the latter image may be the more compelling, but while Ekmanson silently made use of the earlier translation in the language closest to his own, he is nonetheless concerned in his Preface to show the internationalism of Sweden and to display a direct familiarity with the literary movements and events occurring in Europe’s larger cultural centres. He refers to the many international editions and translations of ASJ; he discusses the verdict upon it in the Monthly Review and its popularity among the English public; he quotes the response of ‘a famous learned German’ to the news of Sterne’s death;31 and he discusses the problem for translators generally when faced with rendering the word ‘sentimental’. The English language had no adjectival form of ‘sentiment’ before Sterne used it as a vehicle for his journey, and the French ‘sentimental’, the German ‘empfindsame’, the Danish ‘følsomme’ are of the same kind: all were coined solely for Yorick’s journey.32

29

30 31

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‘Utvaldt Bibliothek För Läsare och Läsarinnor Af Alla Stånd’ (Ekmanson 1791, I: first title page).The second title page of the first volume gives a date of 1790; this is corrected to 1791 in a list of errata. See note 8 above. This famous, learned German, not named by Ekmanson, was Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. ‘Engelska språket hade intet adjectivum af Sentiment, innan Sterne nyttjade det såsom vehiculum på sin resa, och det Franska Sentimental, det Tyska Empfindsame, det Danska Fölsomme äro af samma beskaffenhet, alla enkom tillskapade för Yoricks resa’ (Ekmanson 1791, I: 9).

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This is partly a strategy to show his own sensitivity as a translator and to justify his neologism ‘känslosamma’, but it also serves the rhetorical purpose of asserting Sweden’s position alongside other European powers. Indeed, it can be said that Ekmanson conceives of the translation as a whole as an act which will advance Sweden’s currency with European trends. Eulogizing Sterne, he writes that ‘it is not strange that many countries should have taken care, through translations, to have acquired the writings of this immortal man’. And in this regard, he asks,‘why should Sweden … be more backwards than others?’33 At the same time as Ekmanson promoted the value and cultural significance of his translation, he was also advancing a particular image of Sterne within Sweden. He uses his Preface as a space in which to introduce to Swedish readers the ‘renowned and famous writer’, for which purpose he offers a translation of the ‘characteristic painting that, he [Sterne] in his Tristram Shandy, has made of himself under the name of Yorick’.34 With this substantial translated extract from TS (‘That instead of that cold phlegm … They were not lost for want of gathering’, TS, 1.11.27–9), Ekmanson equated Sterne with his eccentric fictional alter-ego, but he also glossed the description with some remarks of his own: Thus was Sterne, or, as he preferred to call himself,Yorick; and his writings revealed an incomparable genius and the best of hearts – Nowhere did he use either his fine genius or his lively whims at the expense of religion, virtue or decency. – On the contrary – against those madmen of the philosophical sect, who with a bitter refinement persistently strive to undermine and, were it possible, totally overturn the reasons for mankind’s happiness and joy, against those, he has often sharpened his pen and focused his thoughts: he considered their base endeavour with that resentment with which all sensible people should consider it; while regarding the madmen themselves with the concerned compassion of bleeding human love.35

33

34

35

‘Det är då ej underligt, om flera länder varit måne, att, genom öfversättningar, tillegna sig denne odödlige mannens skrifter. Och hvarföre skulle Sverige i denna del mera stå tillbaka, än andra?’ (Ekmanson 1791, I: 8). ‘För de Läsare, som önska närmare känna denna namnkunnige och berömde Författare, torde det icke vara obehagligt, att här finna ett utdrag af den karakteristiska målning, han, uti sin Tristram Shandy, gjort öfver sig själf, under Yoricks namn’ (Ekmanson 1791, I: 4). ‘Sådan var Sterne, eller, som han helre kallade sig,Yorick; och hans skrifter vittna om ett förträffligt snille, samt det bästa hjärte – Ingenstädes nyttjade han hvarken sitt fina snille, eller sina quicka infall, på Gudalärans, Dygdens eller Anständighetens bekostnad. – Tvärtom – emot sådana, den Philosophiska Sectens vettvillingar, som med en bitter finhet, ilhärdigt sträfva att undergräfva, och, om möjligt vore, alldeles omstörta grunderna till människoslägtets sällhet och lycksalighet, emot dessa har han, icke sällan, hvässat sin penna, och skärpt sina infall: – han ansåg deras skändeliga bemödande med den afsky, hvarmed alla förnuftiga människor borde anse det, och dem, med den blödande människo-kärlekens bekymmerfulla medlidande’ (Ekmanson 1791, I: 7–8).

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It is not clear whether Ekmanson was unaware of the complaints commonly launched against Sterne’s alleged disrespect for religion, virtue and decency, or whether he chose to turn a blind eye to this side of Sterne’s native reception. Either way, in this Preface we see the dispersal of an uncomplicatedly moral and sentimentalized Sterne, and this tendency continues into the main text, not least through its adornment with repeated sentimental motifs depicting putti, flowers, fruit, musical instruments and birds. (One bird that is not depicted is Yorick’s starling: Zetterberg did not produce an image of Yorick’s crest. The motifs were probably not made specially for this edition, but were standard ornamental figures.) The concluding epitaph for Yorick adds an unambiguously mournful note to Sterne’s original ending, and in case it should be thought that the translation of Sterne’s final chapter heading ‘The Case of Delicacy’ to ‘En kinkig Omständighet’ is playing up the potential sauciness of events in the shared bed-chamber, it is worth noting that ‘kinkig’ was a less piquant term than many modern Anglophone readers might assume – the heading translates literally as ‘A delicate/awkward circumstance’. In 1797 the first Scandic-language edition of Sterne’s letters was published, and by this time Sterne’s fame within Sweden had grown. As the translator of these letters put it, Sterne had become ‘too well known through his incomparably kind and fine writings to need a eulogy’.36 This edition of Yoricks och Elizas Brefvexling (Letters between Yorick and Eliza) was printed for the Stockholm bookseller Johan Dahl, under whose aegis had recently been produced several works of a sentimental or moral stamp, including translations of Goethe’s Die Leiden des Jungen Werther (The Sorrows of Young Werther) and works by the Danish theologian Christian Bastholm. The identity of the translator – also the author of the short Preface – is unknown, but it was clearly an individual interested in propagating the type of public image of Sterne which had been fostered in Ekmanson’s earlier translation. This correspondence itself upholds such an image of the author: the ten letters from Sterne to Eliza, first published in YE, interwoven with twelve replies from Eliza (forged, probably, by William Combe and first published in 1775 as EY), foreground the fragile, delicate emotionalism of the enamoured Sterne.37 And in this Swedish translation, the exceptional sensibility of both Sterne and Eliza is further advanced through the eulogistic Preface. Eliza’s ‘fine, tender and enlightened way of thinking’, writes the translator, ‘was too much in accordance with his [Sterne’s], for it not to entwine him closely, in a pure friendship, with this rare woman’.The translator concedes that ‘if someone were to claim that devotion for such a lovely person ever led our Sterne over the strict limits of Platonism’, then s/he is

36

37

‘Sterne … är för mycket känd genom sit oförlikneliga snille och fina skrifter, för at här behöfva något låftal’ (Anon. 1797, 3). We have not identified a definite source text for this translation. The title page states that the translation has been made from the English, and details in the Preface strongly suggest that the translator was acquainted with the prefatory material first published in EY.We have not, though, ruled out the possibility that the translator referred to a French or German edition.

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not ‘able to prove the opposite’. But s/he even turns these uncertainties to the advantage of Sterne’s virtuous image: This nonetheless leaves not so much a blemish on the memory of the man; rather it, without doubt, contributes to his excellent reputation that his virtue and his religion were able to conquer such a feeling heart, which passion otherwise would have had so much to win by debauching.38

The correspondence between these pure worthies, the translator ventures, is ‘perhaps the most valuable which reason and tenderness have ever produced’.39 Ekmanson’s ASJ and Yoricks och Elizas Brefvexling attest to the development within the Swedish reception of Sterne of a fascination with the author both as an individual personality and as one of a pair of thwarted, sentimental lovers. Such interests were offered further fuel with another volume of translated letters in 1807, but they were also catered for by an English edition of ASJ, published in 1800 in the university town of Lund on the western coast of southern Sweden. This edition was one of a pair of volumes – the other being a French translation of ASJ – which were printed the same year by Professor Jonas Lundblad, a philologist whose professional interests reached beyond the university and into the book trade. Lundblad produced the editions, which were published by subscription, for Håkan Fredrik Sjöbeck, a Lund writer – and later a bookseller – whose output consisted primarily of language textbooks and educational works for children. Sjöbeck perhaps had pedagogical aspirations when he orchestrated the publication of these English and French editions of Sterne (see Björkman 1992, 304); nonetheless, while he might have seen the potential for linguistic instruction in Sterne’s writing, his eulogistic Preface to the English edition equally suggests that, like other Swedes, he had been drawn into the ‘Sterne and Eliza’ phenomenon and was keen to promote Sterne’s work further on that foundation. This Preface, written in English, assumes a complete familiarity with the identity of Eliza and with the nature of her relationship with Sterne. Indeed, Sjöbeck begins the Preface by plunging readers straight into the relationship so as to introduce Eliza’s verdict on the coming fiction: ‘Eliza, after having received the Sentimental Journey of her dear Bramine, her Friend, the most valuable of her Physicians, the Physician of her mind, delivers her thoughts

38

39

‘Hännes fina, öma och uplysta tänkesätt voro för mycket öfverensstämmande med hans, för at icke förbinda honom så nära med denna sällsynta qvinna, som den rena vänskapen kunde tåla. Men skulle någon påstå, at tilgifvenheten för en så älskvärd människja någon gång förde vår Sterne öfver den stränga Platonismens gränser, så tiltror Öfversättaren sig icke kunna bevisa motsatsen. Likväl lemnar detta så mycket mindre någon skugga på mannens minne, som det utan tvifvel utgör en del af hans skönaste beröm, at hans dygd och hans religion förmådde segra öfver et så känslofullt hjerta, hvilket passionen äljes haft så mycken vinning vid at förderfva’ (Anon. 1797, 3-4). ‘… denna samling, den kostbaraste som förstånd och ömhet kan hända någonsin frambragt’ (Anon. 1797, 4).

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upon it, in apostrophizing him thus … ’ – and there follows a fulsome extract from the first letter in the faked correspondence from Eliza to Yorick.40 ‘These fine touches of Eliza … admirable as herself ’, assures Sjöbeck in his rather ungainly English,‘are worth being taken notice of here.They are of a true feminine heart, and may serve for a testimony of every feeling reader’ (Preface). Indicating the considerable repute of Sterne in Sweden by this time, Sjöbeck assumes his readers to be familiar not only with Eliza but also aware of Sterne’s œuvre as a whole. He mentions TS, the Sermons, YE, and even The Koran (the 1770 ersatz Sterne work, actually authored by Richard Griffith), and he declares all these to be ‘entitled to our attention’. But amidst these other works, he suggests, ASJ ‘will deserve a distinction’, and having invoked the tender responses it provoked from ‘Eliza’, he shares his own response as a guarantee of the moral delights on offer: No doubt, he that is possessed of a softer turn of mind, will take an extreme delight in the perusal of this excellent Book of Yorick. The Editor has been reading it – and reading again over and over with a genuine moral satisfaction and tranquillity.The pleasure, that that offered, is beyond expression of words. Peace be to him – and happy he, whose nerves are not homespun, nor heart encompassed with adamant! (Preface)

With a vivacious enthusiasm for the sentimental, Sjöbeck clearly delights in giving his readers a taste of what lies in store, as he weaves his own words with those of Sterne and encourages his ‘gentle Readers . . . [to] make a Sentimental tour as our immortal Author’. Aspiring to assimilate some of Sterne’s stylistic tendencies, he concludes with a passage which lays bare the moralism inherent in this appropriation: Such are the contents of that Book, which you are going to peruse. I do congratulate you upon making the good use of it, which you ought. Be following the tracks of Yorick’s: do not fear the justlings here, – nor cry, prithee, get on, – get on, my good lad … So – to your heart’s content, – you quietly glide off from the stage, where some of us are playing a Beggar’s part, others a King’s.Then and then – after having finished your career, – go reap the Laurel, that Heaven will present the Good with, – go enjoy the peace, that often is sweet and sour – below, but eternally unmixed – above. (Preface)

As for the source text of Sjöbeck’s edition, it is difficult to establish categorically from which earlier English edition the new text was set.What is very likely, though, is that Sjöbeck had access to at least one of the several eighteenth-century editions of Sterne’s Works, and it may be that the text for ASJ was taken from there. The evidence of Sjöbeck’s access to a complete

40

Yorick’s Sentimental Journey, Preface.The extract is taken verbatim from the English: ‘Your imagination has strange powers – it has awakened feelings in my heart, which I never knew I possessed – You make me vain – you make me in love with my own sensibility. – I bedewed your pathetic pages with tears – but they were tears of pleasure – my heart flowed through my eyes – every particle of tenderness in my whole frame was awakened. – You take the surest method to improve the understanding – you convince the reason, by touching the soul. – Sure the greatest compliments an Author can receive, are the sighs and tears of his readers – such sincere applause I amply gave you.’

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edition lies in his reproduction, on his final page, of An Epitaph for the Rev. Sterne’s Tombstone, authored ‘By a Lady’. This sentimental verse epitaph had appeared in the prefatory matter to The Works of Laurence Sterne of 1775; it was reproduced in several other editions of Works, and it was not widely available outside of such editions. Further suggesting the availability to Sjöbeck of Sterne’s Works is his inclusion of the passage ‘In Memory of Mr Sterne’ which concluded Yorick’s Sentimental Journey Continued, and which featured in other Scandinavian editions (those deriving from Bode’s German translation) in various states of transformation. Sjöbeck, who duplicates the passage verbatim from the original English, could have taken the passage from a separate edition of the continuation, but he might equally have found it in one of the Works in which the bogus piece was included. Similarly Sjöbeck’s knowledge of The Koran may have had its origin in one of those early collections which were so ‘complete’ as to include works shown later to be not by Sterne. Sterne’s text underwent some slight transformation in the hands of Sjöbeck and Lundblad. Produced as a single volume the edition marks no division between Sterne’s Volumes I and II, with the knock-on effect that (as in many editions which alter Sterne’s ‘END OF VOL. II.’ and/or add a concluding dash) an ambiguity is lost in the conclusion: So that, when I stretch’d out my hand, I caught hold of the fille de chambre’s – THE END

In addition, the two French chapter headings, ‘Le Patisser’ and ‘Le Dimanche’, become ‘The Pastry-Cook’ and ‘The Sunday’, which is curious since the French of the main text is not translated. And like Ekmanson’s Swedish translation, this edition makes no attempt to reproduce Yorick’s coat of arms. Accordingly the ‘Thus:’, which in Sterne’s text precedes the motif, is cut and the text just runs on as though the crest should never have been there (unlike the crestfallen English edition of 1773, in which a blank space yawns where the figure should appear [de Voogd 1998, 110–12]). Otherwise, the edition is a mostly faithful reprinting of the English text. The other volume produced by Sjöbeck and Lundblad, Voyage Sentimental par Laurent Sterne (A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne), reveals less intervention on the part of Sjöbeck. This edition, as its Preface (in French) states, is based upon the ‘Paris edition from last year, wherein the French translation has been entirely revised and corrected from the English text’.41 It was based, then, on one of the two bilingual English-French editions of ASJ/Voyage Sentimental, which included YE/Lettres d’Yorick à Eliza and which were published by J.E. Gabriel Dufour in 1799 in Paris and Amsterdam: either the deluxe, two-volume, folio edition, or the threevolume duodecimo edition.42 It seems likely, in fact, that Lundblad acquired

41

42

‘La présente édition est faite d’après celle de Paris de l’année passée, dont la traduction française a été entièrement revue et corrigée sur le texte anglais’ (Frénais 1800, Preface). Both of these editions promoted the translation as ‘entièrement revue et corrigée sur le texte anglais’.

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ready-printed sheets of the French text and then bound them together with newly printed prefatory material: the main text is printed in a different typeface from the Preface, and the pages of the Preface are in a gathering separate from the first gathering of the main text. (The sheets, however, do not correspond to either of the Dufour editions mentioned above, and we have not located any other edition to which the Lund edition does correspond.) The Preface may have been printed in Lund but, unlike the Preface to the English edition, it is not the original work of Sjöbeck. Rather, this concise laudation of Sterne’s artistry and sentimentality is a pastiche of material from Dufour: it slightly adapts a few words from the French edition’s ‘Avis de l’éditeur’, while its main part is taken from the Preface to YE/Lettres d’Yorick à Eliza in Dufour.43 Both this Voyage Sentimental and Sjöbeck’s English edition of ASJ were published by subscription, and since both editions include lists of subscribers they offer further insights into the Swedish reception of Sterne by suggesting a partial profile of Sterne’s early Swedish readership. For both editions, the majority of the subscribers were resident in Gothenburg: of a total of eightynine who signed up for the English edition, fifty-one were from Gothenburg; the French edition attracted seventy-nine subscribers, of whom fifty-three were from Gothenburg. With several names appearing in both lists, it is clear that some individuals took copies of both editions. All of the named subscribers were men – but this, of course, does not imply that all of the readers of these editions were men. The lists indicate the professions of the subscribers presenting most as either tradesmen (‘handlande’) or clerks (‘contorister’), but several other professions are also represented: military men of various ranks, a doctor, a bookbinder, an apothecary, a sadler, the Danish consul, the American consul, and others. Both the English and French editions were bought by the American consul, a Mr E. Backman, and he was not the only subscriber with an Anglophone name. Most of the names are Swedish but the subscribers in Gothenburg also included a ‘W. Gordon’, a ‘Thomas Kennedy’ and – a namesake of one of Sterne’s best friends – a ‘John Hall junior’. Outside of Gothenburg, the English edition was subscribed to by three readers from Malmö, while the remaining subscribers to both editions are all identified as students at the university in Lund.With over sixty copies of ASJ/Voyage Sentimental entering the university, it is tempting to suggest that this may have been an early instance of Sterne’s work being used, for whatever educational purpose, as a type of set text. Certainly a pedagogical value in Sterne’s writing was recognized in Sweden, and Sterne made a further appearance at the turn of the century through the inclusion of a passage of his writing in a textbook for Swedish learners of English. Humbly entitled Försök till en praktisk lärobok för begynnare i engelska språket (An attempt towards a practical textbook for beginners in the English language), this substantial primer was written and compiled by Peter Moberg, a professor at Sweden’s Royal Military Academy and the

43

For the sources of Sjöbeck’s borrowings in the two-volume folio edition, see: 1: 1 and 2: 167-69.

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author of a number of works on language and grammar. It was printed in Stockholm in 1801 for Anders Zetterberg, the publisher of Ekmanson’s ASJ.44 Reprinted several times subsequently, Moberg’s work provided instruction in grammar, vocabulary, orthography, phraseology, together with a chrestomathy of verse and prose from English writers including Shakespeare, Hume, Swift, Addison, Goldsmith and others.The single, short extract from Sterne is a passage on ‘Rustic Felicity’ and it derives from Sterne’s sermon on ‘The ways of Providence justified to man’ (‘Many are the silent pleasures of the honest peasant … all the beauties and real benefits of nature’ [Sermons, 44.413.25–414.10]). The passage, however, did not come directly from an edition of Sterne’s Sermons. Rather it must have been taken from an edition of The Beauties of Sterne (1782), where the passage made its first appearance as an extract and where it was first given the title ‘Rustic Felicity’. Moberg’s work, then, is significant not only in itself but as evidence that The Beauties of Sterne – a nosegay of moral and sentimental passages which was immensely popular in Britain – had, by some means, reached Sweden. The textbook increased the circulation of a passage from Sterne’s œuvre which does not feature in any other Swedish publication, and it further cemented the standing of Sterne in Sweden through an appendix in which Sterne is recommended to Swedish learners of English in a list of important English authors. As in other European countries, the reputation of Sterne in Sweden was further swelled – and to some extent slanted – by the appropriation of Sternean fakes. Earlier we noted Sjöbeck’s acceptance of Griffith’s The Koran within the canon of Sterne’s works; Sjöbeck indeed deemed the work well worth the attention of Swedish readers. The Koran was never translated into Swedish, but an earlier fake – Yorick’s Meditations upon Various Interesting and Important Subjects (1760) – was translated for a slim edition of 1802. Entitled Betracktelser öfver Åtskilliga Nyttiga och Vigtiga Ämnen, the work was attributed not to ‘Yorick’ but to Sterne, and it was printed by Samuel Norberg, a longlived and prolific Gothenburg printer. Gothenburg, as we pointed out, was home to the majority of the subscribers to the Lund edition of ASJ of 1800, and it may well be that Norberg was aiming with this translation to capitalize on the evident local interest in Sterne. It was also a local who translated the work: Per Adolf Granberg, a Gothenburg-born writer of great range, whose later work spanned journalism, dramatic authorship and the compilation of a Swedish-English lexicon. Granberg’s translation of Yorick’s Meditations, it might be said, is a perfunctory piece of work – unlike the other editions of Sterne that were appearing in Sweden around this time, this volume included no introduction, nor indeed any prefatory remarks promoting the virtues of the author (or, in this case, the ‘author’). And in this unembellished state, Granberg’s work was certainly different from the final edition of Sterne to appear during this early phase of appropriation within Sweden, a two-volume collection of Sterne’s letters translated into Swedish.

44

We have not seen the first edition of this work; we are grateful to Wim Van Mierlo for checking details of the British Library’s 1808 edition, in which the passage from Sterne appears on p. 309.

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This translation was published in Stockholm in 1807, with the title L. Sternes Känslosamma Bref til sina Förtrognaste Vänner (L. Sterne’s Sentimental Letters to his Most Intimate Friends) – Ekmanson’s neologism ‘känslosamma’ had apparently caught on.The letters were published by Peter Sohm, a Stockholm printer and a distinguished book collector, and they were rendered into Swedish by Johan Rundahl, a translator who supplied Sohm with several other works published the same year as Sterne’s letters. Translating primarily from French, Rundahl produced Swedish versions of Rousseau’s Les Pensées, of Guillaume Tell by Jean Pierre Claris de Florian, a fabulist and disciple of Rousseau, and of a work entitled The Iron Mask (Järnmasquen). And it is highly likely that Rundahl used a French source text when translating these volumes of Sterne’s correspondence – a collection of some sixty-nine letters including genuine letters first published by Sterne’s daughter Lydia, fakes by William Combe first published in the European Magazine (1787–78) and in Original Letters of the Late Reverend Mr. Laurence Sterne (1788), and more fakes, supposedly by Eliza, originating in EY.45 Certainly the Preface to L. Sternes Känslosamma Bref, of which much is a translation of Abbé Raynal’s Eloge d’Eliza Draper (attributed to Diderot), reveals that Rundahl’s acquaintance with Sterne was, at least in part, mediated through Sterne’s French reception. This Preface is perhaps the most effusive of the several tributes to Sterne (and Eliza) from this early phase of the reception in Sweden, and thematically it is absolutely in line with those earlier Swedish accounts which stress Sterne’s tenderness of heart, moral cleanliness, benevolence, and his uniqueness as a literary stylist. Rundahl advances an image of Sterne as Europe’s arch-sentimentalist, and he cites predictable aspects of Sterne’s œuvre to support the picture. ASJ is, for Rundahl, an ‘immortal work by a man, who with great tenderness of feeling united an equally high degree of genius’. Hoping perhaps to draw female readers in particular to his translation, he insists that there exists ‘no woman in England who does not read A Sentimental Journey with the greatest of joys: never does one speak of it other than with admiration and even with a kind of enchantment’. Sterne’s Sermons, for Rundahl,‘breathe the cleanest morality, imagined in a lively and simple manner’ and they preach ‘love of mankind, compassion and tenderness of feeling’. And for anyone seeking proof that Sterne was in possession of a ‘flower of sentiment’ and indescribable ‘flexibility of thought’, they should consult the story of Le Fevre in TS.46 Such glorification of Sterne’s

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As with the earlier Swedish edition of Sterne’s letters, we have not definitively identified a source text for this translation. ‘Redan känner man i Sverige Sternes Känslosamma Resa, – detta odödliga Verk af en man, som med mycken känsloömhet förenade en lika hög grad af Snille … Intet fruntimmer i England finnes, som ej med yppersta nöye läser Sentimental Yourney [sic]: alldrig talar man derom utan med beundran, och til och med et slags förtjusning … hans Predikningar … andas den renaste sedolära, föreställd på et liflig och enkelt sätt. Han predikade för menniskorna menniskokärlek, medlidande och känsloömhet … han ägde denne blomma af känsla, denna böjlighet i tanken, som icke kan beskrifvas. Läs uti hans Tristram Shandy Historien om Le Fevre, och min beskrifning blir onödig’ (Rundahl 1807, Preface).

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character and writing leads to an assurance from Rundahl to his readers that in Sterne’s letters will likewise be found a prevailing tone of love and the most compassionate of feelings. The letters to Eliza are, for Rundahl, the texts wherein Sterne’s sensibility finds its most intense expression and, following Sjöbeck and the earlier Swedish translator of Sterne’s letters, Rundahl significantly advances the Swedish canonization of Eliza. Indeed, two-thirds of the long Preface is devoted to the translation of the manically adulatory Eloge d’Eliza Draper, which Rundahl introduces with some glowing comments of his own. Sterne discovered in Eliza, Rundahl writes, ‘a soul modelled so perfectly after his own, so tender and so good, that a kind of sympathy pulled them towards each other and united them with the purest and most exuberant friendship known to the world’. Their letters, Rundahl assures us, are filled with the most tender expressions of Platonic love – indeed Sterne himself serves as a testimony, for Rundahl, that such love exists.47 Presenting Sterne thus, Rundahl’s translation rounded off this episode of Sterne’s Scandinavian reception – so far as publications are concerned – in much the same way as it began. From the first Swedish translation of ASJ in 1791, Sterne’s assimilation within Sweden was directed towards the nourishment of a lively local culture of sensibility, and over the years that followed Sterne clearly became an exalted icon for that culture. Admired not only for his works but also fêted for his friendships and his personality – or, at least, for a particular image of it – Sterne posthumously attained a position in early nineteenth-century Sweden which was probably the zenith of his Scandic career.48 The later Scandinavian reception L. Sternes Känslosamma Bref til sina Förtrognaste Vänner (L. Sterne’s Sentimental Letters to his Most Intimate Friends) was the last Swedish publication of Sterne for many years. Following the revolution in Sweden in 1809, the

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‘[H]an uptäckte hos henne en själ, så fullkomligen danad etter hans, så öm och så god, at et slags sympathie drog dem til hvarandra, och förenade dem med den renaste och lifligaste vänskap, som verlden känner’ (Rundahl 1807, Preface). On the other hand, Sterne’s influence upon other writers in Sweden during this period seems to have been less marked than in Denmark/Norway. Jacob Wallenberg’s Min Son på Galejan (My son on the galley, 1781) has been cited as a work greatly influenced by Sterne, and it certainly contains some Sternean moments. Echoes of TS and ASJ appear, for example, where the narrator states:‘I allow my mood to govern my pen and, if I am happy today and sorrowful tomorrow, you will immediately be given two chapters that reflect it … We have an abundance of accounts of journeys to the East Indies, so why should I follow in the footsteps of hundreds of others? No, I shall break my own ground. I want to be new, and as proof of that I am ending this book where others would have started: I mean with the Preface to the dear reader’ (Wallenberg 1994, 59). On the whole, however, we agree with Nils Afzelius (1924) who argues that the Sternean influence upon Wallenberg has been overstated.

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book trade was transformed by new restrictive legislation (Björkman 1992, 521), and it is likely that this severely reduced the Swedish enthusiasm for Sterne. Indeed, it was not until 1931 that a new Swedish edition of Sterne appeared in the shape of a translation of ASJ by Richard Hejll. In Scandinavia as a whole, in fact, Sterne’s standing declined after the early years of the nineteenth century. Only one new edition was published in all of the Scandinavian countries between the Swedish letters of 1807 and Hejll’s translation of 1931.This edition was a new Danish ASJ, translated by J.C. Magnus and published by S. Triers in Copenhagen in 1841. Little is known of J.C. Magnus, but he was clearly an accomplished translator, and the records of his other publications show that he worked from English, French and German within a range of genres including fiction, drama and history. A new translation of ASJ was warranted, Magnus states in a short Foreword to his work, basically because Birch’s translation had become dated – the Danish of the 1775 version, Magnus suggests, could no longer meet the demands of modern readers. Magnus aimed to meet those demands himself with a translation that was as close to the original English as possible – striving to retain Sterne’s idiosyncratic style he ‘only rarely allowed himself any rephrasing’, he states in the Foreword, ‘even where the language would possibly, by this, become more mellifluous’.49 Accordingly, in the title Magnus aims to bring his translation nearer to the English and, abandoning Birch’s ‘Følsomme’, he offers the public Yorick’s Sentimentale Reise giennem Frankrig og Italien (ASJ), (a century later, the next Danish translation – Jens Kruuse’s En Følsom Rejse [1942] – would revert to Birch’s term for ‘sentimental’). Sterne’s work, Magnus insists, should ‘claim a good place amongst the foremost works of literature’ so long as ‘deep feelings, combined with playful wit and inexhaustible humour can touch strings which find a resonance in everybody’.50 But in Scandinavia, as elsewhere in Europe, Sterne’s work did not retain its high status through the nineteenth century; as a later Swedish commentator put it, Sterne’s ‘light was utterly obscured during the period belonging to “the well-made novel”, when distinctly characterized figures were supposed to enact a story with a beginning and end’.51 Indeed, it was not until the 1930s and 1940s, with the rise of the Modernism of which Sterne would be seen as a pre-echo, that ASJ and TS would regain popularity and again be widely translated. In the twentieth century, ASJ was newly translated into Danish, into modern Norwegian, and twice into Swedish, and for the first time TS was translated in full into each of these languages. Sterne and his works also

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‘… kun sieldent tilladt sig nogen Omskrivning, selv hvor Sproget muligviis derved kunde være blevet mer afrundet’ (Magnus 1841, Foreword). ‘… thi saalænge som dyb Følelse forenet med spillende Vid og uudtømmeligt Lune berøre Strenge, der finde Gienklang hos Alle, vil “A Sentimental Journey” hævde sin Plads blandt Literaturens fortrinligste Værker’ (Magnus 1841, Foreword). ‘[Sterne’s] ljus var grundligt fördunklat under den period som tillhörde “the wellmade novel”, då distinkt karakteriserade personer skulle genomföra en story med början och slut’ (Staffan Björck, postscript to Johansson 1958, 153).

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began to become objects of Scandinavian scholarly attention: in 1926 a chapter-length study of Sterne by the Finnish scholar Yrjö Hirn was published simultaneously in Finnish- and Swedish-language editions, and Hirn’s work was followed – particularly in the last two decades of the century – by a number of other monographs, theses and articles which focus, wholly or in part, upon Sterne (see Madsen 1973; Christensen 1981; Nordhjem 1987; Sørensen 1993; Claussen 1995; Werner 1999). A more scholarly interest in Sterne – or perhaps a growing need to contextualize Sterne’s work – is also shown in several of the twentieth-century translations. The first of these is Hejll’s Swedish En Sentimental Resa Genom Frankrike och Italien (ASJ), of 1931, for which Hejll, a scholar and translator who specialized in eighteenth-century English works, provided an extensive and informative introduction to Sterne. Beginning with a translation of Sterne’s Memoirs of the Life and Family of the Late Rev. Mr. Laurence Sterne, the introduction then draws on the work of Wilbur Cross and others for an account of TS, of Sterne’s subsequent literary career, his celebrity, his travels, his relationship with Eliza, and finally of the aesthetics of Sterne’s fiction and sentimentalism.52 Far removed from the earlier, fawning eulogies of Sterne’s sensibility, Hejll’s Introduction shows Sterne in Sweden to be no longer the figurehead of an international sentimental craze, but rather an author offering attractions of a more philosophical, historical or formal kind. The edition was published as part of ‘Bonniers klassikerbibliotek’, a series which presented Swedish translations of numerous foreign works regarded as ‘classics’ (but despite the backing of a successful publisher, Swedish readers were still denied an image of Yorick’s starling!). In 1958 the third (and, to date, most recent) Swedish translation of ASJ was published in Stockholm by Natur och Kultur (Nature and Culture), and in this edition we are presented with a distinctly twentieth-century image of the author: Sterne as proto-Modernist. Following the translation is a postscript by Staffan Björck, a prolific Swedish literary critic and historian, who points out the resonance of Sterne’s literary methods for modern authors and readers interested in those narrative techniques which seek to mirror internal thought processes. The narrative situation employed by Sterne, Björck argues,‘grows out of the very feeling of life’, creating literary effects which ‘in our time coincide with the interest in dream-based or associative fantasy working methods’.53 ‘It is not impossible,’ Björk concludes, ‘to extend the sentimental journey even to James Joyce’s Dublin.’54 It may have been the perceived modernity of Sterne’s writing

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Hejll mentions the earlier Swedish translation by Ekmanson, stating that it was published in 1776 with a new edition in 1790–91; we believe this to be an error, and the correct publication history to be that given above. ‘[B]erättargreppet växer fram ur själva livskänslan. Från denna sprider sig över hela boken en irrationell oåtkomlighet … som i vår tid möter intresset för drömmens eller den associativa fantasins arbetssätt’ (Johansson 1958, 150). ‘ … är det inte omöjligt att utsträcka den sentimentala resan ända fram till James Joyce’s Dublin’ (Johansson 1958, 153).

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which drew the translator of this edition to ASJ since she, Majken Johansson, was herself a writer interested in breaking down traditional linguistic patterns and standard modes of expression. Majken Johansson was primarily a poet – an important member of a group of ironic, linguistically playful poets which emerged in the 1950s and became known as the ‘Lund School’. Subsequently a prominent member of the Salvation Army, she produced a number of collections and several of her works have become classics in the canon of twentieth-century Swedish verse. An explicit influence of Sterne upon her own writing is not conspicuous, but it is nonetheless understandable to see why a poet like Johansson should be interested in Sterne’s ironic style and witty interrogations of generic norms.55 Although known as a creative writer herself, Johansson’s En Sentimental Resa (‘A Sentimental Journey’) is not an ‘author’s translation’ – in the sense of a work coloured as much by the literary tendencies of the translator as by those of the original author, in the manner of, say, Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf. Rather, Johansson’s Swedish is, for the most part, very closely related to the English of the original. A striking exception, though, comes with Sterne’s ambiguous final sentence, where the translation restricts the polysemy and allows Yorick the possibility of grasping only the chambermaid’s hand.56 Between Hejll’s and Johansson’s translations, the most recent Danish version of ASJ was published in Copenhagen in 1942. Translated by Jens Kruuse, the work proved sufficiently popular to warrant reprinting in 1959 and again in 1960. Kruuse was an academic – one specializing in eighteenthcentury literature and the history of ideas – as well as a journalist and a controversial missionary of the poetic as a source of spiritual and political nourishment (see Andersen 1985, 94–95). Both his translation and his introduction to the text are sensitive responses to Sterne, both astutely alert to the ironies and ambiguities of the original – so here, for example, there is no cleaning up of Sterne’s ending, as in Johansson’s translation, and the narrative concludes, like the original, ambiguously and without punctuation.57 Kruuse’s introduction tends to universalize Sterne and is impressionistic rather than detailed, but it nonetheless stands out among Scandinavian writing on Sterne for its sense of the text’s uneasy teetering between the comic and the sentimental. Sterne, for Kruuse, is an author who walks a tightrope – indeed he dances upon it blindfold – between the sorrowful and the humorous (1942, 8).With seven pen and ink drawings by Preben Zahle – a painter, illustrator, and art director for the Danish women’s magazine Tidens Kvinder – this is the only Scandinavian edition of ASJ to contain original illustrations.

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For a concise account of Majken Johansson’s literary career, see Stenkvist (1975, 39–42). ‘Och när jag därför sträckte ut handen blev det tjänsteflickans hand jag fick tag i –’ (Johansson 1958, 149). This edition did, though, provide the first image of Yorick’s starling in a Swedish edition. ‘Saa at jeg, da jeg strakte Haanden ud, fik fat i Kammerpigens’ (Kruuse 1942, 150).

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It was a long wait before Norwegian readers had access to ASJ in their own language. En Følsom Reise gjennom Frankrike og Italia, translated and introduced by Morten Claussen, appeared in 1992, the first volume in a series of European Romanticism published by Bokvennen and supported by the Norwegian Council for Culture (TS would follow later in the series). Like Kruuse’s Følsom Rejse, Claussen’s translation is, as Tom Keymer put it in an enthusiastic review of the work, ‘very sensitive to the intricacies and innuendoes of Sterne’s prose’, although, in terms of punctuation, some of Sterne’s abruptness has been reduced through the choice of English source text: the Folio Society edition (1949) which partly regularizes the original punctuation (Keymer 1995, 118–19). Morten Claussen is a translator, literary critic and, from 2001, a novelist, who has worked extensively on, among other writers, Beckett, Kafka and Joyce – it is no surprise, therefore, that in his Introduction he should relate Sterne to these modernist successors (Claussen is particularly interested in Sterne’s Irish literary descendants, and finds Sterne ‘unmistakably Irish in his tone, his comedy, and his ironic stance towards life, literature and language’).58 The Introduction, though, is by no means limited to Sterne’s modernist reception, and it also relates ASJ to Sterne’s own influences (Cervantes, Burton, Rabelais) and to his biography, and, appropriately for a Scandinavian edition, it gives some attention – albeit limited – to Sterne’s importance for later Scandinavian writers: Ewald, Baggesen and the Wergelands. An influence of Sterne upon Claussen’s own fictional production is not conspicuous. Claussen’s debut novel Heartland (2001) appears indebted more to Kafka and Beckett than to Sterne; his interest in innuendo may have origins in Sterne but, with Heartland’s protagonist seeking his lost friend Fanny in a fictional North Dakota town called Vulva, Sterne’s subtlety seems a long way off. As with ASJ, translation of TS occurred in Norway later than in Denmark and Sweden – in all three countries, it occurred relatively late. The first complete Scandic translation of TS was the Danish Tristram Shandys Levned og Meninger, published by Borgens Forlag, in association with the New Danish Society for Literature, in 1976. The translator was Bente Ahlers Møller, a self-motivated librarian at Aarhus University, who having known TS from her time as a student of English and Latin undertook the translation without prior backing or encouragement from a publisher. In Denmark at the time, she has remarked, TS was often pointed out as a model for Ewald’s Levnet og Meeninger (Life and Opinions) but few seemed to know Sterne’s work firsthand. Her translation has doubtless extended and deepened the knowledge of Sterne in Denmark: it was widely and warmly received in the Danish press – a review by Jens Kruuse declared it brilliant (Kruuse 1976, 9) – and it has clearly been important to Danish literary scholars such as Peer Sørensen (see Sørensen 1993).

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‘… er Sterne umiskjennelig irsk i sin tone, i sin komikk og i sin ironiske holdning til livet, litteraturen og språket’ (Claussen 1992, 5). The Introduction is reprinted alongside studies of these later writers in Claussen (1995).

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Based on James Aiken Work’s New York edition of 1940, the ambitious translation appeared in a single volume together with an informative postscript by Møller and twenty pages of explanatory notes. The postscript provides a biographical account of Sterne before addressing TS’s generic oddity and Sterne’s innovative approach to narration and narrative chronology – in general, in fact, Scandinavian editions of TS and related local scholarship suggest Sterne’s narrative experimentation to have been one of the chief points of Sterne’s twentieth-century Scandinavian appeal. Møller is sensitive to the dangers of dubbing Sterne a great avant-gardist, though, and she presents Sterne as, in several ways, an ‘old-fashioned author’. In her postscript, Sterne appears suspended between tradition and more modernist concerns such as ‘the loneliness of the soul and the body’ and textual selfconsciousness – a consciousness that reading is linear, not global; that the words and the signs are perceived in the order they are written; that misinterpretations and correction of misinterpretations are legitimate reading experiences; that text is surface, and cannot be reduced to any deep structure.59

TS was made available to a wider Danish public in 1995 when Møller’s translation was issued as an audio book – read by Jørgen Ask and filling fifteen cassette tapes – by ‘Danmarks Blinde-bibliotek’ (Denmark’s Library for the Blind).With its numerous non-verbal devices, TS obviously does not lend itself readily to audio performance, and this is one of very few attempts to present the work in this form. The first full Swedish translation of TS – Välborne Herr Tristram Shandy, hans liv och meningar – was published in 1980 in Stockholm by Rabén & Sjögren. Issued in two volumes, it was translated by Thomas Warburton, a prolific Swedish-speaking Finnish author and translator of numerous works between Swedish and English. Warburton is the translator of, among many other writers, Shakespeare, Joyce, and Orwell, but he is perhaps best known within Anglophone cultures for his English versions of Tove Jansson’s Finn Family Moomintroll books. His Välborne Herr Tristram Shandy is a sensitive translation, which received great praise when it was reviewed by Tom Östling for Hufvudstadsbladet (a Swedish-language Finnish newspaper). The translation maintains the ‘linguistic intensity’ of the original, Östling writes, with Warburton keeping a firm hold upon ‘the reins of the wild stallion to which Sterne’s linguistic fantasy might be likened’.60 Warburton’s own

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‘Sterne var en gammeldags forfatter. Hans intense oplevelse, midt i et bastant borgerligt samfund, af sjælens og legemets ensomhed, peger frem; … Hans bog appellerer til intellektet; appellen udgår fra og angår bevidstheden om at læsning er lineær, ikke global; at ordene og tegnene opfattes i den rækkefølge de står skrevet; at fejltolkninger og korrektion af fejltolkninger er agtværdige læseoplevelser; at tekst er overflade, og ikke kan reduceres til nogen dybdestruktur’ (Møller 1976, 555). ‘Skildringen flödar av ljus och den språkliga intensiteten är märkbar.Att den är det också på svenska är givetvis översättarens förtjänst.Thomas Warburton håller väl i tömmarna på den vilda hingst som Sternes språkliga fantasi kan förliknas vid’ (Östling, 1981, 3). Östling ignores the Danish translation (1976) when he claims Warburton’s work to be the first translation of Tristram Shandy in the Nordic countries.

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reflections on Sterne are brief. In his short postscript to the translation, he eulogizes Sterne – he is ‘one of the shooting stars of world literature, or perhaps a comet’ – but, like Bente Ahlers Møller, Warburton is also interested in foregrounding Sterne as an innovator in matters of genre.61 This remarkable text – with its meanderings, blind alleys and narrative precipices – is, for Warburton, more a series of informal causeries than a novel. The Norwegian Herr Tristram Shandys liv og meninger, translated by Bjørn Alex Herrman, was published in two volumes by Bokvennen in 1995 and 1996, and like the Norwegian ASJ, this edition was supported by the Norwegian Council for Culture. Bjørn Alex Herrman, like Warburton, is a translator with an immense output within a wide range of genres; he has translated philosophical and critical works from English and from Swedish, as well as numerous literary works by, among others, Shakespeare, Roddy Doyle, Julian Barnes, and Angela Carter. His translation of Sterne has been favourably received – on the publication of the first volume (containing Volumes 1–4 of the original), a review in the Norwegian daily Dagbladet lauded both Sterne and the achievement of Herrman.The reviewer, Fredrik Wandrup, celebrated this ‘explosively untraditional and remarkable narration, a book which continually breaks off into wild digressions during its investigation of language’s possibilities and limitations’, and this enthusiasm appeared under the headline: ‘A Wild Masterpiece’.62 Herrman’s text is accompanied by a Foreword by Bjørn Tysdahl, a Professor of Literature at the University of Oslo, who provides a sound general introduction to TS: its innovativeness; its author’s life and career; its indebtedness to Rabelais, Swift and Locke; its complex sentimentalism.Tysdahl also addresses the renaissance of Sterne in the twentieth century – including the echoes of Sterne found in modernist authors such as Woolf and Joyce, and the appeal of Sterne to different schools of critical theory. Tysdahl is keen to restore Sterne to his historical situation – warning against the tendency for his work to be appropriated so as to illustrate a particular theoretical position – but he does not ignore why Sterne is still relevant to modern readers: in the field of tension between Sterne’s conditions and our own,Tysdahl concludes, Sterne remains a ‘conversation partner for us – crafty, thought-provoking, vulgar and subtle’.63 Through these Danish, Swedish and Norwegian translations of TS, it may be that Sterne is becoming once again a ‘conversation partner’ for Scandinavian authors, and that a new phase of Sternean literary influence is underway. Certainly Sterne has lent much to the work of the Danish poet

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‘Laurence Sterne är ett av stjärnskotten i världslitteraturen, eller kanske en komet’ (Warburton 1980, 2: 253). ‘Et vilt mesterverk … Sternes roman er en eksplosivt utradisjonell og merkverdig fortelling, en bok som ustanselig skjærer ut i ville sidesprang under sin utforsking av språkets muligheter og dets begrensninger’ (Wandrup 1995). ‘Han er en samtalepartner for oss – underfundig, tankevekkende, ufin, subtil – nettopp når vi leser ham i spenningsfeltet mellom det som var hans forutsetninger og de noe forskjellige som er våre’ (Herrman 1995–96, 1: 19).

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and novelist Per Højholt, who has cited TS as his favourite book and has enthused about its Danish translation by Bente Ahlers Møller (Højholt 1989, 9). Charting the ongoing Scandinavian interest in Sterne, in fact, becomes an impossible Shandean task in itself, with new features on the reception landscape appearing just as deadlines for the Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe loom and arrive. Per Højholt has been developing a major literary project since 1978 which finally materialized in 2001 as Auricula, an eccentric and surreal novel about a group of ears, born on 7 September 1917.With its mixture of seriousness and frivolity – not to mention its focus upon a single bodily part – Auricula, as has been pointed out, clearly owes much to Sterne, not only in its specific allusions but more generally in its witty and playful narrative register (Bukdahl 2001, 4). A proper consideration of Højholt and Sterne might well fill a chapter by itself.With regard to the Scandinavian reception of Sterne, then, there is certainly more to be said than we have managed to say in this introductory survey – to quote Tristram, there are more archives ‘to be look’d into, and rolls, records, documents, and endless genealogies … In short, there is no end of it’ (TS, 1.14.41–42). We have by no means approached an end here, but we hope to have gone some way towards providing a beginning.

6

From Imperial Court to Peasant’s Cot: Sterne in Russia Neil Stewart

Laurence Sterne himself was of course never in Russia, nor did he express much interest in the literature of a country where, according to Tristram Shandy, you had to ‘hold your hand over your eyes and look very attentively’ in order to ‘perceive some small glimmerings of wit’ (TS, 1: 231). And even if he had had any sort of access to contemporary Russian prose, we may doubt whether the clumsy, highly derivative and still heavily ChurchSlavonic writings of the time would have held much appeal for a European celebrity whose chef-d’oeuvre TS is still considered by many the most modern of all eighteenth-century novels. Sterne, on the other hand, could not anticipate the stupendous development that was to take place between approximately 1790 and 1830, when the Russians carried through an unprecedented programme of modernization: at first by imitating, then creatively assimilating Western examples, they moulded a secular literary language, conceived models of artistic subjectivity and founded the literary tradition that finally produced writers like Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoi and Dostoevsky. Had Sterne lived to see all this he would have had every reason to feel flattered by the role his own writings played in the process.They came to Russia at the very beginning of her literary take-off, and while Sterne’s reputation has fluctuated over the past 220 years owing to changing historical, political and esthetical conditions, he has (sometimes in absentia) retained his significance within the country’s cultural discourse. Before attempting to recount any concrete developments, it may, however, be useful to recall a few general characteristics of this discourse. The conditions governing the creation and reception of fictional literature in Russia have always differed from those in most occidental nations. For one thing, the lack of a Humanist tradition (there was, for instance, no equivalent to the Renaissance in Western Europe) and the strictly autocratic political system (serfdom was abolished only in 1861) allotted a very special role to artists: it was incumbent on them to educate and enlighten the people and to function as arbiters in moral and social matters. In Russia, artistic concepts based on extreme subjectivity or a philosophy of l’art pour

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l’art tend to be viewed with a fair amount of suspicion and holders of such ideas are almost invariably accused of irresponsible trifling and of failing to address the proper duties of artists.Writers have often found it as difficult to negotiate this imperative of social relevance as to deal with the rigours of government censorship. On the other hand, the sense of being united by a common cause, the grand Enlightenment project, and of upholding the freedom of the word under the most adverse circumstances, has traditionally inspired them with a sense of solidarity. Harold Bloom’s ‘anxiety of influence’ (1973) is not much of an issue in Russian literary history.To this day, authors like to think of themselves as legitimate descendants of Pushkin and Tolstoi, inseparably linked to their predecessors in a long, unbroken chain: it can be seen as a singular honour for a foreigner like Sterne to be numbered among these. The fact that their country is situated so precariously between Europe and Asia has left a deep impression on the Russians’ self-image, and this basic tension came to bear on the question of importing Western literature from the very beginning. To a greater extent than elsewhere, turning to foreign models almost automatically implied a suggestion of general cultural orientation: East or West, Asian or European, French, English or German. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Russian translators and propagandists of Sterne (or, for that matter, any European author), would have to contend with the accusations that they slavishly imitated Western models and were traitors to indigenous Russian traditions, to Orthodoxy and the Church-Slavonic heritage.They in their turn would reproach their critics for their narrow-minded conservatism, stylistic inadequacies and general backwardness. These conflicting positions constitute one veritable invariant of Russia’s intellectual history – they are readily discernible in the 1840s’ debate between Slavophiles and Westerners, in the Soviet campaigns against ‘cosmopolitanism’, and in the speeches of present-day politicians. Technically speaking, the first appearance of Laurence Sterne in Russia dates from 1779, when a certain Bogdan Fedorovich Arndt published a translation of the Lorenzo episode from ASJ in the fourth number of the Sankt Peterburgskii Vestnik (St Petersburg Messenger). He did not translate directly from Sterne’s text, but from the immensely popular German translation by Johann Joachim Christoph Bode (1768). It was another twelve years before a Russian translator turned to the English original. However, even before that, Sterne had his followers in Russia, the most illustrious being Czarina Catherine II (1729–96). One of the best-educated women of her time with a keen interest in literature, she corresponded with Voltaire for many years and herself wrote a number of short pieces for the stage as well as satirical articles and her memoirs. Her name is to be found on the subscription list for Bode’s translation of TS,1 which seems only natural since

1

The list mentions: ‘Ihro Kaiserlichen Hoheiten, der Grossfuerst und die Grossfuerstinn von Russland – 6 exempl.’.There is also a member of the Russian Legation, and twenty-six subscribers with addresses in St Petersburg, plus nine in Riga. – For this information I am indebted to Geoff Day (Winchester).

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German was Catherine’s mother tongue.The column ‘Byli i Nebylitsy’ (Fact and Fable), which she anonymously kept from 1783 to 1784 in the Sobesednik Lyubitelei Russkogo Slova (Conversational Journal of Lovers of the Russian Word) gives testimony of her infatuation with Sterne’s writings: she imitates his digressions, whimsical associations and playful style, chattering away at random about all sorts of trifles. Catherine was obviously very keen on presenting herself to the public as an enlightened and highly cultured woman of sensibility and feeling, sporting cameos that depicted scenes from ASJ as well as a private copy of that novel printed on silk. In 1794, the Czarina had her portrait painted by the artist Borovikovsky, posing as Maria with a little dog by her side. In the following passage of her memoirs – written during the last years of her life and first published by the expatriate Alexander Herzen in London (1859) – she resorts to Shandean motifs in order to represent her husband, the Czar (whom she overthrew and had murdered in 1762) as an infantile and childishly cruel variation on Uncle Toby.The Czar shares Toby’s hobby-horse, but not his love of animals: One day when I walked into his Imperial Highness’s apartment … I was struck by the sight of an immense rat which he had hanged, with all the paraphernalia of torture, in the middle of a small cabinet, detached from the rest of the room by means of a partition … I asked what was the meaning of this; he then told me the rat had been convicted of a crime and deserved the severest punishment according to military law. For it had climbed over the walls of a cardboard fortress standing on a table in this recess and eaten two sentinels on duty, made of starch, on one of the bastions, and he had had the criminal court-martialled … I could not help laughing at all this folly, but this greatly displeased him, because of the importance he attributed to the matter. I retired and apologised, pleading womanly ignorance of military law, but he continued to sulk with me for having laughed at him.2

Catherine could be rather strict with fellow Sterneans, as Alexander Radishchev was to discover when in 1790 she sentenced him to death for writing and publishing what is regarded today as the first original novel in Russian literature: Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu (A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow). Radishchev, who has been called the first Russian radical, took ASJ as his model: all chapters are headed by the names of little villages where the first-person narrator stops on his way and concrete

2

‘Un jour que j’entrois … dans l’appartement de son Altesse Impériale, ma vuë fut frappée par un gros rat, qu’il avoit fait pendre avec tout l’appareil d’un supplice au milieu d’un cabinet, qu’il s’étoit fait faire à l’aide d’une cloison. Je demandois ce que cela vouloit dire; il me dit alors, que ce rat avoit fait une action criminelle et digne du dernier supplice selon les loix militaires, qu’il avoit grimpé par dessus les remparts d’une forteresse de carton, qu’il y avoit sur la table dans ce cabinet, et avoit mangé deux sentinelles en faction, faites d’amidon, sur un des bastions et qu’il avoit fait juger le criminel par les loix de la guerre … Je ne pus m’empêcher d’éclater de rire de l’extrême folie de la chose, mais celui lui déplut très fort, vue l’importance qu’il y mettoit; je me retirois, et me retranchois dans mon ignorance, comme femme, des loix militaires, cependant il ne laissa pas que de me bouder sur mon éclat de rire’ (1907, 12:326).

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incidents mostly function as points of departure for his own digressive musings. He depicted the plight of the peasants, fervently condemned serfdom, and quite openly defended the people’s right to murder tyrants. His title is programmatic in the sense that it implicitly denounces modern imperialism as symbolized by the new capital and calls for a return to the old ‘wooden’ city of Moscow. According to the Czarina, the book was obviously criminal:‘The example of Cromwell is quoted with approval!’, she fumed (cited in: Landor 1968, 171). During his trial, Radishchev tried to defend himself by pointing out his indebtedness to Sterne: ‘The idea of writing a book in this form first occurred to me while reading Yorick’s Journey; this is how I began it’.3 Not only did his strategy fail in the event, it is also indicative of a major misunderstanding: like many of his countrymen after him, this writer tended to mistake Yorick’s sentimentality for social commitment and his humour for political satire. Even so, Radishchev himself sometimes seems a little unsure about his chosen companion’s revolutionary and moral virtues. Many passages of his own novel are modelled on episodes from Sterne’s journey but they are at the same time characterized by a striving to improve and tacitly correct what appeared to Radishchev trifling or imperfect.Where Yorick is lured by a band of beggars and his own vanity into giving too lavishly, Radishchev’s traveller is instructed by a blind man as to how much should properly be given.While Yorick halfwillingly drifts from one erotically suggestive situation into another, Radishchev’s traveller is at one point subjected to a totally unprovoked curtain-lecture on decent behaviour. While the former finds a profoundly uninteresting story beginning written on a piece of wrapping-paper, the latter perpetually stumbles on voluminous manuscripts detailing plans for the liberation of the serfs and other grandiose projects, but either lost on the road or left behind at inns by their strangely careless authors. Radishchev’s death sentence for his courageous all-out indictment of social injustice in Tsarist Russia was subsequently commuted to exile in Siberia. And even there, in Tobolsk, he remembered Sterne’s book: in a letter he referred to himself with bitter irony as ‘relégué dans la classe que Sterne appelle des voyageurs par nécessité’ (‘relegated to the class that Sterne called travellers by necessity’) (Radishchev 1952, 386). In that famous classification from ASJ, Radishchev’s contemporary Nikolai Karamzin would most likely have qualified as an ‘inquisitive traveller’. His novel Pis’ma russkogo puteshestvennika (Letters of a Russian Traveller), first published in 1791 and 1792, recounts in epistolary form yet another ‘sentimental journey’, though in this case the itinerary is Western Europe, not the Russian countryside. One year before the publication of his text, Karamzin had visited Germany, France and England, meeting many famous writers and philosophers of his time. Karamzin displays none of Radishchev’s social commitment and revolutionary fervour: he is an emphatically aristocratic man of letters, attempting to acquaint his readers

3

‘Pervaya mysl’ napisat’ knigu v sii forme prishla mne, chitaya puteshestvie Yorika; ya tak ee i nachal’ (Babkin 1952, 167).

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with the finer points of European philosophy and culture. Tolerant sometimes to the point of indifference, he is careful to keep his distance, maintaining the point of view of an observer and a specifically Russian perspective. Because of these qualities, the Pis’ma were to play a seminal role in shaping the cultural views of the Moscow and St Petersburg intelligentsia, establishing, amongst other things, the figure of the identity-seeking Russian traveller as an archetype of their self-image. Karamzin’s contemporaries were quick to liken him to Laurence Sterne. This is not surprising, given the frequency with which he quotes him and enthusiastically sings his praise:‘O incomparable Sterne!’, Karamzin wrote in an article, ‘at what learned university were you taught to feel so tenderly? What rhetoric treatise told you how to move the finest fibres of the heart with only two words? What musician commands his strings as expertly as you command our feelings?’4 His tremendously popular short story ‘Bednaya Liza’ (‘Poor Lisa’, 1792) about a naive peasant girl who commits suicide after having been abandoned by her lover quite obviously draws on the ‘Maria of Moulines’-theme.The narrator of Ivan Martynov’s Filon – a minor contemporary novel – characteristically invokes Karamzin, Sterne, and Maria together, in a manner typical of the cult of sentimentalism in the Russia of the 1790s: Children! Listen to me … seek touching scenes: make yourselves observe. It may often be necessary to stay out of the way of dry moralists, but one should never complain about being surprised by such instances … I do not know why it is, but I have learnt more for myself from the poor disturbed Maria, sitting under a poplar beside a small brook, in a white dress, with her beloved Silvio – so much more faithful than her lover or her goat –, than from all rules delivered with a grave countenance and often broken by the oracle himself at almost the same time. I behold the sufferer, him or her, … my inner self trembles, I become either a benefactor, or a fellow-sufferer: either my hand covers the wound or a tear from my eye falls onto it and eases the pain temporarily at least. But I fear to write more, my heart … a tear is trembling … Children! Do not ever forget Sterne, Sterne and – Karamzin …5

4

5

‘Stern nesravnennyi! V kakom uchenom universitete nauchilsya ty stol’ nezhno chuvstvovat’? Kakaya retorika otkryla tebe tainu dvumya slovami potryasat’ tonchaishie fibry serdets nashikh? Kakoi muzykant tak iskusno zvukami strun povelevaet, kak ty povelevaesh’ nashimi chuvstvami?’ (1984, 2: 37). ‘Deti! Poslushaite menya … ishchite trogatel’nykh yavlenii; prinud’te sebya byt’ onykh svidetelyami. Chasto nuzhno byvaet izbegat’ sukhogo moralista, a o porazhayushchikh nas priklyucheniyakh, sozhalet’ nikogda … Ne znayu pochemu, no ya nakhozhu bol’she urokov dlya sebya v bednoi, pomeshannoi Marii, sidyashchei pod ivoyu, bliz rucheika, v belom plat’itse, s milym ee Silvio, perezhivshim vernost’ ee lyubovnika i kozochki, nezheli vo vsekh s vazhnym vidom proiznesennykh pravilakh, kotorye chasto, v tuzhe pochti minutu, orakul onykh sam narushaet.Ya vizhu stradal’tsa, stradalitsu … moe sushchestvo potryasaetsya, ya delayus’ libo blagodetelem, libo uchastnikom; ili moya ruka zakryvaet ranu, ili moya sleza padaet na siyu ranu, i obmanyvaet pokrainei mere na nekotoroe vremya bol’ onoi … No ya boyus’ pisat’ dalee; serdtse moe … sleza drozhit … Deti! Ne zabud’te Sterna, Sterna i – Karamzina …’ (1796, 58–59).

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Karamzin was also the first to publish translations of Sterne from the original: in 1791 Russian versions of both Maria episodes (TS and ASJ) appeared in his Moskovskii Zhurnal (Moscow Journal).6 And, of course, the Englishman and his writings are omnipresent in the Pis’ma. In Dresden the protagonist draws a line in the sand with his stick ‘similar to the one Corporal Trim drew, speaking of the joys of liberty. Our feelings, of course, were alike’.7 In Lyon he searches in vain for the graves of Amandus and Amanda (from TS), and while listening to a sermon in Lausanne he decides that there is no preacher like Yorick.When the Russian traveller inspects his London hotel room he is surprised to find ‘a black pair of silk breeches – similar to those with which Yorick, as everybody knows, set out for France’.8 At Calais, Karamzin has his hero visit the grave of Lorenzo, the monk from ASJ, and the guest house of M. Dessein, where Yorick had spent his first night on the Continent. Here, the Russian traveller proudly displays his familiarity with the details of Sterne’s text but is rather put out to discover that two years after the French Revolution things have changed somewhat: I went straight to Dessein’s (whose guest house is the best in town); I stopped in front of the gates … and looked left and right. ‘What are you looking for, Sir?’, asked a young officer in blue uniform. – ‘The room where Laurence Sterne resided’, I replied. – ‘Where he ate French soup for the first time?’ said the officer. – ‘A fricasseed chicken,’ I retorted. – ‘Where he praised the blood of the Bourbons?’ – ‘Where the fire of brotherly love suffused his cheek with a tender glow.’ – ‘Where the heaviest of metals seemed to him lighter than a feather?’ (Karamzin’s footnote:All this is remembered by anyone who has read Sterne’s or Yorick’s ‘Journey’, if only once; but can one possibly read it only once?) – ‘Where Father Lorenzo came to him with the meekness of a holy man?’ – ‘And where he would not give him a single copeck?’ – ‘But where he would have paid twenty pounds sterling to an advocate who would undertake to justify Yorick in Yorick’s own eyes?’ – ‘Sir! That room is on the second floor, right above you. These days, an old Englishwoman and her daughter reside there.’ – I looked at the window and saw a bowl of roses. Nearby stood a young woman holding a book in her hands – probably ‘A Sentimental Journey’!

6

7

8

Later (in 1802) Karamzin also translated and published in his journal Vestnik Evropy (The Messenger of Europe) an abridged Russian version of a curious article that had originally appeared anonymously in the English European Magazine in 1790. In this text, the narrator purports to offer the true story behind ASJ in an interview with LaFleur,Yorick/Sterne’s servant, who is presented as a real person. LaFleur tells him of Sterne’s perfect morals, of his always being short of money, of his melancholy inclinations. He confirms some of the passages in ASJ while correcting some others and goes on to describe Yorick’s journey in Italy (including a meeting with the Pope in Rome). ‘Trost’yu svoei provel ya na peske dlinnuyu zmeiku, podobnuyu toi, kotoruyu v Tristrame Shandi nachertil kapral Trim, govorya o priyatnostyakh svobody. Chuvstva nashi byli, konechno, skhodny’ (1: 108). ‘V gornitse ne nashel ya nichego, krome … a black pair of silk breeches – s kotorymi otpravilsya Yorik vo Frantsiyu, kak izvestno’ (1: 436).

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‘Thank you, Sir,’ I said to the talkative Frenchman, ‘but please allow me to ask you another question’. – ‘About the Remise,’ interrupted the officer, ‘where Yorick met the beautiful daughter of Count L*?’ – ‘Where he became reconciled with Father Lorenzo and … his own conscience.’ – ‘Where Yorick gave him his tortoise snuff-box in exchange for a horn one?’ – ‘Which, however, became more precious to him than gold or diamonds.’ – ‘That Remise is a few yards from here, across the road, but it is locked and the key is with M. Dessein who is currently … at vespers.’ – The officer laughed, bowed to me and left. – ‘M. Dessein is at the theatre’, I was told by another man in passing.‘M. Dessein is on duty,’ said a third,‘they made him a corporal of the guard recently.’ – O Yorick! How everything has changed in France these days! Dessein a corporal! Dessein in uniform! Dessein on duty! Grand Dieu!9

The involvement of Karamzin with Sterne goes well beyond such explicit references, however.The former is recognized today as a major figure mainly because of his leading role in fashioning a modern literary language, systematically drawing on the vernacular and turning away from the old, ChurchSlavonic ‘high’ style that had until then been considered the only legitimate medium for serious literature. He is also famous for introducing into the Russian language by way of translation as well as invention a host of new words and expressions denoting abstract ideas or pertaining to inner life, thus gradually promoting the notion of subjectivity so essential to all modern art.

9

‘Ya totchas poshel k Dessenyu (kotorogo dom est’ samyi luchshii v gorode); ostanovilsya pered ego vorotami … i smotrel napravo i nalevo. “Chto vam nadobno, gosudar’ moi?” – sprosil u menya molodoi ofitser v sinem mundire. – “Komnata, v kotoroi zhil Lavrentii Stern”, otvechal ya. – “I gde v pervyi raz el on frantsuzskii sup?” – skazal ofitser. – “Sous s tsyplyatami”, – otvechal ya. – “Gde khvalil on krov’ Burbonov?” – “Gde zhar chelovekolyubiya pokryl litso ego nezhnym rumyantsem.” – “Gde samyi tyazhelyi iz metallov kazalsya emu legche pukha?” [Vse sie pamyatno tomu, kto khotya odin raz chital Sternovo ili Yorikovo “Puteshestvie”; no mozhno li chitat’ ego tol’ko odin raz?] – “Gde prikhodil k nemu otets Lorenzo s krotost’yu svyatogo muzha?” – “I gde on ne dal emu ni kopeiki?” – “No gde khotel on zaplatit’ dvadtsat’ funtov sterlingov tomu advokatu, kotoryi by vzyalsya i mog opravdat” Yorika v glazakh Yorikovykh?” – “Gosudar’ moi! Eta komnata vo vtorom etazhe, pryamo nad vami. Tut zhivet nyne staraya anglichanka s svoeyu docher’yu.” – Ya vzglyanul na okno i uvidel gorshok s rozami. Podle nego stoyala molodaya zhenshchina i derzhala v rukakh knigu – verno, “Sentimental Journey”! – “Blagodaryu vas, gosudar’ moi”, – skazal ya slovookhotnomu frantsuzu, – “no esli pozvolite, to ya sprosil by eshche”. – “Gde tot karetnyi sarai”, – pererval ofitser, – “v kotorom Yorik poznakomilsya s miloyu sestroyu Grafa L*?” – “Gde on pomirilsya s ottsom Lorenzom i … s svoeyu sovest’yu.” – “Gde Yorik otdal emu cherepakhovuyu svoyu tabakerku i vzyal na obmen rogovoyu?” – “No kotoraya byla emu dorozhe zolotoi ili brilliantovoi.” – “Etot sarai v pyatidesyati shagakh otsyuda, cherez ulitsu, no on zapert, a klyuch u gospodina Dessenya, kotoryi teper’ … u vecherni.” – Ofitser zasmeyalsya, poklonilsya i ushel. – “Gospodin Dessen’ v teatre”, – skazal mne drugoi chelovek mimokhodom. “Gospodin Dessen’ na karaule”, – skazal tretii, – “ego nedavno pozhalovali v kapraly gvardii.” – O Yorik! Kak vse peremenilos’ nyne vo Frantsii! Dessen’ kapralom! Dessen’ v mundire! Dessen’ na karaule! Grand Dieu!’ (1: 426–27).

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In this respect, there is scarcely another European author who could have been as rewarding a source as Sterne. Karamzin and his followers rendered Sterne’s ‘sentimental’ as ‘chuvstvitel’nyi’ – an expression derived from ‘chuvstvo’ ‘feeling’ and used in analogy to Bode’s and Lessing’s German ‘empfindsam’.10 While Radishchev’s Puteshestvie with its pompous and archaic style is tedious reading, Karamzin’s Pis’ma, just one year later, already show the vast linguistic potential that subsequent Russian literature was to draw on. As to subjectivity, Karamzin’s novel certainly differs from ASJ. Unlike Sterne, Karamzin tries to impart factual information to his audience. With all its reports on theatre performances and galleries and its many descriptions of Western European architecture and landscapes, the text at times resembles a cultural encyclopaedia and therefore cannot focus on the hero’s inner world as exclusively as Sterne’s does. Even so, the delicately constructed relationship of author and protagonist owes something to the Sternean model. For one thing, author and traveller are never actually differentiated by separate names and Karamzin indeed seems to strive for some sort of identification in the mind of his readers (recalling the way Sterne used to pose in public as Yorick or ‘Chevalier de Shandy’). On the other hand, he sometimes makes fun of his hero’s sentimental naivety. In Zurich, the latter is asked what he thinks of a troupe of Swiss recruits marching by (cutting, it is implied, a somewhat sorry figure). The protagonist, however, is still in raptures about his recent visit to the Schaffhausen waterfall and unwittingly snubs the patriotic local: ‘O! who could describe the brilliance of that spectacle? All one can do is look on and wonder!’11 Few and far between as they are such passages indicate that Karamzin, unlike most of his Russian contemporaries, was quite capable of sensing and understanding the important function of self-irony and relativity in ASJ. Like Sterne, he is fond of leaving a tense situation suspended in mid-air, and heated philosophical discussions will often be interrupted by chance, their issues remaining pointedly unresolved. It is revealing that both major Russian eighteenth-century works that were inspired by Sterne took as their models ASJ, not TS. In the eighteenth and well into the nineteenth century, Sterne did not catch on as a humorist in Russia.True, Karamzin also began a pseudo-historical novel called Rytsar’ nashego vremeni (A Knight of Our Time), where he plays on the contrast between grand epic form and trivial everyday content, explicitly likening a character to Uncle Toby, and inserting a few mini-chapters, calling one ‘Chapter four, written only for the benefit of chapter five’12 But the text breaks off after some twenty pages and remains uncompleted. It was Sterne’s

10

11

12

Remarkably, however, Karamzin avoided the use of ‘chuvstvitel’nyi’ in his own specific references to Sterne’s novel, preferring to call ASJ ‘Sternovo puteshestvie’, i.e. ‘Sterne’s Journey’ (Cross 2000, 90). ‘Akh! Kto mozhet opisat’ velikolepie takovogo yavleniya? Nadobno tol’ko videt’ i udivlyat’sya!’ (1: 188). ‘Glava IV, kotoraya napisana tol’ko dlya pyatoi’ (1: 589).

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sentimental side, his feelings, that attracted the Russian readers and, of course, the translators: the correspondence with Eliza rather than the novels were the first book-length translation to be published – Gavriil Apukhtin’s version appeared in 1789, another by Nikolai Karin followed six years later. Incidentally, neither translated directly from the original; both used a French text and both included the sentimental stock devotionalia that accompanied similar editions in Western Europe: the Abbé Raynal’s tearful praise of Eliza, a description of her tomb, and David Garrick’s epitaph to Sterne. Meanwhile, ASJ itself was translated for the first time in 1793 by Aleksei Kolmakov, who had spent some time in England and knew the language well. His text is generally close to the original, but sometimes slightly stilted, failing to render Sterne’s stylistic simplicity. Tristram was, as it were, almost eclipsed by Yorick – and a rather idealized Yorick at that! – which may to some extent be attributed to the morals of the age. ‘In England’, wrote the translator Yakov Galinkovsky in the Preface to his Krasoty Sterna (Beauties of Sterne): everybody knows Sterne … Sterne is the marvel of the English Humorists and an example in his way to the whole of Europe … His TS is indeed an exceptional work, full of jokes, keen perception and wit, but perhaps does not agree so well with people’s taste.13

In the same year as Galinkovsky published this choice of decorously sentimental passages from Sterne (based on a similarly oriented English anthology),Yorick’s sermons were translated for the first and only time by Peter Chichagov. Somewhat anxious about the Orthodox censor’s reaction to a proposed collection of Anglican liturgical material, Chichagov explained in his Preface: The author of these speeches, Sterne, world-famous for his sensibility and tender heart, perfect in Christian virtues, was a priest of the Church of England, but there is nothing in his speeches contradicting the dogmas of our own Orthodox religion. Or, more precisely, nowhere does he touch on any dogmas, referring only to the malpractice of the Catholic Inquisition, which our Greek-Russian church also opposes. In a word, his sermons contain nothing but pure morality, founded on texts from both Testaments.14

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14

‘V Anglii vse znayut Sterna … Stern est’ divo Angliiskikh Yumoristov i obrazets v svoem rode dlya tseloi Evropy … Ego Tristram Shandi chrezvychaen, napolnen shutkami, ostrotoyu i veselym dukhom, no mozhet byt’ malo syshchet lyudei po svoemu vkusu’ (1801, 1–3). ‘Sochinitel’ rechei sikh, izvestnyi svetu svoei chuvstvitel’nost’yu i nezhnym serdtsem, usovershenstvovannym Khristyanskimi dobrodetelyami, Stern, khotya byl dukhovnyi tserkvi Angliiskoi, no v sikh ego rechakh nichego takogo ne soderzhitsya, chto by protivno bylo dogmatam pravoslavnogo ispovedaniya: ili luchshe skazat’, on v nich nigde nimalo ni do kakikh dogmatov ne kasaetsya, krome zloupotrebleniya inkvizitsii, chego i nasha Greko-Rossiiskaya tserkov’ ne terpit. Slovom, rechi ego soderzhat tol’ko chistuyu moral’, osnovannuyu na tekstakh, vzyatykh iz oboikh Zavetov’ (1801, 1–2).

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Again, it is remarkable that even the delicate project of making Yorick’s sermons palatable to an Orthodox audience was undertaken three years before anyone attempted to translate TS! The structural complexities of Sterne’s first novel were perhaps insufficiently understood at the time.When the critic Muravev called on his compatriots to ‘take up the pen and let it wander across the paper, with the same freedom as if you were talking’,15 he unwittingly revealed his somewhat crude conception of what TS was actually about. But above all, ASJ seems to have suited the literary need of the day: it supplied writers with a ready-made solution to the problem of plotting (traditionally the weak point of many Russian authors before Tolstoi).What the growing literature needed was not subversion of the novel form but a solid model to adapt and practise on. This helps to explain the enormous popularity that sentimental journeys gained in Russia in the first two decades of the nineteenth century.Written very quickly and churned out en masse, such novels by Vladimir Izmailov or Peter Shalikov, to name only the most prolific epigones of Sterne and Karamzin, are often extremely trivial and tearful to the point of absurdity, especially since they lack the ironic twist characteristic of ASJ. Shalikov will sometimes have a half-hearted go at self-irony, but, uneasy about exposing his hero to ridicule or criticism, he takes care to footnote such passages ‘Shutka’ – ‘A joke’ (1803, 37). Alas, poor Yorick. ‘It must be admitted,’ wrote Mikhail Kaisarov: among Sterne’s innumerable imitators there is not one who can compare with him, or, what is more, who is even bearable after we have read Sterne himself. It is true that every single year we have the misfortune to encounter I know not how many thousand chapters on ‘dogs’,‘dead asses’,‘coffee’, and what not, which do not only fail to delight or touch us, but rather, as the French say, soulèvent le cœur. Knowledge of the human heart is not to be found par des agréables ignorants, who think of nothing but how to say something more beautifully, or to round off a phrase, or to compile a cluster of witty words without any meaning.16

While there is more than a grain of truth in this verdict, one should not, at least not from a historical point of view, dismiss such sentimental trivia too offhandedly. The final sentence quoted above gives an indication of their positive function: by trying to ‘say it more beautifully’ the likes of Shalikov

15

16

‘Voz’mite pero i daite emu khodit’ po bumage s toyu zhe svobodoyu, s kotoroyu govorite’’ (Roboli 1926, 44). ‘My priznaemsya, chto iz velikogo mnozhestva podrazhatelei Sternu, ni odin, ne tol’ko ne mozhet s nim sravnyat’sya, no dazhe ne mozhet byt’ snosen posle samogo Sterna; chto my vsyakii god imeem neschastie videt’ kakikh nibud’ tysyachu novykh glav o sobake, o mertvom osle, o kofe, i proch., kotorye ne tol’ko ne voskhishchayut i ne trogayut nas, no naprotiv, kak govoryat frantsuzy, soulèvent le cœur; chto poznanie chelovecheskogo serdtsa ne mozhet byt’ priobreteno par des agréables ignorants, kotorye dumayut tol’ko o tom, chtoby kak nibud’ skazat’ po luchshe, ili okruglit’ frazu, ili nastavit’ kuchu ostrykh slov bez vsyakogo smysla’ (1804, 10–11).

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and Izmailov produced a large number of utterly disastrous novels, but – as ardent if moderately gifted disciples of Karamzin – they helped thereby to consolidate and refine the stylistic potential of the young literary language. It is here that the historic significance of the early reception of Sterne in Russian sentimentalism lies. The passages chosen by Galinkovsky for his anthology of ‘Beauties’, for instance, are unlikely to grip the modern reader, and he is also unlikely to be charmed by the translator’s use of the diminutive ‘Mariushka’ in rendering the ‘Maria’-episode from ASJ, but such borrowings from the vernacular served to gradually shake off the oppressive restrictions of the Church-Slavonic high style and played their part in making literary Russian the rich and flexible medium of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Tolstoi. At the time, however, the mass of hack novels written in Sterne’s name did not improve his Russian reputation. From the late 1790s well into the 1820s parodies making fun of excessive sentimentalism appeared in a constant flow,17 the most popular being Alexander Shakhovskoi’s short drama Novyi Stern (The New Sterne, 1805). Here, the character of a young noble is ridiculed who travels the countryside and whose sentimental effusion is set in contrast to the rugged common sense of the Russian peasants. In one village he provokes a scandal by stating that an old woman has ‘touched’ him (1961, 744). This example goes to show that the real target of Shakhovskoi – who belonged to the circle of Karamzin’s archenemy, admiral Shishkov, – was not just his protagonist’s actual behaviour, but rather the introduction of neologisms and certain stylistic devices into the Russian language: rendering the verb ‘to touch’ as ‘trogat’, as in the above scene, had been one of Karamzin’s most bitterly disputed novelties. Other parodies were directed more specifically against the concept of a purely subjective journey: the hero of Pavel Yakovlev’s Chuvstvitel’noe puteshestvie po Nevskomu Prospektu (Sentimental Journey Along Nevsky Avenue, 1828) decides that since it no longer mattered where a sentimental traveller went, he might just as well travel the pubs and cafés in his home town, getting drunk! In the course of this development, the original conception of ASJ grew more and more distorted and became entangled with other popular models like Xavier de Maistre’s Voyage autour de ma chambre (A Journey Around My Room, 1795)18 and, above all, with a kind of Rousseau-inspired cult of nature. A poem published anonymously in 1823 and called ‘Chuvstvitel’nost’: Podrazhanie Sternu’ (Sensibility: An Imitation of Sterne) begins:‘Let the masses think that there, in the noise of the city, / Thrive Love and Friendship between the people; / I seek my pleasure in the desert / This

17 18

Cf. Alessandra Tosi’s (2000) article on Nikolai Brusilov. Xavier de Maistre (1763–1852), a confirmed Sternean, is a not unimportant figure in Russian literary history: Swiss by birth, he spent the last fifty-two years of his life in St Petersburg and was married to an aunt of Alexander Pushkin, who was a regular guest at his house.

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is where my heart finds peace and quiet’.19 It renounces human company in favour of the ‘friendship of an oak’, which is indeed a far cry from anything we find in Sterne. Nor did further translations of his novel help to infuse new life: Peter Domogatsky translated ASJ in 1803 from Frénais’ French version, faithfully retaining all its flaws including the notoriously distorted ending, and an anonymous translation of 1806 – even though it was allegedly based on the English original – did little more than reproduce Domogatsky’s text while correcting only the most obvious mistakes (both editions, incidentally, contain ‘Eugenius’s’ sequel). While the cult of sentimentalism was growing stale, TS returned gradually to the fore. It had been translated by the above-mentioned Mikhail Kaisarov between 1804 and 1807 – a piece of work worthy of more attention than it initially received. Not only did Kaisarov demonstrate a remarkable command of the English language and succeed in rendering in Russian a fair number of the original’s finer points, he also evinced a deeper understanding of Sterne’s writing than most of his contemporaries, when polemically responding in an open letter to the editors of the journal Severnyi Vestnik (The Northern Messenger).These had published in 1804 the translation of an article by an anonymous French critic in the Mercure de France, who vigorously attacked Sterne for his infringement of classicist principles. A French journalist intent on defaming Sterne! How conceited can you get? … To produce a book like TS you need to know the world and the human heart profoundly, but you also need to know a lot more than that and be a man of great learning. The critic does not feel its beauties, he does not have the slightest idea of its overall plan, nor of the spirit in which it is written … The views of present-day French journalists can no longer serve as models for our own taste and govern our own judgement: they are no longer Voltaires, La Harpes or Marmontels … I am not surprised the critic likes TS even less than ASJ, simply because he understands it even less.20

Kaisarov’s translation has been criticized as incomplete, which seems somewhat harsh considering that the passages he left out (albeit for no obvious reason) make up just fifteen pages altogether. These were supplied in 1809, in an appendix to the Russian edition of The Koran, a collection of

19

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‘Pust’ dumaet tolpa, chto tam, gde shumy grady,/ Lyubov’ i druzhestvo sredi lyudei zhivut;/ Ya posredi pustyn’ ishchu svoei otrady:/ Tam serdtsu obrechu i pishchu i priyut.’ ‘Frantsuzskii zhurnalist obezslavit’ Sterna! Kakoe samovol’noe osleplenie! … Krome ton’kogo znaniya sveta i serdtsa chelovecheskogo dolzhno bylo imet’ mnozhestvo bol’shikh poznanii i glubokuyu uchenost’ dlya togo, chtoby napisat’ Tristrama Shandi … Frantsuzskii kritik ne chuvstvoval krasot etogo sochineniya, i ne imel ponyatiya ni o plane ego, ni o dukhe, v kotorom ono pisano … Sud nyneshnikh Frantsuzskikh zhurnalistov ne mozhet sluzhit’ pravilom v obrazovanii nashego vkusa, i rukovodstvovat’ sobstvennyi nash sud; potomu chto eto uzhe ne Vol’tery, ne Lagarpy i ne Marmonteli … Tristram Shendi nravitsya kritiku eshche men’she Puteshestviya; i ya ne udivlyayus’, potomu chto on eshche men’she ego ponimaet’ (Kaisarov 1804, 4, 11 and 13).

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miniatures and short witticisms believed at the time to be a genuine work of Sterne’s: its translator Vasily Berkh, finding himself ‘for some considerable time in a wild and barren place’ (the Preface is signed ‘V. Be-. Northwest America’) had originally wanted to translate TS – before discovering to his disappointment that the job had already been done! What makes it difficult to trace the influence of TS at this time is the simultaneous popularity in Russia of German Romanticism, of writers like Friedrich Schlegel and especially Jean Paul (who in their turn owed much to Sterne).Typical devices like digressions or a narrator who engaged in dialogue with his readers had become quite common by the second decade of the nineteenth century and can no longer be attributed directly to TS or ASJ. Some authors, however, would explicitly invoke TS, like the Ukrainian nobleman Gregory Vinsky: in his autobiography, written around 1811, he tries to excuse his own faults – Vinsky’s life had been wild, he was put in prison on several occasions and legally demoted for fraud – by citing in a chapter called ‘Shandeizm’ (1914, 4-5) Tristram’s theories on human procreation. The Englishman remained popular among the Russian Romantics: the poet Zhukovsky numbered Sterne’s works among his own future translation projects, the playwright Alexander Griboedov is said to have quoted long passages by heart, and Mikhail Lermontov, while still at school, exercised his French by translating from the letters to Eliza. ‘Shandyism’ tended to blend in, as it were, with the more general uses of romantic irony. Furthermore, until the 1820s it was poetry rather than prose (and Byron rather than Sterne) that held pride of place with the Russian reading public. In 1820 and 1821, a certain Mikhail Parenago published in two volumes his translation of Sterne’s Letters to His Intimate Friends, so all the major items of the Sterne canon were at last available in Russian. And when the national poet Alexander Pushkin in his verse-novel Evgenii Onegin (1825–1832) began taking stock of the paragons imported from the West over the preceding decades, Sterne came back into his own. Pushkin’s chefd’œuvre marks the coming of age of modern Russian literature: recounting, on the surface, an unhappy love affair, it can also be understood as implicit literary criticism, an intertextual game, in which the characters appear as embodiments of what they have read. In the person of Onegin, Pushkin depicts and exorcises, as it were, the vogue of Byronism, while the textual structure itself appears to be modelled on TS. Stanzas are deliberately left out, the reader is permanently addressed ironically, and above all, Pushkin keeps drawing attention away from the actual events to the act of writing as such: ‘And now the frosts already crackle / and silver ’mid the fields / (the reader now expects the rhyme ‘froze-rose’ – here, take it quick!)’21 To his Russian contemporaries, Pushkin seemed to be playing off one English

21

IV, 42:‘I vot uzhe treshchat morozy / I serebryatsya sred polei … / (Chitatel’ zhdet uzh rifmy rozy: / Na, vot voz’mi ego skorei!)’ (6: 90).

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author (Sterne) against the other (Byron),22 a scheme that recalls his similar verdict that Thomas Moore’s Romantic poem ‘Lalla Rookh’ – very popular at the time in Russia – ‘was not worth ten lines from TS’.23 1825 saw the first Russian imitation of Sterne that explicitly chose TS as its model:Yakov de Sanglen’s Zhizn’ i mneniya novogo Tristrama (The Life and Opinions of a New Tristram). Under his chosen motto ‘Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem’ (Mingle advice with a little foolishness), De Sanglen, whose surname derives from the French De Saint-Glin, recounts the story of his great-grandfather’s emigration from France, operating on various time levels and digressing at every turn to include his own speculations on various subjects. The book, amusing as it is in parts, was received with extreme hostility by literary critics, but one suspects that this was at least partly due to the fact that its author, a high-ranking government official well in with the secret police, was himself not a very popular figure, scarcely surprising so soon after the failed Decembrist Revolution (1825), in a phase of unprecedented repression. And it must be admitted that there is something forbiddingly authoritarian about the way De Sanglen’s first-person narrator puts an end to his readers’ interruptions and complaints at the very beginning of the novel. While Sterne’s Tristram is forever plagued by various ‘Sirs’, ‘Madams’, and ‘Criticks’, the ‘New Tristram’ will have none of this (1829, 1: 11): ‘I do not know whether it was the rising enthusiasm I displayed or whether they had at last seen the truth in what I said, but something drove my critics away. And so, dear reader, it is not surprising that I remained alone’.24 And alone he remains for the rest of the book. Interestingly, Sterne was also present on the other side of the political fence. Many of the insurgents of 1825, mostly young officers, were men of letters, some of them indeed well-known writers. One of these was Nikolai Bestuzhev, who in his semi-autobiographical short stories fashioned the character of a revolutionary from the nobility, a typical Decembrist. In ‘Otchego ya ne zhenat’ (Why I Am Not Married), written around 1830 in Siberia, his hero faces a conflict: at a guest-house overshadowed by the nearby prison-fortress Schluesselburg he has to share his room with a young woman, who feels attracted to him when she discovers he has been reading the Bastille-episode from ASJ. The protagonist pretends to be asleep, the open book is lying on a table beside the bed, and the lady notices his marginal comments and sketches: She sat down – glanced at the book, then at me: then picked it up, read the title, and gave me a curious look, as if asking herself: What sort of character

22

23 24

At the time Evgenii Onegin was written, the Russian audience recognized Byron mainly as a heroic-romantic poseur, not so much as the ironist of ‘Don Juan’ (1819–24). Pushkin, however, was certainly aware of his ironic qualities. Seen from a modern perspective, Byron and Sterne rather seem to reinforce each other in the above example. – For this point I am indebted to Elinor Shaffer (London). ‘Vsya Lalla-ruk ne stoit desyati strochek Tristrama Shandi’ (13: 34). ‘Ne znayu, vostorg li, v kotoryi ya postepenno vstupal, ili luchshe, ubezhdeniya v istine mnoyu skazannoe, no chto-to vynudilo kritikov moikh udalit’sya. Takim obrazom, chitatel’, kazhetsya, net nichego udivitel’nogo, chto ya ostalsya odin.’

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would read old stuff like that? I remained faithful to my role – my face was half covered by my hand, so as to allow me to watch more easily without betraying that my eyes were both wide open.And so, having drawn the candle closer, she began reading Sterne. Aha, so she knows English? Sterne was open on the very page where I had stopped reading and written ‘terrible!’ with a pencil at the bottom.The stranger held the book closer to the light, in order to read the remark, turned the page, found the description of the starling in his cage, who repeats the words ‘I can’t get out, I can’t get out’, and finally arrived at the image of the captive. I could see her face only in the mirror and noticed how its expression slowly grew sombre, how the eyes became rigid, the eyelashes trembled and two big tears glistened, reflecting the light of the candle. Both these drops fell on the book. I saw the stranger start and attempt to dry the page with her handkerchief and her breath. Since that day Sterne and I have been inseparable!25

Apart from the fact that he is mentioned by name, there is something unmistakably Sternean about this scene.The protagonists do not communicate directly: she ‘reads’ him through a book, he ‘reads’ her by studying her expression while doing so. The final sentence quoted has a kind of ‘Shandean’ twist to it: Bestuzhev’s narrator expresses no ideal affinity to Sterne the artist – rather, he professes himself inseparable from a concrete material reality, i.e. his tearstained copy of a book that could be any book as long as the tears remained the same. Meanwhile, the romantic tête-à-tête is abruptly cut short, when a stork nesting on the roof, and at first mistaken for a symbol of future family happiness, comes crashing through the chimney (a remarkable contrast to Sterne’s passive and helpless bird!), thus reminding the hero that he must not think of getting married. He decides to sacrifice personal happiness in the name of his revolutionary duties. Bestuzhev drew on motifs from ASJ at a time when Russian Sterneans had generally turned to TS. Alexander Veltman’s novel Strannik (The Wanderer, 1831), ostensibly a travel narrative, not only adapts many structural characteristics from the latter, but can generally be seen as an extension of Sterne’s famous joke about the map of Namur, Uncle Toby, and his

25

‘Ona sela – vzglyanula na knigu, na menya: potom vzyala ee, posmotrela zaglavie, brosila na menya lyubopytnyi vzglyad, kak by zhelaya uznat’, – a chto eto za original, chitayushchii takuyu starinu? Ya ne izmenyal svoei roli – litso moe bylo poluzakryto rukoyu, chtoby lovche bylo videt’, ne davaya podozreniya, chto glyazhu obeimi glazami. I tak ona, pridvinuv k sebe svechu, nachala chitat’ Sterna. Stalo byt’ ona znaet po-angliiski? Stern otkryt byl na tom samom meste, gde ya ostavil chtenie, zametiv karandashem na pole: ‘uzhasno!’ Neznakomka podnesla knigu blizhe k svechke, chtob rassmotret’ eto zamechanie, oborotila listok i nachala s opisaniya skvortsa, kotoryi bilsya v kletke svoei, povtoryaya slova: ‘ya ne mogu vyrvat’sya! ya ne mogu vyrvat’sya’ i nakonets doshla do kartiny uznika. Ya vidal tol’ko v zerkalo ee litso i zamechal kak malo po-malu vyrazhenie ego pomrachalos’, kak ostanavlivalis’ glaza, trepetali resnitsy i dve krupnye slezy blesnuli, otrazhayas’ svechoyu; obe eti kapli upali na knigu. Ya videl kak neznakomka ispugalas’, vytirala eti kapli platkom i sushila ikh svoim dykhaniem. S tekh por ya nerasstayus’ so Sternom!’ (Bestuzhev 1860, 459–60).

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suggestion that Widow Wadman should ‘lay [her] finger upon the place’ (TS, 2: 773) where he received his wound. The narrator travels with his finger across a map of Europe, without even getting up from the table:‘You see? … o how careless … what a terrible flood in Spain and France … That’s just bound to happen when you have a glass of water on the table while reading a map!’26 At approximately the same time, Nikolai Gogol made his debut on the literary scene with his fantastic short stories. The first Russian prose writer to gain European recognition, he was soon likened to Laurence Sterne by the reading public. No less a figure than Pushkin is said to have called his friend ‘the Russian Sterne’ (Maslov 1924, 371) and it is not difficult to guess what similarities he may have been referring to. Gogol’s narrators keep commenting on the course of events, their famous ‘lyrical digressions’ are something of a trademark of his art.‘Rudy Panko’, for instance, the fictitious editor of Gogol’s first collection of romantic tales Vechera na khutore bliz Dikan’ki (Evenings on a Farm Near Dikan’ka, 1831-32), constantly quarrels with his readers and is painfully reminded of the material side of literary communication when his wife uses the rest of his manuscript for pastry baking. Gogol also substantially drew on Sterne’s conception of ‘hobby-horses’. In his infatuation with John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, the Englishman had delighted in the construction of characters whose ‘train of ideas’ had been derailed and who were therefore under the spell of an idée fixe; his Russian colleague adopted the device. His heroes are all typical impersonations of one trivial obsession or other: like Uncle Toby or Walter Shandy, each of them acts in accordance with one constitutive principle. Gogol, however, displays none of Sterne’s humorous tolerance towards the eccentrics thus created, for he exposes their puniness to ridicule and attacks them with merciless if implicit religious fervour. The most impressive example of Gogol’s interest in Sterne is probably his reworking of ‘Slawkenbergius’s Tale’ from TS in ‘Nos’ (The Nose, 1836). A conceited major awakes one morning to discover his nose has gone and is walking the streets of St Petersburg clad in an officer’s uniform, temporarily plunging the city into apocalyptic chaos.This story is especially interesting because it gives Sterne’s juicy little anecdote a touch of existentialist absurdity that had until then been absent from the Russian reception. Gogol, an ingenious and in a way rather humourless satirist, depicts his characters as ultimately absurd and impossible; they have forfeited the right even to exist, and so has the world they inhabit. The second half of the nineteenth century is characterized in Russian literature by the dominance of the grand epic form, the realist novels of Tolstoi, Dostoevsky and others with their heavy emphasis on moral issues and grandiose plotting. One might expect the influence of Sterne to wane under these conditions, but this was not immediately the case. On the contrary: Count Tolstoi, especially in his early phase of the 1850s, was a

26

‘Vidite li? … O neostorozhnost’ … Kakoe uzhasnoe nadvodnenie v Ispanii i Frantsii! … Vot chto znachit stavit’ stakan s vodoyu na kartu!’ (1977, 18).

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confirmed Sternean who even began translating ASJ and incorporated into his own works numerous quotations from Sterne. In his diaries, the Englishman is mentioned and praised on many occasions – ‘Have been reading Sterne. Exquisite’–,27 and when numbering the texts that had impressed him most as a young man,Tolstoi explicitly awarded ASJ second place: first prize went to the biblical Sermon on the Mount; Rousseau’s Confessions came in third (66: 67). Tolstoi developed his famous talent for drawing a character’s portrait from apparently insignificant details by studying Sterne’s technique, his way of describing gestures and poses, and the attention he paid to all sorts of minutiae. ‘Having read Le Voyage Sentimental par Sterne’, wrote his wife, he once sat at the window, stirred and excited by his reading, and watched what was going on in the street. ‘There comes a baker: what sort of person is he, what is his life like? … And there is a carriage driving by: who may be inside, where is he going, not thinking of anything in particular, and who lives in that house over there, what is its inside life? … How interesting it would be to describe these things and what an interesting book could be written on this.28

The hero of Tolstoi’s first literary attempt, ‘Istoriya vcherashnego dnya’ (‘A History of Yesterday’), reflects:‘For me, the words “trifling” and “ridiculous” have lost all meaning.Why, where are the “substantial” and “serious” issues?’29 Tolstoi also learned from Sterne something about the mixed nature of human emotions:‘I continued to cry,’ says Nikolenka, the young protagonist of Detstvo (Childhood, 1852), ‘and the thought that my tears proved my sensibility gave me pleasure and joy’.30 Later in his career, the Russian’s enthusiasm for Sterne cooled somewhat. He decided that ‘for all his brilliant narrative talent’ Sterne’s digressions were rather trying (46: 82).31 Tolstoi was then universally acknowledged as the supreme master of epic plotting, engaged in his own religiously motivated quest for absolute truth, and models like ASJ could take him no further. Meanwhile literary criticism, at a time when serfdom was abolished and the Russian revolutionary movement was getting under way, increasingly tended to condemn Sterne for being indifferent to political questions, bourgeois, and insincere. Three admittedly mediocre translations of his 27 28

29

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‘Chital Sterna.Voskhititel’no’ (46: 110). ‘Prochitav Le Voyage Sentimental par Sterne, on, vzvolnovannyi i uvlechennyi etim chteniem, sidel raz u okna i smotrel na vse proiskhodyashchee na ulitse. “Vot khodit bulochnik: kto on takoi, kakova ego zhizn’? … A vot kareta proekhala: kto tam i kuda edet, ni o chem dumaet, i kto zhivet v etom dome, kakaya vnutrennaya zhizn’ ego … Kak interesno bylo by vse eto opisat’, kakuyu mozhno bylo by iz etogo sochinit’ interesnuyu knigu” ’ (Atarova 1974, 509–10). ‘(Dlya menya) slova “melochnoe, smeshnoe” stali slova bez smysla. Gde zhe “krupnye, ser’eznye” povody?’ (1: 295). ‘Ya prodolzhal plakat’, i mysl’, chto slezy moi dokazyvayut moyu chuvstvitel’nost’, dostavlyala mne udovol’stvie i otrady’ (1: 42). ‘Nesmotrya na ogromnyi talant rasskazyvat’ … moego lyubimogo pisatelya Sterna, otstupleniya tyazhely dazhe i u nego’.

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novels (ASJ: 1865 by N. Lyzhin and 1892 by Dmitry Averkiev; TS: 1890, anonymous) failed to win recognition, and the critic Druzhinin, when commenting on Thackeray’s famous indictment, complained that the Victorian had stopped halfway in debunking him: He still calls Sterne a great humorist! After scrutinising the writer and the man like a true expert, our professor hesitates to draw the logical conclusion from his findings. Sterne has been celebrated for so long! Sterne had such influence on literature! So many millions cried over his old ass! As a true Englishman, Thackeray falls silent in the face of a fait accompli. He does not find the strength to … expose his countless faults to the ridicule and contempt they deserve. After Thackeray’s lecture, the author of TS retains his mysterious aura and his fame, he remains the great Sterne, against whom no one has yet dared to speak out, even though he has for a long time been at odds with the contemporary reader’s taste, his convictions, and delicacy.32

The imperatives of realism and social relevance were closing in on Sterne, but still he did not disappear completely from the literary scene. His voice can be heard through the chatter of Nikolai Leskov’s garrulous narrators and in the novels of Fedor Dostoevsky (where, arguably, one would least expect it). Conservatively nationalist, rigorously religious and deadly serious as the latter is, on occasion he nevertheless demonstrated his acquaintance with Sternean motifs. In ‘Zimnie zametki o letnikh vpechatleniyakh’ (Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, 1863), recounting his journey through Germany, France, and England and denouncing Western European materialism, Dostoevsky employed the rhetorics of sentimental travelling to camouflage his often radical verdicts by means of a humorous tone. Chapter three, entitled ‘totally superfluous’, is followed by ‘Chapter four, not superfluous for travellers: final consideration of the question whether the French possess any sense or not’.33 In Cologne, Dostoevsky is not impressed by the spectacle of the Catholic cathedral, but teasingly attributes this to subjective reasons in the style of Yorick and Karamzin: back in his hotel room, he discovers that his tongue appears furred and thus ironically explains away all negative impressions. A similar device is used later to qualify his rash observation that ‘there is nothing more repulsive in the world than the

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‘Odnako, Takkerei vse-taki nazyvaet Sterna velikim yumoristom. Vzglyanuv na cheloveka i pisatelya glazami istinnogo tsenitelya, nash professor ne khochet vyvodit’ polnogo vyvoda iz svoikh zametok. Stern tak davno slavitsya! Stern imel takie vliyanie na slovesnost’! Stol’ko millionov naroda plakalo nad ego starym oslom! Kak istinnyi anglichanin,Tekkerei nemeet pered faktom sovershivshimsya, ne nakhodit v sebe dovol’no sily na to, chtoby … predat’ (ego beschislennye zabluzhdenii) zasluzhennoi nasmeshke i zasluzhennomu prezireniyu. Posle Takkerevoi lektsii avtor Tristrama Shendi ostaetsya prezhneyu zagadochnoyu znamenitost’yu, prezhnim velikim Sternom, protiv tvorenii kotorogo nikto eshche ne podnyal golosa, chotya oni uzhe davno protivorechat vkusam, ubezhdeniyam, delikatnosti sovremennogo chitatelya’ (1865, 522). ‘Glava III i sovershenno lishnyaya … Glava IV i ne lishnyaya dlya puteshestvennikov. Okonchatel’noe reshenie o tom: deistvitel’no li ‘rassudka frantsuz ne imeet’?’ (1956, 4: 71 and 85).

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women in Dresden’.34 In Idiot (The Idiot, 1869), Dostoevsky depicts the utopian character of Christ-like Prince Myshkin, who for all his saintly qualities accomplishes nothing but disaster for those surrounding him. This is due, among other things, to his totally lacking a sense of guilt and retribution – always a crucial issue in Dostoevsky. An indication of Myshkin’s deficiencies comes when, in Switzerland, he is involved in a replay of Sterne’s Maria-episode. The distraught maiden who has been seduced and abandoned by her lover and is now cruelly shunned by the village community excites his pity, but precisely by naively insisting that she is totally blameless the Prince constantly interrupts the normal process of retribution and reintegration. Maria, therefore, has to die miserably without a chance of being absolved from her guilt. In the ‘Silver Age’ of Russian literature, roughly from the 1890s to the Revolution in 1917, Sterne’s popularity continued to wane.The Symbolists with their mystic leanings were not overly interested in him, although the poet and philosopher Vasily Rozanov’s writings have been likened to Sterne’s as ‘literature without plot’ (Shklovsky 1921). Poetry and drama became the dominant genres, and in terms of moral integrity, Sterne was still distrusted. At the turn of the century,Vladimir Kozhevnikov (1897, 513, 518, 529–30) called attention to the perils inherent in reading ASJ and TS: Sterne epitomizes the revolt of extreme individualism against universal and objective norms, the destruction of the absolute by a humorous worldview … The result of his philosophy: complete freedom of feeling and considerable freedom of deed. Dangerous consequences: proliferation of empty sentimentality in literature, affection and feeble sentimentality in life, concentration on vain and subjective impressions combined with indifference to facts and the common cause … It cannot be denied that to a significant extent Sterne himself, not just his imitators, is to blame for the general corruption and degeneracy of conceptions regarding the function of art.35

It may be partly due to such deprecation that the 1901 edition of the standard Brockhaus-Efron encyclopaedia in its somewhat slipshod article on Sterne cites as an example of his influence the recent publication of one of his poems (!) in a Russian journal – which on inspection turns out to be a work by the American ‘Stuart Sterne’ (ES 1901, 631).36

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‘Mne vdrug voobrazilos’, tol’ko chto ya vyshel na ulitsu, chto nichego net protivnee tipa drezdenskikh zhenshchin …’ (4: 63). ‘Stern uzhe zakonyaet bunt krainogo individualizma protiv obshcheob’’yazatel’nykh, ob’’ektivnykh norm zhizni. Razrushenie absolyutnogo yumoristicheskim mirovozreniem … Rezul’tat filosofii Sterna: polnaya svoboda chuvstv i znachitel’naya stepen’ svobody deistvii. Opasnye sledstviya uvlecheniya Sternom: razrastanie pustoi sentimental’noi literatury; affektirovannaya i bessil’naya chuvstvitel’nost’ v zhizni; sosredotochenie vnimaniya na melochakh sub’’ektivnykh oshchushchenii pri ravnodushii k delu i k obshchestvennym interesam … Nel’zya otritsat’ togo, chto v etom prinizhennom i oposhlennom vzglyade na zadachi isskustva v znachitel’noi stepeni vinovaty ne tol’ko podrazhateli Sterna, no i sam on.’ ‘Stuart Sterne’ is actually the pen-name of the American poet Getrud Bloede (1845–1905).

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Sterne resurfaced again when in the early 1920s he was discovered by the Russian Formalists, a school of critics that may well be said to have inaugurated the country’s ‘Golden Age’ of literary criticism. Instead of indulging in political propaganda or restricting themselves to biographical observations like many of their predecessors, Shklovsky, Tynyanov, and Eikhenbaum undertook a methodologically grounded analysis of Russian classics and also examined the impact of Western European models. Formalist theory emphasizes the mechanical functioning of literature; it rests on the basic notion of the ‘device’. By applying this ‘device’, the artist ‘makes strange’ the object represented and thus achieves the work of art. The Formalists described Sterne’s literary method as a cluster of technical features, designed to expose and mock traditional narrative strategies. As Viktor Shklovsky paradoxically put it in a seminal essay, first published in 1921, this made TS ‘the most typical novel in world literature’ (1969, 298) because apart from a parade of literary conventions, the ‘deliberate exposure of compositional devices’, it had no content whatsoever. Under the name sternianstvo, i.e. ‘Sternedom’, such parody became an integral element of Formalist critical discourse: Eikhenbaum refers to Sterne on every other page of his book on the young Tolstoi (1922), while Shklovsky (1923a) described Pushkin’s Evgenii Onegin in terms of sternianstvo. Another Formalist theorem for which Sterne’s writings became an important historical point of reference was their conception of skaz, a narrative mode typical of Russian authors like Gogol or Leskov, where the syntactical imitation of oral language and the use of colloquialisms served to establish the narrator as a distinct (sometimes eccentric or unreliable) character.37 The Preface to the first twentieth-century edition of ASJ in Russia (in Averkiev’s translation) clearly shows Formalist influence. The author, P. Guber, explains that Sterne wore sentimentalism like a mask, ‘and almost no-one noticed the cheat.These days, of course, hardly anyone would fall for that sort of naive masquerade’ (1922, 10–11).38 The Formalists, however, were not alone in bringing about the Sterne renaissance that took place after the First World War. His importance for Russian culture was now generally acknowledged in literary studies:Viktor Maslov’s long article ‘Interes k Sternu v russkoi literature kontsa XVIII-go i nachala XIX-go vv’ (Russian Literature’s Interest in Sterne from the End of the Eighteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century), published in 1924 and presenting an impressive collection of factual material, is a case in point. It is also remarkable that the 1924 edition of Nikolai Piksanov’s bibliographical manual for students and university teachers, Dva veka russkoi literatury (Two Centuries of Russian Literature), included a special section (45–47) on ‘Russkoe sternianstvo’ (Russian Sternedom). 37

38

It should be said, however, that the Formalists (especially Eikhenbaum) were mainly concerned with the phonetic effects that characterized the usage of skaz by Gogol or Leskov, whereas Sterne’s eccentricities are more often of a graphical nature, i.e. they are generally aimed at the eye, not the ear of the reader. ‘On nadel masku chuvstvitel’nosti … i pochti nikto … ne zametil obmana. Zato v nashe vremya vryad li kogo vvedet v zabluzhdenie etot naivnyi maskarad.’

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Such scholarly efforts in their turn rekindled the creative writers’ enthusiasm for Sterne.39 Viktor Shklovsky himself proceeded to put into practice his theoretical findings in two semi-autobiographical novels: Sentimental’noe puteshestvie (A Sentimental Journey, 1924), is a travel narrative relating the author’s experiences during the revolution and the Civil War, his life at the front and in military hospital, as well as the rigours of hunger and cold in Petrograd. Like Parson Yorick, Shklovsky digresses at every turn, knits various fragments together by means of wayward associations, includes witticisms, anecdotes, and speculations on questions of politics or cultural theory. His ZOO, ili pis’ma ne o lyubvi ili Tret’ya Elyuiza (ZOO, or Letters Not About Love or The Third Heloise, 1923b) is constructed in a similar way, only this time the protagonist, a Russian émigré in Berlin, writes a series of love letters to a fictitious woman whose name in the title alludes simultaneously to Rousseau’s La nouvelle Héloïse, to Elsa Triolet, and to Sterne’s Eliza. Skaz and sternianstvo also proliferated in the prose of the socalled ‘Serapion Brothers’, a group of young writers in the northern metropolis that included, among others, Leo Lunts, Konstantin Fedin, the satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko, Venyamin Kaverin, Vsevolod Ivanov, and – again – Viktor Shklovsky. One of the most boldly original figures in the cultural milieu of his time was Daniel Yuvachev, Daniel ‘Kharms’, who had fashioned his pseudonym by hybridizing the English words ‘harm’ and ‘charm’. Notorious for his tweed suits, Sherlock Holmes deerstalker and eccentric behaviour, Kharms may be characterized as an artistic descendant of Gogol, whose absurdist streak he carried to extremes in his short prose sketches. The following text (quoted in its entirety!) exemplifies his predilection for ‘literature without a plot’: ‘A Meeting. One day a man went to work and on his way he met another man, who had bought a loaf of Polish white bread and was on his way home.That is about all’ (1988, 378).40 The beginning of Kharms’ mock-autobiography (453) is significantly reminiscent of ‘some other little family concernments’ (TS, 1: 6) in the Shandy household: I will now tell you how I was born, grew up and how the first signs of genius showed in me. I was born twice, and this is how it happened: my father married my mother in 1902, but I was born only at the end of 1905, because my father wanted his son to be born exactly on New Year’s Day. Papa had calculated that conception had to take place on 1st April … My father approached my mother for the first time on 1st April 1903. My mother had been looking forward to this for a very long time and was terribly excited. But Papa, is seems, was in the mood for a joke and could not help shouting:‘April fool!’ My mother was terribly hurt and would not let my father near her that day, and so they had to wait a year. On the 1st of April 1904 my father again approached my mother. But my mother remembered the incident of the year

39

40

In one contemporary article the critic refers somewhat wearily to ‘the present vogue of “Shandyism”’ (Vinogradov 1969, 206). ‘Vstrecha: Vot otnazhdy odin chelovek poshel na sluzhbu, da po doroge vstretil drugogo cheloveka, kotoryi, kupiv pol’skii baton, napravilsya k sebe vosvoyasi.Vot sobstvenno i vse.’

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before and said she was not in the mood ..., so they had to wait another year. No matter how my father raged, there was nothing to be done. Only the following year, on 1st April 1904, did my father finally manage to lay my mum and beget me. However, his calculation did not work out. I was born four months too early. My father got so furious that the frightened midwife stuffed me back into where I had just emerged from …41

The bustling intellectual activity of post-revolutionary Leningrad was extremely conducive to all sorts of artistic experiments – especially experiments with form. Russian writers, painters and dramatists, many of whom had returned home from abroad after the end of the Civil War, believed that their creativity was called upon to help build the new society, and enthusiastically set to work. But they were wrong. Avant-garde experiments and freedom of expression were about the last things the Soviet authorities were going to tolerate, and in the wake of Stalin’s 1932 decree ‘O perestroike literaturno-khudozhestvennykh organizatsii’ (On the Restructuring of Literary-Artistic Organizations) followed a campaign of levelling and brutal repression on a scale never before imagined. The Formalists were forced to publicly recant their ‘ideologically aberrant’ teachings; Kharms like many others was systematically harassed, finally arrested and killed in 1942. Meanwhile, the canon of world literature was duly scrutinized as to each writer’s conformity to the demands of Socialist Realism, and in this respect Sterne’s qualifications were obviously not ideal.There is an article on him in the communist Literaturnaya entsiklopediya (Literary Encyclopaedia), written by A. Arsharuni – otherwise a specialist in Oriental literatures – who concluded that Sterne ‘refused to share the Enlightenment novel’s inherent criticism’ of social injustice and was indeed ‘far removed from any real fight for … freedom’ (LE 1939, 11: 30-31).42 Nor is Sterne to be found in the volume’s index to its ‘most important’ entries, whereas Fielding and Thackeray are. 41

42

‘Teper’ ya rasskazhu, kak ya rodilsya, kak ya ros i kak obnaruzhivalis’ vo mne pervye priznaki geniya. Ya rodilsya dvazhdy. Proizoshlo eto vot tak. Moi papa zhenilsya na moei mame v 1902 godu, no menya moi roditeli proizveli na svet tol’ko v kontse 1905-go, potomu chto papa pozhelal, chtoby ego rebenek rodilsya obyazatel’no na Novyi god. Papa rasschital, chto zachatie dolzhno proizoiti 1 aprelya … Pervyi raz papa pod’’ekhal k moei mame 1 aprelya 1903 goda. Mama davno zhdala etogo momenta i strashno obradovalas’. No papa, kak vidno, byl v ochen’ shutlivom nastroenii i ne uderzhalsya i skazal mame: “S pervym aprelya!”’ Mama strashno obidelas’ i v etot den’ ne podpustila papu k sebe. Prishlos’ zhdat’ do sleduyushchego goda.V 1904 godu 1 aprelya papa nachal opyat’ pod’’ezzhat’ k mame. No mama, pomnya proshlogodnyi sluchai … opyat’ ne podpustila k sebe papu. Skol’ko papa ni busheval, nichego ne pomogalo. I tol’ko god spustya udalos’ moemu papu ulomat’ moyu mamu i zachat’ menya. Itak, moe zachatie proizoshlo 1-go aprelya 1905 goda. Odnako vse napiny rasschety rukhnuli, potomu chto ya okazalsya nedonoskom i rodilsya chetyre mesyatsa ran’she sroka. Papa tak razbushevalsya, chto akusherka, prinimavshaya menya, rasteryalas’ i nachala zapikhivat’ menya obratno, otkuda ya tol’ko chto vylez …’ ‘Prosvetitel’skii roman nes v soboi kritiku nespravedlivosti obshchestvennogo stroya: Stern ot etoi kritike otkazyvaetsya .... On dalek ot deistvitel’noi bor’by za … svobodu.’

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Sterne’s Russian supporters did what they could, pointing out the indebtedness of realist writers like Tolstoi to TS and ASJ, the way he had allegedly criticized the bourgeois milieu of his time, and that Yorick’s sermons contained ‘many atheist and materialist ideas’ (BSE, 52: 879). The eminent philologist and historian Adrian Frankovsky translated ASJ, the letters, and the ‘Journal to Eliza’ in 1940, improving on Nadezhda Volpin’s flawed and incompetently annotated attempt five years earlier; he translated TS one year before he starved to death during the German blockade of Leningrad but this could only be published posthumously, in 1949. His translations must be counted among the finest achievements of the reception of Sterne in Russia. The ironic tone, jerky rhythm, graphical peculiarities and double entendres of the original are marvellously well preserved, while an extensive commentary provides the reader with useful philosophical and historical information. To this day, Frankovsky’s translations have remained the definitive Russian texts of Sterne’s works and have been used exclusively for all editions since 1941 (his translations of Fielding and Proust enjoy a similarly exalted status). ‘Reabilitirovannyi Stern’ (Sterne Rehabilitated) said the title of a 1940 review of Frankovsky’s ASJ, but alas, this optimistic proclamation proved somewhat premature: the critic, Peter Storitsyn, opened with the standard reference to Sterne as a forerunner of nineteenth-century Realism (1940, 148) but then enthusiastically proceeded with purely esthetical considerations, failing, that is, to ‘rehabilitate’ Sterne from a political point of view – the only kind of ‘rehabilitation’ that would have mattered at the time. Nor could this be achieved any longer by citing the passages that had once convinced Radishchev or Bestuzhev of Sterne’s revolutionary qualities: the starling-episode from ASJ and Yorick’s meditations upon the Bastille (‘Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still slavery! said I, – still thou art a bitter draught ...’; ASJ, 96). ‘When Yorick imagines the miserable fate of all those condemned to slavery, the spectacle, touching as it may be, leaves him somewhat cold,’ noted Israel Vertsman: The sentimental Yorick can understand man merely as an individual unit. To him, the fate of the masses is a grandiose but inexpressive and empty abstraction ....What serves him as object for his freedom-loving tirade? A starling in a cage, right? And why is that? Because he is himself threatened by the Bastille – he is without a passport. Heaven forbid that we exaggerate Sterne’s political consistency! His pity for the poor man who has lost his beloved ass and the heart-rending story of Le Fèvre in TS represent the entire amplitude of Sterne’s humanism – it went no further than that.43

43

‘Pravda, kogda Yorik risuet voobrazheniem tyazheluyu sud’bu mnogikh neschastnykh, obrechennykh na rabstvo, to, kak ne trogatel’na eta kartina, ona pochemu-to ostavlyaet ego kholodnym … Dlya chuvstvitel’nogo Yorika, ponimayushchego tol’ko cheloveka-edintsu, sud’ba massy lyudei – grandioznaya, no ne vpechatlyayushchaya, nevyrazitel’naya abstraktsiya … No chto posluzhivalo Yoriku motivom dlya takikh svobodolyubivykh izliyanii? Neuzheli obraz skvortsa v kletke? Pochemu zhe tak vdrug? Okazyvaetsya, sovsem ne to.Yoriku ugrozhaet opasnost’ samomu ochutit’sya v Bastilii – u nego net passporta. No bozhe upasi preuvelichivat’ politicheskuyu posledovatel’nost’ Sterna! Sochuvstvie k bednyaku poteryavshego lyubimogo osla, kak i trogatel’naya istoriya s Lefevrom v Tristrame, absolyutno ischerpyvayut amplitudu sternovskogo gumanizma – dal’she etogo on poiti ne mozhet’ (1940, 13-14).

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Perceptive and commendable as Vertsman’s protest against imminent reinterpretations of Sterne as a social revolutionary may be, such verdicts unwittingly contributed to his disappearance from the Soviet literary scene. A book-project entitled ‘Evropeiskoe sternianstvo’ (European Sternedom) which had been announced in 1945 by the scholar Maria Tronskaya never materialized, and from 1949 to 1960, i.e. during the bitterest phase of the Cold War, no work by Sterne nor even a single article devoted to him appeared in the press. After a quarter-century of almost total neglect his comeback was effected by the rediscovery in the mid-1960s of the works of Mikhail Bakhtin. Written before 1940, Bakhtin’s studies of Rabelais and Dostoevsky established his conception of the dialogical nature of literary discourse and ‘Grotesque Realism’, which he traced back to the traditions of the medieval carnival. The genre that realized the burlesque potential of literature most fully was the novel, and in the history of the novel it was precisely TS that ‘constituted the first and most significant example of the new Grotesque, an original translation of the worldview of Rabelais and Cervantes into the subjective language of a new age’.44 Bakhtin himself did not say much more about Sterne, but he provided literary criticism in the Soviet Union with categories by reference to which he could be re-appraised: Russian studies of Sterne in the following decades were typically concerned with issues like his ‘genre-originality’, his contribution to the travelogue, and the novel form in general. In 1968, a joint one-volume edition of TS and ASJ appeared in the series ‘Biblioteka vsemirnoi literatury’ (Library of World Literature) with an introduction by Anna Elistratova and twelve lino-cut illustrations by Sergei Pozharsky, the only Russian artist ever to have illustrated these novels. Most of the original’s graphical peculiarities such as the black page or the marble page were left out of this edition, however. Newly gained respectability characterized the official image of Sterne in the 1960s and 1970s. There was, however, also an unofficial and subversive side, namely Venedikt Erofeev’s immensely popular ‘prose-poem’ MoscowPetushki, written around 1970 and circulated illegally all over the Soviet Union. Erofeev, an alcoholic whom the authorities harassed for ‘parasitism’, recounted in brilliantly exalted language that was saturated with vulgarisms as well as quotations from world literature his first-person narrator’s train ride from Moscow to the provincial town of Petushki. In the course of his journey the author’s namesake,Venya, gets drunker and drunker, hallucinating historical figures, mythological creatures and temptation by the devil, before being attacked by a band of thugs and brutally murdered in a scene reminiscent of the Crucifixion. In Russia, this text did not appear in print until 1988, having enjoyed cult status then for almost two decades. The affinity with Sterne strikes the reader even if he only leafs through the

44

‘Tristram Shendi Sterna yavlyaetsya pervym i ochen’ znachitel’nym vyrazheniem novogo sub’’ektivnogo groteska ..., svoeobraznyi perevod rablezianskogo i servantesovskogo mirooshchushcheniya na sub’’ektivnyi yazyk novoi epokhi’ (Bakhtin 1965, 43).

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approximately one hundred pages that make up Moscow-Petushki: the travelogue is interspersed with graphical elements like diagrams denoting the amount of alcohol consumed by the protagonist, some chapters are very short, and each is headed by the names of stations the train passes on its way to Petushki. One chapter consists only of a single sentence – ‘So I immediately drank up’ – and Erofeev’s mock explanation for this in his Preface sounds very Shandean indeed: The first edition of Moscow-Petushki, thanks to its consisting of just one copy, was quickly sold out. I have since received many complaints about the chapter ‘Hammer and Sickle – Karacharovo’, but all quite unjustified. In the preface to the first edition I explicitly warned all young girls to skip the chapter ‘Hammer and Sickle – Karacharovo’, because after the sentence ‘So I immediately drank up’ followed one and a half pages of sheer vulgarity, that in all the chapter there was not a single decent word (except for the sentence ‘So I immediately drank up’). However, all I achieved by my well meant declaration was that every reader, especially young girls, immediately pounced upon the chapter ‘Hammer and Sickle – Karacharovo’, without even having read the preceding chapters, nor even the sentence ‘So I immediately drank up.’Therefore, I deemed it necessary in the second edition to cut from the chapter ‘Hammer and Sickle – Karacharovo’ all the original vulgarisms.This will be better, because, firstly, people will now read me in the right order, and secondly, they will not be offended.45

Very much in the style of Sterne’s narrators, Venya keeps addressing his audience directly and poses as a man of feeling out of place in Soviet Russia: O why are they all so rude! Eh? Rude, terribly rude, and at a time when one must not be rude, when a man has a hangover and his nerves are all in turmoil? … I sat there, and I understood the old man, I understood his tears: he simply pitied everyone and everything … God, dying on the cross, taught us pity … pity and love of the world are one and the same thing. Love every speck of dust, every worm. And have pity on the offspring of every worm.46

45

46

‘Pervoe izdanie “Moskva-Petushki”, blago bylo v odnom ekzemplyare, bystro razoshlos’ Ya poluchal s tekh por mnogo narekanii za glavu “Serp i Molot – Karacharovo”, i sovershenno naprasno. Vo vstuplenii k pervomu izdaniyu ya preduprezhdal vsekh devushek, chto glavu “Serp i Molot – Karacharovo” sleduet propustit’, ne chitaya, poskol’ku za frazoi “I nemedlenno vypil” sleduet poltory stranitsy chisteishego mata, chto vo vsei toi glave net ni edinogo tsenzurnogo slova, za isklyucheniem frazy “I nemedlenno vypil”. Dobrosovestnym uvedomleniem tim ya dobilsya tol’ko togo, chto vse chitateli, v osobennosti devushki, srazu khvatalis’ za glavu “Serp i Molot – Karacharovo”, dazhe ne chitaya predydushchikh glav, dazhe ne prochitav frazy “I nemedlenno vypil”. Po toi prichine ya schel neobkhodimym vo vtorom izdanii vykinut’ iz glavy “Serp i Molot – Karacharovo” vsyu byvshuyu tam matershchinu. Tak budet luchshe, potomu chto, vo-pervykh, menya stanut chitat’ podryad, a vo-vtorykh, ne budut oskorbleny’ (1995, 35). ‘Otchego oni vse tak gruby? A? I gruby-to ved’, podcherknuto gruby v te samye mgnoveniya, kogda nel’zya byt’ grubym, kogda u cheloveka s pokhmel’ya vse nervy navypusk … Ya sidel i ponimal starogo Mitricha, ponimal ego slezy: Emu prosto vse i vsekh bylo zhalko … Bog, umiraya na kreste, zapovedal nam zhalost’ … Zhalost’ i lyubov’ k miru – ediny. Lyubov’ ko vsyakoi persti, ko vsyakomu chrevu. I ko plodu vsyakomu chreva – zhalost’’ (1995, 41 and 91–2).

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In the 1970s and 1980s, the scholar Kseniya Atarova, daughter of the short story writer Nikolai Atarov, established herself as the foremost Soviet expert on Sterne with a number of publications that include her monograph on ASJ (1988) – so far the only Russian book-length study devoted to Sterne. Atarova also edited another unique project: in 1982, the Moscow company ‘Progress’ published in two volumes a collection of Sterne’s works in the original English. The number of copies printed was a modestly remarkable 28,000 (of the present-day Russian paperback edition of ASJ there were only 5,000, of the official 1968 collection no fewer than 300,000).47 One year later, an interesting discussion took place in the pages of the popular journal Detskaya literatura (Children’s Literature). In his article ‘Stivenson protiv Sterna’ (Stevenson versus Sterne), the popular prose-writer Ruslan Kireev (b. 1941) posed the question why no-one had ever attempted to adapt Sterne’s novels for children when even works as unlikely as Ulysses or Proust’s Recherche had been so edited. ‘And it is good that no-one attempted to do so’, said Kireev, ‘because nothing could have come of it. In my opinion, Sterne’s prose is unsuitable for children.’ According to Kireev, young readers were susceptible to the ‘atmosphere of decay’ that governed TS and that Sterne had introduced into literature: ‘He gave the [literary] world the deadly weapon’ of irony, ‘a terrible weapon, whose destructive powers we are only beginning to understand’. On the other hand, children loved Robert Louis Stevenson because of his exciting adventure stories and intact plots, and it was this unspoilt naivety that alone could resist the corruption emanating from the writings of Sterne, who ‘triumphantly marches through the world, forever increasing the number of his subjects … Speaking of the child-like in literature, I do not mean the age of the hero, but the cleanliness of the window to which a writer leads us.’ Finally, however, the author admits:‘TS is one of my favourite novels. I am a prisoner myself … But it is time to break free! Our bondage costs us too dear. I know what I am talking of: my children do not read my books.’48 Most of the articles written in reply paradoxically failed to take its ironic twist into account, with the notable exception of Andrei Zorin (1984, 23), who perceptively pointed out the ‘Shandean’ qualities of Kireev’s contribution and concluded: 47

48

Atarova also published a rather ‘Shandean’ memoir of her family entitled Vcherashnii den’ (Yesterday) in 2001. – For this information I am indebted to Emily Finer (Cambridge). ‘I khorosho, chto ne pytalis’, ibo nichego putnogo iz etogo ne vyshlo b. Ya sovershenno ubezhden, chto sternovskaya proza … dlya detskogo chteniya neprigodna … Opasneishie orudie dal miru (literaturnomu) Lorents Stern. Oruzhie, vsyu sokrushitel’nuyu moshch’ kotorogo my malo-pomalu nachinaem osoznavat’ tol’ko teper’ … Triumfal’no shestvuet po svetu Lorents Stern, vse uvelichivaya chislo svoikh poddannykh, i lish’ to, chto mozhno uslovno nazvat’‘detskim v literature’ yarostno (i uspeshno!) emu soprotivlyaetsya. Govorya ‘detskoe v literature’ ya imeyu v vidu ne vozrast geroya, a chistotu okna, k kotoromu podvodit pisatel’ … Tristram Shendi – odna iz lyubimeishikh knig. Plenil-taki … No osvobodit’sya okhota. Ibo slishkom dorogoi tsenoi prikhoditsya platit’ za svoyu nevol’yu – ya po sebe znayu eto. Moi deti moikh knig ne chitayut’ (Kireev 1983, 9–12).

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Obviously no person who is on familiar terms with literature would seriously argue that an exciting plot was more important than the choice of words, that a writer was obliged to depict real life instead of indulging in witticisms, that Robinson Crusoe was better than Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers, or anything like that!’49

Times had changed, and in 1984 the general Soviet attitude to art was no longer what it used to be. Kireev, incidentally, was later to include a chapter on Sterne and Eliza in his 1995 collection Muzy lyubvi (Muses of Love), recounting romantic anecdotes from the biographies of famous writers. The end of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought about a liberalization and commercialization of the book-market. Editions and publications were no longer a government issue, but were undertaken by a host of newly founded and sometimes extremely short-lived private enterprises.At first, this general gold rush atmosphere, the need to make profits and also its sudden availability brought about a boom in cheap Western trash literature: most publishing companies, given the choice, invariably preferred to include Stephen King in their programme than Laurence Sterne, but by the end of the century the latter finally secured his due share of success. In 1999, ASJ (again preceding TS in Russia!), the letters, and the ‘Journal to Eliza’ were published with Frankovsky’s commentary by the Limbus Press, and one year later the novel became available in paperback in the ‘Azbuka’ series of world classics, featuring on the jacket cover a mid-seventeenth-century painting entitled ‘A Spanish Reading’ by the artist Jean-Baptiste Van Loo – a happy choice for two reasons: first, the idyllic garden scene depicted here has at its centre a little girl amusing herself with a fluttering bird she holds on a string, hybridizing, as it were, the starling- and the Maria-episodes from Sterne’s novel and neatly rendering the ambivalent nature of its sentimentality. Second, the painting in question came to Russia in 1771 (it is now at the St Petersburg Hermitage) through the mediation of Denis Diderot, one of the great Sterneans in world literature.The year 2000 also saw a joint venture of the Russian National Library with the publishing houses Letnii Sad and Natalis: a two-volume edition of TS, ASJ, the letters, and the Eliza-corpus, albeit without a commentary and including a bibliography that still numbers the Koran among Sterne’s works. Finally, the edition of TS by Inapress, St Petersburg, deserves to be mentioned, especially because it includes as an appendix Viktor Shklovsky’s famous essay of 1921, published in Russia for the first time in seventy-one years. It is a pleasant thought that after so many decades of philistine repression such recourse to the Golden Age of Russian literary scholarship should once again have been motivated by Laurence Sterne.

49

‘Estestvenno, ni odin chelovek, imeyushchii otnoshenie k slovesnosti, ne stanet vser’ez utverzhdat’, chto fabul’naya zanimatel’nost’ vazhnee leksicheskogo otbora, chto pisatel’ dolzhen otrazhat’ zhizn’ i ne umstvovat’, chto Robinzon Kruzo luchshe Iosifa u ego brat’ev i tomu podobnee.’

7

Sterne in Poland Graz· yna Bystydzienska ´ and Wojciech Nowicki

One of the leading Polish critics has suggested that without Proust or Joyce Sterne would not have enjoyed such popularity in the twentieth century (Bartoszy´nski 1977, 677). Indeed, the experimental technique of modernist writers facilitated the reception of what would have looked like bizarre convolutions and contortions in the narrative of TS. After stream of consciousness, after Shklovsky’s provocative remark that TS was the most typical novel in the world precisely because it brimmed with a multitude of technical tricks, Sterne could take off in full colours rather than merely in the limited, sentimental guise of ASJ. But not until then. The reception on Polish soil, which this chapter describes (of necessity selectively), is divided into the ‘easy’ period with ASJ at the forefront and the ‘advanced’ period in the second half of the twentieth century, when TS began to be published and discussed. The early history of the process is a record of both literary and cultural appropriation. It was limited in the sense that only ASJ was known and read. But it was being read even before it was translated, for the cultured elites knew French and, less frequently, English. The Polish reception of Sterne’s novel, not untypically perhaps, especially in Central Europe, followed a double pattern: as a work of sensibility and as a text promoting freedom.1 The latter aspect can be illustrated by a case of wilful misreading or, rather, ‘underreading’ of Sterne in a hoax perpetrated by one Franciszek Salezy Jezierski, a failed lawyer and soldier who became a priest in the anarchyridden Poland of the late eighteenth century and devoted his life to the cause of reform. In the last quarter of the century, when independent Poland was being slowly dismantled by Russia, Austria and Prussia, a group of patriotic social activists emerged around the last king, Stanisl/aw-August Poniatowski, who attempted to rectify the rampant evils of the time by fighting the overprivileging of the nobles and the concomitant under-privileging of the

1

Sections of this essay also appeared in Nowicki 2002 and Bystydzie´nska 2002.

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burghers and peasants; the complete ruin of public finances; the weakness of the army and of the educational system. The group included Franciszek Ksawery Dmochowski, the celebrated translator of Homer and author of a classicist manual of poetics in the style of Boileau, Franciszek Zabl/ocki, a successful dramatist and the translator of Tom Jones, Jan ´ Sniadecki, astronomer, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, writer and political activist, and the leader of them all, Hugo Kol//la˛taj, a priest turned politician. As well as being a novelist, Jezierski wrote political pamphlets and, to judge by their popularity, he excelled in them. One of the most popular of these bore the title Katechizm o tajemnicach rza˛du polskiego jaki byl/ okol/o Roku 1735 napisany przez JP. Sterne w je˛zyku Angielskim, potym przel/oz·ony po Francusku, a teraz na koniec po Polsku (Catechism on the secrets of the Polish government, written about the year 1735 by Mr Sterne in the English tongue, subsequently rendered into French, and now finally into Polish). The copy which is kept in the Princes Czartoryski Library in Cracow is a brochure of only sixteen pages measuring 85 mm by 145 mm. It was published anonymously and Jezierski’s authorship is conjectural ´ (there are grounds for regarding Jan Sniadecki a collaborator), but the cover bears a handwritten note, probably by an early librarian, to the effect that the translator was Jezierski. The title page indicates that Sambor ‘at the Print Shop of His Imperial-Royal Apostolic Majesty’ was the place of printing and the year of publication is given as 1790. Sambor was at the time, following the First Partition of 1772–73, already within the bounds of Austria and functioned as a bogus place of publication – to put the Russian agents off the scent, a frequent expedient used by patriotic writers.The real place was Warsaw at the time of the Four Year Diet, on the eve of the proclamation of the first European democratic constitution in May 1791, which was to introduce a measure of civil rights into the sinking country. Jezierski is writing passionately against the nobles, blaming them for all the evils. It is the nobles who make the laws, he says, but such as would not in the slightest degree affect their golden freedom. In this country only the nobleman is a human figure, the burgher is merely half-human and the serf is non-human. The radical character of the catechism is fully revealed on the last page of the pamphlet, which contains a sarcastic ‘Creed’: I believe in the freedom of the noble estate in Poland, the creator of anarchy, oppression and abomination, which has deprived the peasants of human rights and the burghers of civil rights, from which aristocratic oligarchy came, causing discord, wickedness and division among the gentry into parties that emulate the impudence and imposture of the magnates. I believe that the King, divested of the power that belongs to the throne, is often unjustly blamed for the disasters affecting the country, whose true cause is the domination of aristocracy. I believe that the army, treasury, the law and security of the capital, governed by four departments, are the root of oppression, thievery, persecution and injustice. I believe in bribing the senators and deputies. I believe in their communion with certain ministers and in their greed. I believe

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in the resurrection of foreign violence and anarchy. I believe in the forgiveness of perjury and treason and yet the final rise of better government in Poland sometime. Amen.2

Not without reason was Jezierski called by his enemies Vulcan, the Thundermaker.There is nothing in the pamphlet that pertains to Sterne, directly or indirectly, except the attribution of authorship in the title. 1735 is a convenient date because at the age of 22 Sterne would have been mature enough to write a text like this. Why choose Sterne as the putative author? In patriotic circles, especially among the aristocratic Czartoryskis, Sterne was celebrated as a champion of freedom, along with writers like Rousseau. It was the starling-episode from ASJ, in particular the apostrophe to liberty, that gave Sterne this position, and the apostrophe was fairly frequently quoted in the writings of the Czartoryskis, who were not only literate in Sterne but knew him in the original, an astounding phenomenon in a country dominated by French culture, where the majority of novels from the West (such as Zabl/ocki’s Tom Jones) were naturalized via the French language. Jezierski knew the Czartoryskis personally and was infused with their anglomania and their cult of Sterne. Both for him and for his patrons Sterne’s name was an emblem of freedom, and he decided to use it on the title page of his virulent satire. Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, his wife, Princess Izabela Czartoryska and their children eagerly collected all writings of Sterne from the moment of their publication. Their daughter, Princess Mary von Württemberg (Maria Wirtemberska), inserted the liberty apostrophe in one of her sentimental novels written at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The catalogue of the Czartoryski Library contains all the works of Sterne, in various editions. A first edition of TS contains handwritten notes on the last, blank pages of its six volumes.These are impromptu translations, annotations and excerpts, probably by Prince Adam Kazimierz, the chief anglicist in the family. ASJ was available in the Czartoryski court both in English and in French but apparently not in Polish. There were at least three separate nineteenth-century translations of ASJ into Polish, the earliest by Stanisl/aw Kostka Kl/okocki in 1817, the second by Bogumil/ Wisl/ocki in 1845 and the third by W. Noakowski in 1853 (his

2

‘Wierze˛ i wyznaie˛ wolno´sc´ ? stanu Szlacheckiego w Polszcze stworzycielke˛ nierza˛du, ucisku, ohydy, która wyzul/a chl/opów z Prawa czl/owieka, a Mieszczanina z Prawa Obywatela, z którey pocze˛/l o sie˛ moz·nowl/adztwo Panów, wyrza˛dzaia˛ce niezgode˛, podl/o´sc´ i podzial/ Szlachty na partye ida˛ce za duchem szalbierstwa i zuchwalstwa moz·nych. Wierze˛, z·e Król wyzuty z wl/adzy nalez·a˛cej do Tronu, cierpi przymówki cze˛sto nadaremne o nieszcze˛s´cia Kraiu, których przyczyna˛ iest moz· nowl/adztwa przewodzenie. Wierze˛, z· e Woysko, Skarb, Straz· Praw i bespiecze´nstwo Stolicy podzielone, na cztéry dostoje´nstwa, iest przyczyna˛ ucisku, zdzierstwa, prze´sladowania i niesprawiedliwo´sci. Wierze˛ w przekupienie Senatu i Posl/ów.Wierze˛ w obcowanie ich z postronnemi Ministrami za porozumieniem sie˛ ich /l akomstwa.Wierze˛ w zmartwychwstanie cudzey przemocy i nierza˛du.Wierze˛ w odpuszczenie krzywoprzysie˛stwa i zdrady, i kiedy´s przecie otrzymanie lepszego Rza˛du w Polszcze. Amen’ (Jezierski 1790,16).

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initial still undeciphered).3 Stanisl/aw Kostka Kl/okocki, also known for his translation of Voltaire’s Zadig, based his translation on the 1769 French version by Frénais. The title in Polish is Podróz· Sentymentalna Wawrzynca ´ Sterna z poprzedzaja˛cym uwiadomieniem o z·yciu i dziel/ach autora (Laurence Sterne’s sentimental journey, with a preceding note on the life and works of the author). On the title page we find Sterne’s apostrophe to sensibility as a motto. In his Introduction, written earlier, in 1815, the translator recommends Sterne to the Polish audience as a writer well known to English and French readers, and ASJ as Sterne’s best work, which carries out a fundamental analysis of human emotions. As the greatest merits of this work, Kl/okocki mentions Sterne’s tender philosophy, the abundance and liveliness of his thoughts, variety of imagery, his ‘fiery’ imagination. According to the translator, this digressive work provides the reader both with profit and entertainment. Quite significant is the translator’s emphasis on Sterne’s originality, which, as he says, goes against the ‘slavish imitation’ so popular at the time. Nevertheless, he mentions that Rabelais, Swift and Montaigne had a great impact on Sterne. Kl/okocki also writes about Sterne’s life, quoting anecdotes from his childhood (e.g. how he got into the wheel of the mill). He mentions that Sterne signed his sermons with the name of Yorick and that this caused quite a controversy.At the end of his Introduction he gives a long quotation in Polish from TS on the character of Yorick. Kl/okocki addresses his translation to the reader who may not know French, as he translates all the French expressions into Polish. He also explains some cultural facts to the reader; for instance, instead of giving only the title of the chapter ‘Desobligeant’, he adds an explanatory subtitle ‘Dezobliz·antka czyli karetka pojedyncza’ (‘Desobligeant, or a single-person carriage’). On the other hand, he leaves out references to St. Cecilia and to ‘Hyde Park Corner’ and leaves out difficult terms like ‘the Anthropophagi’, ‘iambics’,‘an apostrophe’,‘inflections and delineations’.‘Spleen’ and ‘splenetic’ are translated as ‘ponury’, ‘zl/y humor’ (gloomy, bad-humoured), and ‘grand tour’ is explained as a tour through Europe (‘na objazdke˛ Europy’, p. 43), which indicates that certain fashionable vocabulary was not unknown in Poland at the time. Some effort is made to moderate eroticisms and obscenities.The very end of the novel ‘So that when I stretch’d out my hand, I caught hold of the Fille de Chambre’s’ is rendered into Polish as ‘Tak, z·e wycia˛gaja˛c re˛ke˛, natrafil/em na pokoiowe˛’ (p. 241:‘So that when I stretch’d my hand I came into contact with the Fille de Chambre.’) The French expression ‘Rien que pisser’ (ASJ, 86) is translated as ‘Nic wie˛cej tylko wysia˛´sc?’ ´ (p. 117:‘No more than to get out’). On the other hand, in some phrases the language of the translation becomes terse and strong, reminding us of the language of Old Polish: ‘the

3

Zofia Sinko in her scholarly introduction to the 1973 edition of Agnieszka Glinczanka’s translation mentions an earlier version by Erazm Korzeniowski done in 1793 from the Russian (not published, ms. in the Kiev Archives).

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lady’ (ASJ, 20) becomes a more colloquial and crude ‘moia Jéymo´sc’ ´ (p. 33) or the expression ‘brush my coat’ (ASJ, 49) ‘wyche˛doz·y´c mi suknie˛’ (p. 88). The translation does not seem to follow the sentimental tendency in Polish literature, as it does not use typical sentimental vocabulary and occasionally even leaves out some characteristic sentimental scenes, for instance Yorick’s weeping at Father Lorenzo’s grave. Nor does Kl/okocki capitalize letters in personifications or follow precisely Sterne’s typography (e.g. his italics). The second translation of ASJ was made from English by Bogumil/ Wisl/ocki in 1845, published in Leipzig under the title Yoryka Podróz· Uczuciowa przez Francyja˛ i Wl/ochy (Yorick’s emotional journey through France and Italy). The twelve lithographs by Tony Johannot present scenes mainly involving groups of people: on the title page a portrait of Sterne with his quill, four ladies, Sterne’s coat of arms with the starling and a group scene with Father Lorenzo; and eleven more lithographs, illustrating various kinds of travellers,Yorick with the Fransciscan monk at the remise door, with Mr Dessein opening the door, with the lady and the French officer, looking at the man in despair after the loss of his ass and the group of onlookers, La Fleur searching for the letter in Madame L’s presence, Yorick among the ladies at the Opera,Yorick and le patisser watched by La Fleur, the Marquis d’E depositing his sword,Yorick fastening the buckle of the fille de chambre’s shoe, and Yorick watching the dancing Bourbonnois peasants. The translator does not render into Polish the French intrusions into Sterne’s text, although he translates foreign names, e.g. on the title page instead of Laurence Sterne we have ‘Wawrzyniec Sterne’ and Father Lorenzo becomes ‘Ojciec Wawrzyniec’. It seems to be a faithful translation, although sometimes Wisl/ocki, as in the previous translation, provides explanations for the Polish reader.The name of Guido is rendered in its full form as ‘Gwido Reni’ (p. 6), a ‘desobligeant’ is again explained in a subtitle, the reference to Raphael (ASJ, 111) is made more concrete by referring to his ‘Transfiguration of Christ’ (p. 92) and ‘the King of Babylon’ (ASJ, 130) is deciphered as King Nebukadnezar (p. 109). Wisl/ocki, like Kl/okocki, avoids fashionable terms like ‘sentimental’, ‘spleen’ and ‘melancholy’. He translates ‘sentimental’ as ‘uczuciowy’ (emotional),‘melancholy’ as ‘jest /l upem bole´sci’ (painful),‘spleen’,‘splenetic’ as ‘ponury’ (gloomy). The translator does not seem to be consistent. Sometimes he comes closer to the more crude or proverbial expressions of Old Polish; the sentence ‘The poor monk blush’d as red as scarlet’ (ASJ, 26) becomes ‘Biedny mnich sie˛ zaczerwienil/ jak rak’ (p. 22: ‘The poor monk became as red as a boiled lobster’). Some extremes are toned down – instead of ‘I burst into a flood of tears’ (ASJ, 27) we have only ‘… z·em sie˛ rozpl/akal/’ (p. 23: ‘I burst into tears’). On the other hand, some fragments are constructed in a sentimental mode.The scenery where Yorick meets Maria is described in the translation with diminutives that were typical of a pastoral or a sentimental tradition: ‘the road leading to a thicket’ (ASJ, 150) becomes ‘nad dróz·yna˛ do gaiku blizkiego wioda˛ca˛’ (p. 125: ‘little road, little thicket’), and Maria’s ‘broken heart’ (ASJ, 152) becomes the more emphatic ‘ofiara˛ serca stroskanego i zakrwawionego’ (p. 127: ‘a victim of an anxious and bleeding heart’).

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There are some rare mistakes in Wisl/ocki’s translation as when ‘violent’ gets mixed up with ‘violet’ or when ‘nature’ is rendered only in its physical sense as ‘przyroda’, losing other eighteenth-century philosophical connotations of the word or references to human nature. The last nineteenth-century translation of ASJ is that by W. Noakowski: Sterna Podróz· uczuciowa przez Francye˛ i Wl/ochy (Sterne’s sentimental journey through France and Italy), published in Warsaw in 1853. It has six pictures by Bertall, the French printmaker well known as an illustrator of Balzac’s works, illustrating the exchange of snuff-boxes, the beautiful Grisset explaining the route to Yorick,Yorick holding Madame de Rambouillet’s hand, le patisser, La Fleur dressed up for Sunday and Yorick and the Fille de Chambre. Noakowski renders all the French intrusions into Polish, sometimes not very precisely: ‘physical precieuse’ (ASJ, 5) is translated as ‘najpierwsza kokietka we Francyi’ (p. 4: ‘the greatest coquette in France’) and ‘d’un homme d’esprit’ (ASJ, 19) becomes the clumsy ‘czl/owiekowi z dowcipem’ (p. 14: ‘the man with wit’). All foreign names are translated into Polish, e.g. ‘Lorenzo’ as ‘Wawrzyniec’ and ‘Janatone’ as ‘Joanna’. Like his predecessors, Noakowski clarifies some cultural realities for the Polish reader as when St ´ Jakóba w Iago in Spain is called more familiarly for the Polish reader ‘S. Kompostelli’ (p. 15). There are sporadic omissions in Noakowski’s translation, some not very significant, others very meaningful. The whole paragraph containing the apostrophe to liberty in the chapter ‘The Passport.The Hotel at Paris’ is left out, possibly because Poland was still under partition at the time and the apostrophe would not have passed Russian censorship (the previous translation by Wisl/ocki was published in Germany, which made quite a difference).The sentence about the equality of man – ‘as if man to man was not equal, throughout the whole surface of the globe’ (ASJ, 101) – is slightly modified in the Polish translation:‘czyz· wszyscy ludzie nie sa˛ sobie równi w obliczu Boga i przyrody?’ (p. 24: ‘are people not equal in the eyes of God and nature?’). Noakowski’s translation suppresses most effectively many of Sterne’s frivolities.The whole fragment about the behaviour of the clergyman in the theatre is left out (in the chapter ‘The Rose. Paris’). The sentence ‘But in Paris, as none kiss each other but the men’ (ASJ, 90) remains untranslated. The phrase ‘after a most vile prostitution’ (ASJ, 148) is moderated in the Polish version as ‘poniz·yl/em sie˛ niegodnie’ (p. 34: ‘I humiliated myself disgracefully’).The ‘Rien que pisser’ episode with Madame de Rambouillet is modified and shortened; the allusions to the fountain and Castalia are omitted. As in the previous translations words such as ‘sentimental’, ‘spleen’ and ‘melancholy’ are not used, although the Polish ‘splin’ appears once (p. 11). The translator readily uses the typical sentimental vocabulary of ‘rzewne’ (tender, melancholy) and ‘roskosznie’ (delightful). The expression ‘more warm and friendly to man’ (ASJ, 5) becomes ‘rzewne wspól/czucie’ (p. 4),‘the arteries beat all cheerily together’ is translated as ‘wszystkie te˛tna duszy bil/y roskosznie’ (p. 4). Descriptions of feelings are sometimes amplified in a sentimental way: ‘I felt a pleasurable ductility’ (ASJ, 22) is translated as

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‘czul/em jaka˛´s niewymowna˛ sl/odycz, nieznana˛ rozkosz, przejmuja˛ca˛ cal/a˛ moja˛ istno s´ ´c’ (p. 7: ‘I felt an inexpressible sweetness, unknown delight, involving my whole being’). Noakowski did not use Sterne’s dashes or capital letters in personifications; sometimes he linked two chapters concerning the same subject matter into one. To sum up, all three translations are rather faithful to the original version, with Noakowski’s carrying the greatest number of omissions. They all introduce some additional explanation of cultural realities to the Polish reader and all three texts, especially Kl/okocki and Noakowski, try to soften some of Sterne’s frivolities.The earliest translation, Kl/okocki’s, comes closer to the Old Polish style by using rather crude and colloquial language in some fragments.Wisl/ocki’s translation mixes the Old Polish style with some sentimental tendencies. Noakowski is the closest to the sentimental tradition: most mindful of the Polish political and religious realities, it omits the fragments that could either offend the clergy or provoke censorship. The translations certainly helped to foster admiration for Sterne. He was a favourite author among the Polish Romantics, Adam Mickiewicz,Tomasz Zan and Juliusz Sl/owacki included. As Czesl/aw Mil/osz reminds us (1983, 209), Mickiewicz and his Wilno University fellow-students playfully called themselves ‘Sterneans’. Earlier, in Pul/awy near Lublin, at the seat of the Czartoryskis, it had long been fashionable to bestow upon friends the affectionate nickname ‘Yorick’ and to adorn small gifts with an imaginary portrait of Yorick (Aleksandrowicz-Ulrich 1968, 23). The most impressive and yet perhaps not uncharacteristic instance of the Sterne cult can be found in a travel book of 1828 by Krystyn Lach-Szyrma entitled Anglia i Szkocja: Przypomnienia z podróz· y roku 1820–1824 odbytej (England and Scotland: memories of a journey made in 1820–1824). As tutor to one of the young Czartoryskis, Lach-Szyrma went on a Grand Tour in reverse: to Switzerland, Germany, France and on to England and Scotland, with Italy omitted in the circuit. His account starts with a description of Monsieur Dessein’s inn (spelt ‘Desseign’) in Calais: travelling for a scholarly purpose, we could not overlook the place in which the famous Sterne conceived the earliest ideas for his Sentimental Journey. Our first word upon entering the courtyard was: ‘Where did Sterne stay?’ We were shown his former lodging – to this day it is marked with an inscription on the door:‘Sterne’s chamber’.The room not being occupied at the time we took possession of it. Its windows were looking out on a small garden arranged in the English style. The beds in it were cultivated with greatest care and abounded with the most beautiful flowers, of which some, it being August already, were ending their lives while others were starting.This made the view absorbing and even delicate, as the garden, in which so many changes were occurring, was rather scanty. But there is expanse within confined limits! Calling to mind the words of a living English poet in which he says that the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts too deep for tears I easily understood why Sterne, selecting for his descriptions only small and trivial things, managed to raise them to such sublimity that his A Sentimental Journey

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shines more in the history of literature than so many more works whose content was occasioned by great and substantial subjects. Genius can give a huge shape to the smallest body because it is capable of comprehending an infinity of existences. In order to experience better the thoughts and beauties of Sterne, we read his works on the spot.The public libraries delivered them to our home for a small fee. We commenced with A Sentimental Journey and finished with the largest work by this writer, Tristram Shandy, today not always understood by all the English. We passed the remainder of our time in reading English newspapers and inquiring after news which could prepare us for the continuation of our intended journey.4 (trans.W. Nowicki)

In the first half of the nineteenth century there were travel narratives written specifically with an eye on Sterne’s digressive artistry and patent emotionalism. Such were produced, among others, by Maria Wirtemberska and Fryderyk Skarbek (1792–1866), the latter also writing novels in the manner of Sterne (Bartoszy´nski 1977; Aleksandrowicz-Ulrich 1968). While interest in Sterne certainly continued in the course of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, the real opening of the cornucopia came in the wake of political changes happening in Poland and the Soviet bloc in the 1950s. In 1954, a year after Stalin’s death, Pa´nstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, the leading state publisher, put on the market a new, definitive version of ASJ. It was done by Agnieszka Glinczanka, a celebrated translator who also has to her name Conrad, Dickens, Mandeville, Murdoch, Smollett, Gordimer, Carson McCullers 4

‘odbywaja˛c podróz· w celu naukowym, nie moz·na byl/o omina˛´c miejsca, w którym sl/awny Sterne powzia˛l/ pierwsze pomysl/y do swej Podróz·y sentymentalnej. Wchodza˛c na dziedziniec pierwszym sl/owem byl/o: “Gdzie mieszkal/ Sterne?” Pokazano nam jego dawne mieszkanie – do dzi´s dnia oznaczone jest napisem na drzwiach: “Sterne’s Chamber”. Pokój ten, nie be˛da˛c na ten czas zaje˛ty, nam sie˛ dostal/. Okna z niego wychodzil/y na ogródek w angielskim gu´scie zal/oz·ony. Grze˛dy w nim najstaranniej utrzymywane obfitowal/y w najpie˛kniejsze kwiaty, z których jedne, gdyz· to byl/o juz· w sierpniu, dochodzil/y kresu swego istnienia, drugie je rozpoczynal/y. Sprawial/o to widok zajmuja˛cy, a nawet tkliwy, ile z·e ogródek, w którym tyle zmian zachodzil/o, byl/ nader szczupl/ym. I w ciasnym obre˛bie jest pewna szeroko´sc´ ! Przypomniawszy tu sobie sl/owa pewnego angielskiego poety, w których wyraz·a, z·e najmniejszy rozwijaja˛cy sie˛ kwiatek zdolny jest poda´c my´sli dla samych /l ez za gl/e˛bokie, /l atwo poja˛l/em, dlaczego Sterne do opisów swoich obieraja˛c tylko drobne i pospolite rzeczy umial/ je wznie´sc´ do takiej wysoko´sci, iz· jego Podróz· sentymentalna wie˛cej w dziejach literatury ja´snieje niz· tyle innych dziel/, do których wielkie i okazal/e przedmioty tre´sc´ podal/y. Geniusz zdolny jest najmniejszemu przedmiotowi nada´c olbrzymia˛ posta´c, bo zdolny jest poja˛´c niesko´nczono´sc´ jestestw. Aby lepiej czu´c my´sli i pie˛kno´sci pism Sterne’a, czytali´smy jego dziel/a na miejscu. Dostarczyl/y nam ich do domu za mal/a˛ opl/ata˛ publiczne czytelnie. Pocza˛wszy od Podróz· y sentymentalnej, sko´nczyli´smy na najobszerniejszym tego pisarza, dzi´s nawet nie dla wszystkich Anglików zrozumial/ym, dziele Tristram Shandy. Reszta zbywaja˛cego czasu schodzil/a na czytaniu gazet angielskich i zasie˛ganiu wiadomo´sci, które by mogl/y nas przygotowa´c do zamierzonej dalszej podróz·y’ (Lach-Szyrma 1981, 14–15).

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and Salinger. Glinczanka provides a faithful and readable translation, repairing all the glaring inadequacies and mistakes of her predecessors. She avoids the fake attribution ‘By Mr.Yorick’ since the name of the author is clearly on the title page. She makes some effort to imitate the typography, although without an excess of dashes.This first version, as well as the second of 1959, was supplied with an afterword by the critic Witold Chwalewik, who, while trying to bring Sterne closer to the famished Polish reader, somewhat ideologized his subject: Sentimentalism could have played the role of an emotional protest against the unjust political system, the protest manifesting itself at least in a tear of sympathy for the simple and unhappy man, in whose fate the political ‘reason’, being an expression of the bourgeois-feudal compromise in England, was not much interested.5 (trans.W. Nowicki)

A remark like this must have been a necessary tribute to communist censorship. No such adornment seemed necessary in 1960, when the only popular book on eighteenth-century writers to date appeared, featuring a chapter on Sterne. The book, entitled U kolebki realizmu angielskiego (At the cradle of English realism) was written by George Bidwell, an Englishman living in Poland, whose English books for a Polish audience were translated by his wife Anna. While providing details of Sterne’s life, mostly in an anecdotal manner, Bidwell also gave rich quotations from his works, including the letters and TS, without, however, caring for so much as a page reference to his sources. The 1950s witnessed also the first and so far only translation of TS by Krystyna Tarnowska, who, among others, had translated into Polish Defoe, Virginia Woolf, Osborne,Twain and Bellow.This 1958 edition is unique in its graphic design: it appeared in two volumes in a small handy format imitating that of the original, with an image of Sterne on the frontispiece (after Reynolds) and eight illustrations by Cruikshank and Hogarth, a luxury never to be repeated in any of the subsequent reprints of the book. The typography was followed very closely. The novel was supplied with a 39-page Preface by Witold Chwalewik, this time without ideological intrusions. The Preface, which retains some critical interest for the student and general reader, takes a structuralist or formalist approach by aiming to discover the dominant value in TS: Chwalewik sees it in a humorous exploitation of the phallic motif (Tarnowska 1958, 12). In the second edition of 1974 the Preface became a considerably shortened afterword.Tarnowska’s translation is likely to stay, because it is faithful, smooth and congenial. It gives the taste of the original but avoids any heavy-handed stylization in Old Polish.

5

‘sentymentalizm mógl/ odgrywa´c role˛ protestu uczuciowego przeciwko niesprawiedliwemu ustrojowi, protestu wyraz·aja˛cego sie˛ cho´cby tylko /l za˛ sympatii dla czl/owieka prostego i nieszcze˛´sliwego, którego losem “rozum”, be˛da˛cy wyrazicielem kompromisu burz·uazyjno-feudalnego w Anglii, niewiele sie˛ interesowal/’ (Glinczanka 1959, 155).

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Once the popular demand for Sterne was satisfied, it was time for scholarship. In 1973 the Glinczanka translation was published in the distinguished National Library series, with a critical apparatus supplied by Zofia Sinko. It contains four illustrations: Reynolds’ picture of Sterne, Richard Cosway’s portrait of Eliza Draper, the exchange of snuff-boxes and the scene with the grisset. The long Introduction (135 pages) discusses the historical background, eighteenth-century fiction in general, TS as an experimental novel of its time and various aspects of ASJ. Sinko wrongly attributes the first translation to Stanisl/aw Kostka Potocki rather than to Kl/okocki, which may be explained by the similarity of the names. More than half of the Introduction is devoted to the European reception of the novel, including that in Poland. Some of her observations come from her earlier study of the relation between the Polish fiction of 1764–1830 and the eighteenthcentury English novel. She claims that Polish novelists did not imitate Sterne’s sentimentality, and took inspiration instead from his technique and humour (Sinko 1961, 198). Sinko’s findings were accommodated in what amounts to a canonization of Sterne in Polish literary studies or badania literackie, i.e. a long entry in the lexicon of Polish Enlightenment literature. Kazimierz Bartoszy n´ ski undertakes to define ‘sternizm’ there as a European tendency – a set of characteristics taking its origin in the writings of Sterne and visibly transformed by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers. An eponymic neologism like this may not be very common or popular in the West, but in Polish or, more broadly, Slavonic filologia, there is a long tradition of coining literary terms from proper names, e.g. osjanizm, bajronizm, walterskotyzm. Bartoszy´nski sees the following features in Sterne as the core of ‘sternizm’: his methods of story-telling, the construction of narrative time, the parodying of epic forms (in TS) and a combination of sentimentalism with humour which serves to create in ASJ the special emotional atmosphere (Bartoszy´nski 1977, 677).The tenor of what the critic says reflects Polish structuralism: Sterne’s fiction reveals and emphatically stresses the structures essential for the novel (of his epoch and the entire genre): the existence of the narrator– narratee situation, an active narrator, novelistic omniscience combined with the experimental character of the fictional world and an epic time … the concentration and intensification of fictionality make Sterne’s work into a kind of metalinguistic utterance on the writing of the novel and the novel’s poetics, and at the same time constitute a dialogic text in relation to narrative genres, a text in a high degree parodying old epic literature and, in anticipation, the novel of the later years.6 (trans.W. Nowicki)

6

‘Powie´sc´ Sterne’a odsl/ania i dobitnie akcentuje zasadnicze dla powie´sci (jego epoki, a takz·e powie´sci w ogóle) struktury: istnienie sytuacji narracyjno-odbiorczej, aktywno´sc´ narratora, zwia˛zek wszechwiedzy powie´sciopisarskiej z kreacyjnym charakterem swiata przedstawionego, cechy czasu epickiego … Ta koncentracja i intensyfikacja “powie´sciowi´sci” sprawiaja˛, z·e utwór Sterne’a stanowi swoista˛ wypowied´z metaje˛zykowa˛ dotycza˛ca˛ pisania powie´sci i jej poetyki, a zarazem jest tekstem “dialogowym” wobec gatunków powie´sciowych, tekstem w wysokim stopniu parodystycznym w stosunku do epiki dawniejszej, a takz·e, antycypuja˛c, w stosunku do powie´sci lat pó´zniejszych’ (Bartoszy´nski 1977, 679).

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Thus defined, ‘sternizm’ is then applied to the Polish novel of the period ending around 1830. If Bartoszy´nski codifies contemporary Polish interest in Sterne, Graz·yna Bystydzie´nska’s study of 1993, W labiryncie prawdy: Studia o twórczos´ci Laurence’a Sterne’a (In the labyrinth of truth: Studies in Laurence Sterne), widens its scope. Her book is divided into four chapters.The first examines the so-called Fragment inédit, a text of uncertain authorship but sometimes attributed to Sterne. Typographically unlike the later texts, the ‘Fragment’ anticipates typically Sternean themes: the search for self-identity, the difficulty of social communication and the subjectivity of all perception. In a chapter devoted to the sermons, Bystydzie´nska looks into an area as yet unknown to the Polish reader.While acknowledging their connections with the latitudinarian ethic of the eighteenth century, she finds originality in the style of the sermons, their elegant simplicity, vivid characterization of biblical figures and dramatization of narrative discourse. A separate chapter discusses the conception of artistic space in TS, with theoretical grounding in the work of the Russian-born semiotician Jurij Lotman. Space is understood literally, as a topography (Shandy Hall), and metaphorically, as the operations of the narrator’s mind. Both share the qualities of Newtonian mechanistic physics, with a heavy admixture of parody, however, since the ‘mechanisms’ of human life are shown to fail.The binding concept seems to be that of the journey: Tristram’s visit to France and the narrator’s peregrination through the story carry eschatological overtones because they are treated as a means of escaping death. The final chapter concentrates on Sterne’s ‘play with the reader’ in ASJ, communication strategies analysed on three levels: implied author–implied reader, narrator-narratee and character-character. The ludic elements serve to defamiliarize the convention of the travel book on which ASJ is based and mask the didactic tendencies of the novel, thus making it attractive and universally appealing. Bystydzie´nka’s remains so far the only book-length study, but Sterne is very present in the cultural consciousness of Polish readers. Every year undergraduate and postgraduate students write theses on TS and ASJ. Glinczanka’s and Tarnowska’s translations are regularly re-issued, although in the absence of a national bibliography and a huge variety of often ephemeral publishing houses on the market, it is difficult to keep track of all releases. The marked preponderance of ASJ is evident also in the transmedial adaptations: it is available in an audio version from the library of the Polish Association of Blind People in Warsaw (shelf number 2287), and in summer 2001 it was released as a radio play in two parts, on the 22nd and 29th of August, at 22.30, each part lasting 35 minutes, with famous actors performing the roles.

8

Conceiving Selves and Others: Sterne and Croatian Culture Tatjana Juki´c

The performance of Sterne in the history of Croatian literature and in Croatian culture is uncannily similar to the relation of story and narration in TS. Just as the Sternean narration cannot possibly reach the time of its own writing, the presence of Sterne in Croatian culture constitutes the overflowing yet suspended narration that lags behind its own narrated material. In other words, in the past two centuries Sterne’s texts have been read and utilized and have thus helped constitute the historical narrative of modern Croatian culture and the modern Croatian language, although they themselves – as the active agents in this narrative process – were for a long time absent from the very frame that they helped constitute. Suffice to mention a key reference that has been formative in many ways for the present text about Sterne: while the first important acknowledgement of Sterne in the history of Croatian literature occurs in a text written in 1844, the first Croatian translation of Sterne was published as late as 1951. Furthermore, again as with TS, this paradoxical conceit is not merely an isolated narrative figure within the history of modern Croatian culture but its innate modus operandi. For the past two centuries, that is, the history of Croatian literature and its language has operated as a history of blatant narrative gaps and discontinuities, very much in terms of a race of the discourse of the national culture for the national language and the national identity essential for its constitution. Moreover (and equally paradoxically), Sternean narration is exemplary for the making of modern Croatian literature, specifically because Sterne operates solely in its odds and ends, and is present only marginally, labouring as a rule on the very borderline between its own story and narration. This odd positioning of Sterne’s discourse within the framework of Croatian literature is central precisely because of its eccentricity, since this very literature is being actively constituted around borderlines, ends, grafts, odds and voids (more so, in any case, than in most other European cultures). The construction of Croatian national and cultural identity in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries involved for the most part a radically unstable notion of borders, territoriality and language (most nineteenth-

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century Croatian intellectuals spoke German or Hungarian much better than Croatian). The issue of foreign cultural influence was therefore perceived as a disturbingly political affair, not least because the very notion of foreignness – and hence any construction of cultural identity – eluded any coherent demarcation. Some historical information might come in handy: at the time of the publication of Sterne’s books, Croatia was part of the Habsburg Empire, operating as a kind of geographic and symbolic cordon sanitaire between Vienna and the Ottoman Empire. Croatia remained part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1867 until 1918, while in the period between the two world wars it was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, though part of its Adriatic coast was held by Italy. After 1945 Croatia was part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and it was not until 1992 that it was internationally recognized as a sovereign country. To complicate things further, Croatia itself is at the same time only a part of itself, in that it comprises three regions (Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia), each with its own highly idiosyncratic linguistic, historical and cultural profiles. Even from within, that is, Croatia operates in terms of a difficult cultural synecdoche, managing a loose symbolic value of its own tripartite genealogy. Furthermore, it is possible to argue that the recent heightened visibility of the Balkans in cultural theory has to do with this same work of the geographic as symbolic and overtly structural borderline, because the postcommunist territories of the New Europe (and especially the Balkans) seem to constitute a highly operable portal between the theorizing Occident and the Other of the Orient resisting representation. As a result, analysis of the Sterne reception in Croatia requires that we take into account fundamentally different and radically unstable cultural, historical and political mappings. However different, though, these mappings all depend on an intense experience of the instability of borders, be they cultural, historical or political. While the experience of volatile boundaries makes the mapping of Croatian culture (and territoriality) congenial to some of the fundamental tenets of contemporary cultural theory, it also reminds one of the cultural genealogy of Sterne himself, with his own legacy of border crossing. In other words, Sterne’s discourse, though a thoroughly English cultural construction, relies heavily on various histories of voluntary exile or else on more contractual forms of cultural exchange. Sterne’s biography (involving difficult border crossings between Ireland, England and France), the hyperactive history of the European reception of his works, the narrative geography of his discourse (the mapping dependent on the symbolic production of the Netherlands, France, Italy...), all testify to the figure of Sterne as the figure of border itself. In view of this complex modality of borders and histories, the project of tracing the initial taking place of Sterne in Croatian culture borders itself on intractability. Or, to put it differently, the initial placing of Sterne in Croatian culture is analogous to the tracing of the narrative event of Tristram’s conception that necessarily eludes the conception of its own narration. The catalogues of the National and University Library (NUL) in Zagreb, for instance, reveal that Sterne in Croatia long antedates the now canonized first major Croatian acknowledgement of Sterne: the 1844 text of

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Putositnice (Traveloguettes) by Antun Nemcˇi´c. The stacks of the NUL contain, inter alia: a copy of ‘Lorenz’ Sterne’s Briefe an seine vertrauteste Freunde, nebst einem Fragment im Geschmacke des Rabelais (Letters and the Rabelaisian Fragment) published in Leipzig in 1776; a copy of the 1776 German translation of ASJ published in Bremen; a copy of the 1780 German translation of ASJ published in Mannheim; a copy of the 1787 German translation of Sterne’s Letters published in London; a copy of the 1798 edition of TS, in English, published in Vienna; a copy of the 1800 edition of ASJ, in English, published in Basel; a copy of the first volume of Oeuvres complètes de Laurent Sterne, published in Paris, in 1803; a copy of TS, in English, published in Leipzig in 1849. There are several inferences to be made from this record. As might have been expected, Sterne was a presence in what was becoming the modern Croatian culture long before explicit acknowledgements in literature and criticism, or translations of his works into Croatian. It is symptomatic, however, that many surviving copies of Sterne’s works in Croatia, published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, are in English, which modifies the commonly held assumption that, well into the nineteenth century, German translations were the principal if not the only instrument of cultural mediation of English literature to Croatian readers (especially in continental regions of central and eastern Croatia). Still – again as is the case with Sterne’s narration itself – the existing record of the central Croatian library is merely a recorded trace of loss and displacement.Thus the 1916 catalogue of the library contains a call number for a Sterne volume missing from its present catalogues, but the history of this loss is unrecorded. In other words, records themselves trace rather overtly the general difficulty that records and catalogues have in maintaining not merely the loss or the devastation of what was out of their reach in the first place, but also the difficulty they have in containing the history of the items that they do register, as well as the cartography of possible other locations (archives, private collections), whose records and systems constitute yet another such record. The existing information in the records show that – according to call numbers – the Sterne volumes stored in the library date back to the prehistory of the NUL, and that before its foundation they had probably belonged to the fund of the former local Jesuit library. Furthermore, the inventory books of the Library did not register the history of the volumes that entered the Library till after 1920, and even then only very rarely did they record the names of the donors or the sellers. As a result, one cannot positively determine when the various volumes entered Croatian libraries, if and how they changed hands, and whose libraries or private bookcollections stored them.The only elusive traces of origin are to be found in the sporadic signatures left by the previous owners, or in the remaining exlibris records.These suggest that in the course of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries – at least in continental Croatia – Sterne was read mainly by the aristocracy: the 1780 Mannheim edition of the German translation of ASJ is labelled with the ex-libris of ‘Ludovici Comitis Sermage’, as the title number 955, while the 1776 Leipzig edition of the Letters in German and the 1787 bilingual London edition of the Letters were

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signed by a ‘Bedekovich’. Two editions of ASJ (Bremen, 1776, a German translation, and Basil, 1800, in English) register merely the illegible archaic initials of their previous owner as ‘N.K.’ (or possibly ‘M.K.’). Though the coast differed from continental Croatia, foreignness conditioned also the very core of what was to function as its regional cultural identity. Indicative here is the case of Dzˇono Rasti´c (Resti), a Ragusan poet and politician, who wrote satirical poetry in Latin, directed against the French influence in Dubrovnik. Eminent Croatian literary historians, however, see his satire as originating in his knowledge of the English satirical tradition – specifically of Sterne and Addison (see Kombol 1945, 326 and Vratovi´c 1978, 150).As a result, English, excluded from this paradoxical core of identity, constitutes its margin, as its positive Other. The City Archive in Dubrovnik, for instance, contains records of at least two copies of Sterne in English, in the libraries of local aristocrats. The library of Toma Basiljevi´c (Bassegli) contained a copy of ASJ in English, published in Göttingen in 1779 (Kosti´c 1988, 23), while the Gucˇeti´c (Gozze) family had a copy of The Works, published in London in 1783.Their Sternes in English, however, must be seen against the predominance of Italian and Latin titles, indicative of the bicultural identities of Basiljevi´c/Bassegli and the Gucˇeti´cs/Gozzes. Even so, their reading of Sterne remains but an elusive historical trace: though the Dubrovnik City Archive keeps their library records, their erstwhile copies of Sterne cannot be located, though they may possibly be stored in the recesses of the local Sciences Library, awaiting registering and conservation. Apart from the names of minor Croatian aristocrats, the inspection of the ex-libris records in the Sterne volumes now in possession of the NUL has produced a vital piece of information: the ex-libris in the copy of the French translation of Sterne’s Complete Works (Paris, 1803) reveals the name of J.C. Draskovich, and the information that it was included in Draskovich’s library ‘In Bib. Zagr.Anno 1826’.This is vital insofar as it provides a narrative link between the mainly unacknowledged Croatian consumption of Sterne in English or in German translations, and the recognition of his impact on what could be considered the conception of modern Croatian literature and language. Count Janko Drasˇkovi´c was one of the leading figures of the socalled Illyrian Movement in Croatia, the cultural and political movement of the Croatian intelligentsia in the 1830s and the 1840s that aimed at the restitution of the Croatian language as the language of culture and learning, and at the construction of a distinctly Croatian cultural, territorial and national identity, based on its Slavonicity. Though grotesquely minuscule when compared to the intellectual craze provoked by Sterne in France and in Germany, this Croatian trace of Sterne is nonetheless singularly interesting for Croatian observers. Symbolically, it locates Sterne’s writings in the very centre of Croatian culture at the time (marginal as it was), decentring its Germanicity. Moreover, it locates Sterne in the library of the person who – in the accounts of recent Croatian history – figures as a metaphor of the very conception of modern Croatian culture. It also provides a contextual framework for the first major narrative performance of Sterne in a literary text written in Croatian, Antun Nemcˇi´c’s Traveloguettes, written in 1844 and published in 1845.

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Antun Nemcˇi´c was an active participant in the Illyrian Movement; indeed, he justified the publication of his Traveloguettes precisely by the need to educate the nation in terms of its own (unrecognized) culture. In his Foreword Nemcˇi´c states that he would never publish his travelogue were ‘our [i.e. Croatian] literature as verdant as German literature, for instance’; also, the humour invested in his project is suitable insofar as ‘a nation that has only just begun to educate its soul cannot dive straight into the depths of serious knowledge’.1 This cultural conception, however, is from its very beginning marked by an inability to control its narration, as Nemcˇi´c himself – quite in the manner of the Shandean narrator – stresses in the text of the Foreword: In this book, the reader will find many a thing he did not expect, and might just as well search in vain for the things he hoped to find.That is not my fault. Because I myself had always believed, agreeing with Rousseau, that a man is a free creature – but ever since I took to writing I became a Doubting Thomas.2

In this account of various interactive beginnings and conceptions, it is worth noting that Sterne’s writing is explicitly acknowledged in the very first chapter of what would later be itself acknowledged as one of the first texts in the history of modern Croatian literature. Furthermore, one might say that the discourse of ASJ actively organizes Nemcˇi´c’s first chapter, as a symbolic zygote of the rest: Now let us return to my ‘money-saving traveller’. – If this traveller happens to be a pietist as well, which is not the case in Yorik’s [sic!] (Sterne) classification, he should not jeopardize his life and his purse, and dare the daggers of Neapolitan scoundrels in order to make it to Vesuvius; because, anyway, he is not travelling there to admire the grave of Plinius, belching smoke and fiery lava, but to invigorate his sinful soul by the miraculous blood of St. Januarius. As I said, he needs no Januarius – or St. Anthony of Padua; because what he seeks far away – he will find at home.Well, in Ludbreg3 too one finds miraculous blood. But we are like Mohammedans; the ones who live near Mecca make their pilgrimages elsewhere. Some, for instance, go to Budapest,4etc.5

1

2

3 4 5

‘Da se nasˇe knjizˇestvo onako zeleni kao sˇto na primjer njemacˇko ... narod koji se je jedva latio posla svog dusˇevnog izobrazˇenja, ne roni rado odmah u dubljine ozbiljnoga znanja’ (1965, 33). ‘Cˇitatelj ce ´ u ovoj knjizi mnoga na´ci ˇsto nije ocˇekivao, a mozˇebiti zaludu trazˇiti ono cˇemu se je nadao. Tomu ja kriv nisam. Jerbo i ja sam svagda s Rousseauom vjerovao da je cˇovjek stvor slobodan – nu otkako sam se pera prihvatio, posto sam nevjerovani Toma’ (1965, 33). A small town in NW Croatia. An allusion to the proponents of the pro-Hungarian policy in Croatia at the time. ‘Vratimo se sad k momu ‘putniku iz ˇstedljivosti’ natrag. – Ako je putnik ove vrsti koji se u klasifikaciji Yorika (Sterne) ne nalazi zajedno i pijetista, tad mu ne treba da se bodezˇom napuljskih lupezˇa izvrgne i s pogibelju zˇivota i kese do Vezuva potrudi; jerbo on ionako ne ide tamo da se nad pusˇe´cim onim i ognjenu lavu rigaju´cim grobom Plinija divi, ve´c da si kod cˇudotvorne krvi sv. Januara gresˇnu dusˇu okrijepi. Ne treba mu, rekoh, ni Januara – ni Antuna Padovanskog; jerbo ˇsto daleko trazˇi – kod ku´ce se nalazi.Ta i u Ludbregu nahodi se cˇudotvorna krvca.Ali mi smo kao i muhamedanci; oni koji blizu Meke obitavaju, hodocˇaste dalje na prosˇtenje. Ko na primjer nekoji u Budim, itd’ (1965, 37).

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This first appearance of Sterne in Traveloguettes foregrounds further structural interventions into narration reminiscent of ASJ. Thus – very much in the manner of ASJ – Traveloguettes tend to overdo a description of the traveller’s coach, deliberately confusing the means of the act and the act itself, both in travelling and in its narration. Furthermore, Nemcˇi´c’s travelling narrator organizes his discourse into chapters by editing chapter titles directly out of a mid-sentence into a title, only to continue the edited sentence as if there were no breach or discontinuity.This procedure eventually disrupts the very concept of boundary within narration, as if the very genre of travelogue – the genre determined by the act of border-crossing – were but a metaphor of the narrative act, and vice versa. While this certainly applies both to Nemcˇi´c’s Traveloguettes and Sterne’s ASJ, it also calls for an active theorizing of travelogue as genre, which will take into account the fundamental paradox of story and narration as conceived in TS. The symbolic geography of Nemcˇi´c’s travelogue is equally paradoxical. Nemcˇi´c travels to Italy, but only in order to delineate the bounds of his own culture, defying delineation. His mapping of Croatia thus turns out to be an ever-intrusive mapping of its boundaries, as if its cultural space could not exist but as the continuous performance of cuts and transfers. When he leaves his home near the Croatian town of Koprivnica, it is only to identify it as the margin of a historical boundary, that separating Austria-Hungary from the Ottoman Empire.When he reaches Zagreb, the capital of Croatia – where, among other things, he intends to visit Count Drasˇkovi´c – it is only to register its pervasive Germanicity. In order to reach Italy, he records a passage through the territories of the north-east Adriatic coast, controlled by Hungary, though historically Croatian. In Italy, his main concern is to record the traces of Croatian culture in Trieste and Venice. In other words, Nemcˇi´c’s travelogue seems to map not the identifiable cultural space, but its impossibility. It is worth noting that Nemcˇi´c’s contemporaries emphasized the presence of Sterne in Nemcˇi´c’s text, as if ASJ were a yardstick against which to measure both the identity of Traveloguettes and the lack of it.This paradox looms large in a letter by Stanko Vraz, a poet and one of the leaders of the Illyrian Movement. In 1846 Vraz wrote: Last year we saw the publication of a great book, by Antun Nemcˇi´c Gostovinski, esq., a book full of most beautiful thoughts. Its title is Traveloguettes, and it reminds me greatly of Sterne’s ASJ; still, it contains not the slightest loan from that English classic, but is fully autonomous and truly original.6

6

‘Lane je izisˇla izvrsna knjiga g. Antuna Nemcˇica ´ Gostovinskoga, koja je puna prekrasnih misli. Zove se Putositnice i mnogo podsje´ca na Sterneovo Sentimental Journey; ali nema ni najmanje pozajmice iz tog engleskog klasika, djelo je potpuno samostalno i uistinu izvorno.’ The passage from Vraz is quoted according to Filipovi´c (1972, 26) and Duda (1998, 217). Differences in the two transcriptions of Vraz’s letter seem to be due to the proofreaders’ interventions, since Filipovi´c quotes from the version published in Archiv für slav. Phil., 36/1916, while Duda quotes from the version published in Kweˇty, on 13 June 1846.

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Interestingly enough, the same year Traveloguettes was published, Sterne surfaced in another Croatian text – a satirical diatribe directed against the Illyrian Movement and its national conception. The pamphlet was printed in Jena, in 1845, as Szerdchike7 (Heartwood), under a pseudonym of ‘Ivan Sterne’. The author refers to his pen name as a shield against malevolent critics and future misinterpretations; they will necessarily miss their target, since ‘No one will know my name’ (1845, 16). The pamphlet ridicules the notion of a culture constructed around national language rather than civil rights or parliamentary reforms, and upholds Hungarians as ‘brethren’ and role models. Though written in Croatian, Sterne’s diatribe contains a dictionary of crucial terms translated into German, indicating that the intellectual elite in Croatia at the time considered Croatian a foreign language. The author, constructed around the name of Sterne, remained unknown until 1908, when he was identified as one Aleksa Praunsperger (see Filipovi´c 1972, 26 and Detoni-Dujmi´c 1984, 55). But the practice of associating its authorship with Sterne’s name8 continued not merely in nineteenth-century Croatian literature but also in its twentieth-century history and criticism (see Vodnik 1908, 635 and Detoni-Dujmi´c 1984, 55). It remains listed in the catalogues of the NUL as a work by ‘Ivan Sterne’, without reference to Aleksa Praunsperger. Nemcˇi´c’s travelogue – which maps not the identifiable cultural space but its impossibility – is recognized in the twentieth-century surveys of Croatian literature as one of the founding texts of modern Croatian literature. In a Shandean manner, these surveys construct a cultural identity around the narrative search for an event that cannot be. Furthermore, most twentiethcentury studies of Nemcˇi´c use his reference to Sterne as an avenue to contextualize Nemcˇi´c within Europe. Sterne thus becomes a figure of a search for a national and cultural identity, as well as of its European framework, strangely suspended between an imaginary inside of Croatian literature and its overt cultural otherness. In twentieth-century criticism of Nemcˇi´c and the Illyrian literature Nemcˇi´c’s reference to Sterne figures as the central, identifying feature of Traveloguettes, as if it were no longer possible to describe his travelogue without a reference to Sterne. In other words, the parenthetical ‘Sterne’ of Traveloguettes outgrew its conception within Nemcˇi´c’s travelogue, to act as its interpretative frame and to legitimize its historical narrative. This reference to Sterne was extended to other Croatian nineteenth-century writers (Janko Jurkovi´c,Vilim Korajac) who favoured overt narration, paradox and comic effect.As a result, the burgeoning local Sterne gave rise to the term ‘Croatian

7

8

The latter-day transliteration renders the title as Srcˇike. Ironically, the title refers to the concept of cultural pith or core, though the text argues against it. Vladoje Dukat says in 1913 that ‘the anonymous author of Heartwood’ would never have taken Sterne’s name for his ‘nom de plume had he not been certain that the circles for which he wrote were well acquainted with it’ (1913, 152).

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Sterneans’ (‘hrvatski sternovci’),9 still used as the name for a group of nineteenth-century writers who wrote farcical non-realist fiction even though they show hardly any identifiable evidence of knowing Sterne. Once again, Sterne seems to have produced effusive narration from the odds and ends of its own conception. This overactive recognition of Sterne in Croatian criticism goes back to the 1913 study by Vladoje Dukat, entitled ‘O nasˇijem humoristima: Antunu Nemcˇi´cu, Janku Jurkovi´cu i Vilimu Korajcu’ (On our comic writers: Antun Nemcˇi´c, Janko Jurkovi´c and Vilim Korajac). Though Dukat identifies a plethora of foreign travelogues structuring Traveloguettes (Heine, Johann Gottfried Seume, Jan Kollár), his true ambition seems to be the legitimization of Sterne as the ‘founding father’ of the eccentric yet sentimental strain of European (travel) writing first represented in Croatia by Nemcˇi´c (1913, 149, 151). As such, Dukat’s text is also the first major study of Sterne in Croatian, and it is certainly worth noting that it is essentially comparative in its approach. Dukat’s text contains extensive quotations from ASJ in English, ˇ uvstveno putovanje and also offers the first Croatian translation of its title as C – a version that gave way to the now canonical Sentimentalno putovanje. Dukat’s argument about the pre-eminence of Sterne in Nemcˇi´c surfaces in the most influential twentieth-century history of Croatian literature, by Antun Barac. According to Barac, Nemcˇi´c is the most fruitful of the Illyrian writers of fiction, whose travelogue is modelled on Sterne and Heine (1954a, 258; 1954b, 146). A narration reminiscent of Sterne and Jean Paul dominates also Nemcˇi´c’s unfinished novel Udes ljudski (Fate of Man) – the would-be first Croatian bourgeois novel (Barac 1954a, 262). In the 1960s, Branimir Donat takes up Dukat’s arguments in order to characterize an entire tradition of nineteenth-century Croatian fiction as ‘Croatian Sterneanism’. (This is explored further in Detoni Dujmi´c 1984.) Donat takes this procedure one step further, and quotes Sterne in order to contextualize historically a group of subversive Croatian writers of the 1950s (specifically Ivan Slamnig). According to Donat, Slamnig’s metafictional strategies and affinity for humour and paradox (defying the then prevailing dogma of social realism) originate in ‘old and already forgotten’ traditions of Croatian fiction that include Nemcˇi´c, Korajac and Jurkovi´c (1961, 206–7), writers who all hark back to ‘the obligatory Sterne’ (1961, 210–11). In Donat, Sterne becomes a figure facilitating a long Croatian literary history of subversion – a history oblivious of its own conception. In the past thirty years, however, Sterne in Croatian criticism retreats back to Nemcˇi´c. Sterne solidifies into a lasting presence in most analyses of Nemcˇi´c, and the sheer repetition of his name legitimizes its effect in the studied material and in Croatian criticism. In addition, most recent studies featuring Sterne in Nemcˇi´c are further legitimized by their institutional status, namely that their authors are eminent scholars and university teachers,

9

As in Branimir Donat’s ‘A supplement to the critical study of Croatian Sterneanism’ (‘Prilog analitici hrvatskog sternijanstva’) and Dunja DetoniDujmi´c’s ‘An Essay on Croatian Sterneans’ (‘Ogled o hrvatskim sternovcima’).

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shaping the outlines of the Croatian academic tradition.10 When in 1998 Dean Duda says that Nemcˇi´c’s travelogue – though marginal in terms of genre – is the ‘pinnacle of Croatian narration of the mid-century,’ and that a reference to Sterne ‘situates it within a generic history that functions as a literary given’ (1998, 216–18), his commentary is at the same time a suitable metaphor for the history of reading Sterne within national literature and the process of its internal authorization. Thus outlined, the history of Sterne in Croatia functions at the expense of suppressing its excesses, even though it acknowledges its structuring paradoxes. Hardly anyone in Croatia remembers Jaksˇa Cˇedomil, a critic who wrote extensively about the theory of novel and in 1888 mistook Sterne and Richardson for one and the same author.11 Similarly forgotten is Franjo Ciraki, author of a comic novel in verse entitled Jankovo ljetovanje (Janko’s Summer Vacation, 1905). Unlike Cˇedomil, Ciraki was well acquainted with Sterne: a copy of TS, in English, published in Leipzig in 1849 (now in possession of the NUL) shows his ex-libris. He refers to Sterne in his 1871 lecture on the development of novel (1871, 771). In his Recˇenice (Scrapbook, 1899), entry 13 reads: ‘Alas, poor Yorik [sic!].’ His narrator in Jankovo Ljetovanje is as self-reflexive and as excessive as Nemcˇi´c’s, producing a tellingly Shandean description of a nose (1905, 30). It is equally symptomatic that Ciraki’s novel of 1905 originates in the same predicament as Nemcˇi´c’s travelogue: the impossible mapping of Croatian culture. Ciraki’s aim is the cultural mapping of Slavonia (Eastern Croatia), though it produces merely the symbolism of its various boundaries. Yet Ciraki and his Sterneanism are missing from Croatian literary history, as if the construction of its identity depended on a stern economizing of its borders and its excesses. Ciraki’s Sterne merely paves the way for the economizing of excess in the very core of Croatian cultural memory. Compared to the excessive acknowledgement of Sterne in Nemcˇi´c, the lack of it in the case of Antun Gustav Matosˇ is as telling as a Shandean blank page. Yet Sterne is pervasive in Matosˇ, and Matosˇ dominated Croatian culture in the fin de siècle. In addition, Matosˇ was a lasting influence on modern Croatian literature, not least because he conceived it as a dialogue with French and German arts and aestheticisms. Paradoxically, although he conceived his Croathood as an obsessive dialogue with foreignness (as an exile from Austria-Hungary to Serbia, Germany, Switzerland, France, as a traveller to Italy), in socialist Yugoslavia he was labelled a nationalist and downplayed, because of his nationalism, in the narratives of national literatures. Sterne surfaces in Matosˇ’s travelogues, short stories, literary criticism and letters.‘I have forgotten to tell you that, apart from Montaigne, my favourite book is Tristan [sic!] Shandy,’ says Matosˇ in his letter to Milan Ogrizovi´c, of

10

11

To name but a few: Rudolf Filipovi´c (1972, 26), Aleksandar Flaker (1976, 50), Ivo Vidan (1995, 47, 52). Cˇedomil’s blunder appeared in an article that he published under the assumed name of Pasˇko Zagorcˇi´c on the front page of Narodni list, printed in Zadar on 11 April 1888.

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22 August 1907 – only to continue with a Shandean paradox determining his own position:‘My tragedy is that I was born a laugher; laughter harmed me more than crying, especially in Croatia.’12 Shandean paradox features in Matosˇ’s letters also as a figure of his own authorial position. In his letter to Ogrizovi´c, dated 6 September 1907, Matosˇ writes about sending a card ‘to the anonymous proofreader of Novosti, who ... printed my “Alas, poor Yorick” as “Alas, poor Jovica”’ (1973, 63). The comic effect is achieved here through the then common Croatian and Serbian phonetic transcription of Sterne’s (and Shakespeare’s) Yorick as ‘Jorik’, and its vocative as ‘Joricˇe’. Only through this translation can Yorick glide by mistake into ‘Jovica’ (vocative: ‘Jovice’), a Serbian male name so common that it reads as the epitome of Serbness. As a result, Sterne’s Yorick facilitates in Matosˇ a confrontation with a linguistic Other, positioned in such a proximity to Matosˇ’s voice that it becomes interchangeable with it. This impossible mistaking of one for the Other generates anger and a general contestation of naming, evocative of Shandean paradoxes: Adah [Matosˇ’s friend,T.J.] is now angry with me. Her husband reproves of me for writing anonymous attacks, though what I wrote was neither anonymous nor an attack. That was a criticism, a short one, and it was not anonymous, because I am not anonymous even when I am, while they are anonymous even when they are not.13

The paradox of naming implies the Shandean paradox of birth.Thus Matosˇ continues:‘I was born on 13 June 1873, on a Friday. Though I witnessed the act and was its principal participant, I cannot quite recall what happened. Today I know it was not tragic. My passage to the mystery of life was smooth.’14 It is as indicative that Matosˇ uses Sterne not only as a trope of his authorial position, but also in his mapping of Croatian cultural space, positioning his writing within a symbolic geography already produced by Nemcˇi´c and Ciraki. It is hardly surprising that Matosˇ’s geography supports the tradition of narrating the event and the place escaping representation. His travelogues and short stories produce Croatian localities as spaces of loss – be it the nostalgic loss of an exile coming back to a home no longer his own, or the radical discontinuity in the sedimentation of the communal memory of the place. Sentimental chaplains in such places figure in Matosˇ as tropes of Sterne’s Yorick. Matosˇ’s travelogue entitled ‘Kod ku´ce’ (‘At Home’) – written

12

13

14

‘Zaboravih ti re´ci, da mi je osim Montaignea najdrazˇa knjiga Tristan Shandy’; ‘Tragicˇno je kod mene, da sam rodjen smijacˇ: smijeh mi je, narocˇito u Hrv., visˇe ˇskodio od – placˇa’ (1973, 55). ‘I zato se Adah srdi na mene. Njen cˇoek mi predbacuje da pisˇem anonimno i napadaje, dok ono niti je anonimno ni napadaj. Ono je kritika, brza kritika, a anonimna nije zato, jer nisam anoniman ni kada to jesam, dok su oni anonimni i kada to nisu.’ ‘Rodjen sam 13. /VI/ 1873. u petak. Prem sam tome cˇinu prisustvovao i bio tu glavna osoba, ne sje´cam se kako je to bilo. Danas znam, da nije bilo tragicˇno. Moj put iz misterija u misterij zˇivota bijasˇe gladak’ (1973, 64).

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in 1905, after his long exile from Croatia – features a strangely impure vision of pure Croaticity in the county of Turopolje (central Croatia): Andrija Palmovi´c, the chaplain as unhappy and as sad as Yorik [sic!], prayed for us in that old chapel behind the trees. Hail to thee, noble county, named after the noble urus,15 with an urus on the noble waters of the Odra and the Lomnica rivers, with your head on the green pillow of the Vukomerice hillside, and your peasant shoes on the green waters of Ludwig of Posavina! Even though you have given us no dignitaries apart from your onions and Governor Jelacˇi´c, your ancient municipality, full of woods, wildlife and noble wooden huts, full of the infidel nests of the various Skerleczes and Festeticses, your pigs and your noblemen enthral me with their pure, archaic sound of home ... [Y]ou are the intensified Croathood, and your quiet primeval image is the image of pure Croatian soul.We love Croatia, because we love ourselves. In pure Croatian landscape we get to know the elements of our own souls.16

Matosˇ’s Yorick of 1905 seems, however, but an internal cross-reference to his Yorick of 1900, when in exile he wrote ‘Talking about the Times Past’ (‘Nekad bilo – sad se spominjalo’). Matosˇ’s central interest in that story is the representation of a village in Turopolje with its thwarted late nineteenth century Croathood. His I-narrator remembers giving a toast in his uncle’s house: While toasting, I quoted from some twenty poets, in Greek and Latin, in Croatian, from the ones I had read and the ones I had not, celebrating homeland, uncle, aunt and chaplain.Then I choked on a thimble of wine, and this heroic act prompted the chaplain, venerable Domagoj Sˇpanovi´c, to propose a toast to Croatian people. His humour and his sickly head reminded me of immortal Sterne, of poor Yorick.17

Consequently, when Matosˇ maps the geography of his exile in France or his travels in Italy, his references to Sterne facilitate a strange inversion of the

15

16

17

Even Matosˇ’s implicit pun about the name of the county breeds impurity: the county of Turopolje was named after ‘tur’, the Croatian name for urus – which also happens to be a colloquial term for backside.The nearest English equivalent would be a near-pun of ‘urusfield’ as ‘arsefield’. ‘Iza drve´ca, u onoj staroj crkvici, molio je za nas Andrija Palmovi´c, nesre´cni i kao Yorik tuzˇni kapelan. Da si mi zdravo, plemenita grofijo, nose´ci ime plemenitog Tura, sa turom na plemenitim vodama Odri i Lomnici, sa glavom na zelenom vanjkusˇu Vukomerica i s opancima na zelenoj vodi Ljutovida Posavca! Osim luka i Jelacˇi´ca bana ne dade nam ni jednog velikana, ali starodrevna tvoja op´cina, puna ˇsuma, divlja´cˇi i plementih drvenjara, nevjernih gnijezda raznih Skerlecza i Festeticsa, tvoje svinje i tvoji plemenitasˇi zanose me cˇ´istim arhajskim, doma´cim zvukom ... [T]i si potencirano hrvatstvo, i tvoja mirna, tiha, starodrevna slika je slika cˇ´´iste hrvatske dusˇe. Mi bo ljubimo Hrvatsku, jer ljubimo sebe. U cˇ´istom hrvatskom pejzazˇu upoznajemo elemente dusˇe nasˇe’ (1955, 148). ‘Zahvaljuju´ci se, citirah jedno dvadesetak ˇsto latinskog i grcˇkog, ˇsto hrvatskog, cˇitanog i necˇitanog pjesnika, i slavljah domovinu, ujaka, tetu, kapelana. Progrcnem poli´c vina kao naprstak i potaknuh tim junacˇkim cˇinom kapelana, cˇasnog Domogoja Sˇpanovi´ca, da nazdravi hrvatskom narodu. Njegov me humor i bolezˇljiva glava sjeti na besmrtnog Sternea, na bijednog Jorika’ (1951, 13).

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outside as the inside, and vice versa, producing a lasting dislocation of Matosˇ’s speaking positions. His travelogue, entitled simply ‘Pariz, u jesen 1902’ (Paris, the autumn of 1902), proposes an imaginary dialogue with a German-speaking woman from Croatia visiting the Louvre and fainting from shock on hearing the Croatian language. The text ends with Matosˇ’s address to a Notre Dame beggar girl reminding him of his first love and the Zagreb cathedral: [W]hen I saw you smile with your blue eyes, I had to lean on the wall, and when I came to and recovered my composure, I tossed my last coin into your lap.You’re smiling in disbelief? Oh, do trust me, I am not one of those who want to save their souls by donating old buttons to church charities.And if this sentimental promenade has no ending as happy as that of ASJ by kind and gentle Sterne, it is not my fault (or yours). It is not our fault that the night is still young and that no merry apple-cheeked French maid will stumble to our distant beds.18

As a result, when Matosˇ refers to Sterne in his criticism, his reading seems suspended between the text of an Other and autobiography, in a self-reflexive paradox as logical as that of Shandean narration.That is particularly evident when Matosˇ refers to Sterne as an exemplary travel-writer (1940, 276), or in his text about Stevan Sremac, a Serbian writer whom Matosˇ describes as his principal Serbian friend and protector (1955, 245). Sremac, says Matosˇ, ‘adored his country as Sterne did his’ (1955, 248), quoting three times from TS in order to describe Sremac’s humorous patriotism (1955, 248, 255, 256). Sterne as a figure of authorial and cultural identity-construction in Matosˇ thus once again facilitates an uneasy mapping of the outside as the inside, and vice versa, promoting border as the site of writing.The epitome of this practice in Matosˇ is Sterne surfacing as an attribute of sympathy (‘Sterneisches Mitleid’) in a text about Croatian authors that Matosˇ wrote in German in October 1909 for the Zagreb-based Agramer Tagblatt, (1940, 321). In our narrative of uneasy conceptions it hardly comes as a surprise that Dukat quotes from Matosˇ’s criticism of Sterne to support his evaluation of Sterne in Nemcˇi´c (1913, 164). Eventual Croatian translations of Sterne – of ASJ as Sentimentalno putovanje po Francuskoj i Italiji in 1951 and of TS as Tristram Shandy in 1964 – seem strangely obsolete, just as the event of birth in TS comes after the fact of its narration. In addition, both Croatian translations of Sterne were published after the publication of Serbian translations, intended for the readers in entire

18

‘kada se nasmijaste modrim vasˇim ocˇima, morah se nasloniti na zid, a kada se pribrah i povratih, bacih vam u krilo posˇljednji bakar.Vi se smijesˇite i ne vjerujete? O, vjerujte mi, da nisam od onih, koji nose u crkvu staru dugmad za spas dusˇe. A ako ova sentimentalna ˇsetnja nema tako veselog svrsˇetka kao Sentimentalno putovanje njezˇnog i ljubeznog Sternea, nije moja (a niti vasˇa) krivica. Mi nismo krivi, da josˇ nije duboka no´c i da medu nasˇe udaljene krevete ne zabasa rumena i vesela francuska sobarica’ (1955, 56). Similarly, Matosˇ appropriates Sterne’s method of classifying the travellers in order to describe British and American tourists as the Other misappropriating the Italianicity of Florence (1967, 290).

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Yugoslavia.19 As such, Croatian translations of Sterne appear doubly belated, once again tracing cultural identity as a system of differences. Even so, both translations feature their own cultural histories. ASJ appeared in Croatian as part of a large-scale project of the principal statesponsored publishing house, Zora. The editor of the series was Gustav Krklec, a writer renowned for his poetry loaded with paradox. Yet Eugen Pusi´c, the translator of ASJ and an eminent legal scholar, told me that the translation of Sterne had actually been initiated by Mate Ujevi´c, a preeminent Croatian encyclopedist and an opponent of the communist regime. Interestingly enough, among Ujevi´c’s principal encyclopedic projects was a personal lexicon of A.G. Matosˇ, registering three references to Sterne (1955, 170, 484, 526). While Eugen Pusi´c wrote a short afterword to ASJ, the author of a more comprehensive afterword in TS (translated by Franjo Hartl) was Ivo Hergesˇi´c, the founding father of the Comparative Literature Department at the University of Zagreb. Both authors emphasize the presence of Sterne in Nemcˇi´c (1951b, 150; 1964, 539); neither of them acknowledges Matosˇ. However, Hergesˇi´c in his afterword produces the first comprehensive survey of Sterne in Croatia after Dukat’s text of 1913. He stresses the importance of Sterne for the work of Janko Jurkovi´c and for the pseudonym of the author of Heartwood (1964, 539). He also stresses that comprehensive ˇ itanka portrayals of Sterne’s life and his works appeared in Vladoje Dukat’s C iz englesko-americˇke i skandinavske knjizˇevnosti (Anglo-American and Scandinavian Literatures:A Reader, 1903) and in his Slike iz povijesti engleske knjizˇevnosti (Pictures from the History of English Literature, 1904) (1964, 539).Yet Hergesˇi´c misses Sterne not only in Matosˇ but also in Ciraki. He takes note of a reference to Yorick in Ciraki’s Scrapbook, but says that it should be attributed to Shakespeare, not Sterne (1964, 536), apparently unaware of Ciraki’s own copy of TS, his novel or his literary criticism. Hergesˇi´c’s afterword is not only indicative of the Sterne reception in Croatia until just after the Second World War, but also signals Sterne’s relevance for the Croatian academic community from the 1950s on. In Hergesˇi´c, Sterne seems to act as a pretext for the arguments in favour of comparative literature when it comes to interpreting national literature. Thus, Hergesˇi´c contextualizes Sterne within Europe in order to isolate similar self-reflexive literary devices in other authors, read and used in Croatia at the time. Sterne, as it were, justifies the need for a comparative study of literature in terms of its literariness and sanctions literary theory as crucial for interpretation. Hergesˇi´c’s reference to Viktor Shklovsky (1964, 537) is a telling indication of the importance of Russian formalism for such a view of Sterne, and of the remodelled interest in Sterne in Croatia after the introduction of Russian formalist texts into the local academic community.

19

ASJ as Sentimentalno putovanje kroz Francusku i Italiju was translated by Dragomir M. Jankovi´c and published in Belgrade, in the Cyrillic alphabet, in 1926, and TS ˇ endi was translated by Stanislav Vinaver and published in Belgrade, as Tristram S in 1956.

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While official cultural politics in Yugoslavia after the Second World War had embraced Soviet socialist realism as its dogma, the Yugoslav split with Stalin in 1948 opened up a space for certain revisions. The early 1950s in Croatia saw the introduction of Russian formalists’ texts, subverting socialist realism in favour of literature’s literariness, with Shklovskyan Sterne as an epitome of (subversive) reading. Shklovsky soon became a standard textbook for local literary scholars – and students – filtering down early and forming into a groundwork for other and different critical models, and thus paving the way for a unique cultural function of literary criticism. In other words, if the Croatian Sterne of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the Sterne of travelogue and its extreme generic borderliness, the post-Second World War Croatian Sterne has been the Sterne of literary theory. Both these Sternes, however, remain stakes in the difficult cultural politics embracing the hyperactivity of Others and Othering; one could well say that literary theory has in the past fifty or so years operated on the intractable perimeters of Croatian culture in the same way as did the eccentric travelogues of Nemcˇi´c and Matosˇ in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A good example of this idiosyncratic impact of Russian formalism – and its Sterne – is Heretici i sanjari (Heretics and Dreamers), a selection from the Russian writing of the 1920s edited by Aleksandar Flaker in Zagreb, in 1954. Flaker’s selection features an excerpt from Shklovsky’s A Sentimental Journey, which shows the enthusiasm that Shklovsky and his friends had for Sterne (1988, 160). In 1988 a second, revised edition came out, again with Shklovsky’s ASJ and his reference to Sterne. Flaker’s note to the revised edition outlines succinctly the idiosyncrasies of the local cultural politics still alive in the cultural memory of my generation: My selection of 1954 was still ‘heretical’, when compared to Soviet literary life at the time, as it was ‘visionary’, when compared to the ‘Western’ reception of Soviet literature. The publishing houses and the institutions working with Soviet literature in France and in Italy were at the time still controlled by proSoviet communists, while elsewhere this area was influenced by anti-Soviet or else traditional Russian emigrants … not inclined to disclose the hidden values of the October literature. On the other hand, there were as yet no … Slavonic Departments interested in this area – only in traditional philology. This kind of book could therefore be produced only in our milieu.20

20

‘Moj je tadasˇnji izbor bio, u odnosu na situaciju u sovjetskom knjizˇevnom zˇivotu, josˇ uvijek “hereticˇki”, a “sanjarski” je bio u odnosu na “zapadnu” recepciju sovjetske knjizˇevnosti. Naime, naklade i institucije koje su se bavile divulgacijom sovjetske knjizˇevnosti stajale su, u Francuskoj i Italiji, pod kontrolom sovjetskoj politici odanih komunista, drugdje je pak josˇ uvijek djelovala naglasˇeno antisovjetska ili bar tradicionalna ruska emigracija, ... a ni ona nije bila sklona otkrivanju zapretanih vrijednosti i knjizˇevnosti koja se vezivala za oktobarsku revoluciju. ... [S]lavistike koja bi pokazala zanimanje za ovo podrucˇje josˇ nije ni bilo: prevladavala je josˇ uvijek filolosˇka orijentacija.Takva je knjiga mogla nastati tada jedino u nasˇoj sredini’ (1988, 5).Victor Erlich’s book on Russian formalism appeared a year later (1955) in the US.

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Though the history of the Croatian Sterne is a narrative about the oddity of endings as much as it is about the intractability of conception, this meeting point of various expropriated Sternes of the European Easts and Wests seems a fitting concept for an end. If it is not as happy as that of ASJ by kind and gentle Sterne, it is not my fault (or yours).

9

Sterne in Hungary Gabriella Hartvig

Until recently, the eventful reception of Sterne’s works in Hungary has always been coloured by political affairs. Sterne’s Hungarian reputation, indeed, has its origins in the French Revolution – or, more specifically, in the Jacobinism that the revolution spawned within Hungary.1 The earliest translation of ASJ and the YE were made by a political convict in prison in the 1790s. In the ‘glorious days’ of social realism, the writer of the Preface to the first full translation of TS (published in 1956), also an ex-political prisoner, firmly held the opinion that Sterne had prepared the way for the French Revolution and had destroyed the feudal order of society. And at the end of this line of ‘politicized Sterne’, in the most recent imitation of ASJ, Érzékeny útazások Közép-Európán át (Sentimental journeys through Middle Europe, 1991), Störn Ló´rinc, Laurence Sterne, appears as an Irish spy, an accredited military attaché whose hobby-horse is to spy on socialist countries. Hungarian Sterne scholarship began with the invaluable findings of Professor Sándor Fest, the earliest philologist of English and the founding father of the study of English-Hungarian literary connections. He devoted three pages to the possible source texts of Hungarian Sterne translations and imitations in his 1917 essay, ‘Angol irodalmi hatások hazánkban Széchenyi István fellépéséig’ (English Literary Influences in Hungary until the Appearance of István Széchenyi). Fest calls attention to Rudolph Sammer’s Viennese editions of Sterne’s works in English, which were well known in Hungarian literary circles in the wake of Hungarian Romanticism. In the late 1930s, Rezsó´ Gálos discovered fragments of Ferenc Verseghy’s interlinear copying and imitation of TS in a copy of the literary journal Uránia (1794) which Verseghy had taken with him into prison. In 1977 another transcript by Verseghy was discovered by Mária Szauder in a copy of Albrecht von Haller’s Versuch schweizerischer Gedichte (Attempt at Swiss Poems) (Vienna, 1789).Verseghy’s volume was bound especially for him with blank pages in it for his sole use in the prison of Kufstein. In it we find, besides some sixty pieces of poetry and prose fragments in his handwriting, a few pages copied

1

I am indebted to OTKA (FO 29203) for a research grant.

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from the ninth volume of TS, from which we may assume that he read the whole book while in prison.This so-called Haller volume was presented to the Hungarian National Library in 1974. Finally, I identified the source text and anonymous translator of the earliest fragment from TS in Hungarian (1824), Walter Shandy’s letter of advice to uncle Toby, TS, 8.34 (Hartvig 1999–2000; 2000). As with most eighteenth-century English works, it was through Viennese mediation that Sterne reached Hungary. The peace of 1763 which marked the end of the Seven Years’ War resulted in Austria’s abandoning France as an ally and turning, with renewed interest, towards England. The effects of political changes soon made themselves felt in the intellectual life of Viennese literary circles: interest in English literature and culture, Austria’s ‘Anglomania’, began in the last decades of the eighteenth century and spread to Hungary in the following years. As in other European literatures, Sterne was introduced together with Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Ossian and Edward Young. In the 1780s Latinate classicism still coexisted with the more modern ideas of the Enlightenment: following the German example, Hungarian writers wanted to import the masterpieces of foreign literatures. In the late 1760s, for example, Ossian had been translated into ‘Vergilian’ hexameters by the Viennese bard Michael Denis, imitating the heroic forms of Jesuit epic translations: using his Latin hexameter translation as a source, János Batsányi translated ‘Mors Oscaris, Filii Caruth’ (The Death of Oscur the Son of Caruth) into Hungarian hexameters in 1789. In the same year Milton’s Paradise Lost was first translated in full from a Latin hexameter translation by Ludwig Bertrand Neumann. Pope’s Essay on Man,Young’s Night Thoughts and Sterne’s ASJ and YE were, however, rendered from French or German translations, which marks the paradigmatic change of the 1790s. In the early Romantic period, as a result of the widespread influence of English literature in Europe, the first translations of original English texts began to appear. Gábor Döbrentei, the founder of the first literary journal in Transylvania and the second translator of YE, encouraged the translation of English works from the original by ending his ‘Life of Sterne’ (1816), which he borrowed from Sammer, with the hope it would extend and publicize English language and literature: it is desirable that many of our young people should devote themselves to learning the English language and should show the nation by translating the works of that lofty and so original Literature what affinity the English mind can kindle in the slumbering Hungarian soul. (quoted by Fest 2000, 689)

Sterne Imprisoned: the Early Influences The earliest Hungarian translations of Sterne were prepared in prison. In 1794 Ignác Martinovics, an ex-agent of Leopold II began to organize an oppositional group, the Jacobins, with the hope that he could ultimately gather an army to free the country from the suppression of the Habsburg monarchy and put an end to serfdom.The plot, however, was soon discovered. Martinovics, with four other leaders, was executed, and some twenty

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members were sentenced to two to ten years in prison. Among the convicts of the conspiracy there were three outstanding literary figures: the Franciscan monk László Szentjóbi Szabó, Milton’s translator, who died in prison very young, Ferenc Kazinczy and Ferenc Verseghy, the earliest admirers of Sterne, who were released after serving six to eight years. In the Spielberg prison Verseghy, an ex-Paulian monk, began to copy TS between the lines of the literary journal Uránia. A curiosity of this interlinear copying is that we also find the first part of a version of Verseghy’s translations of the Marseillaise: he used a coded language, placing dots above certain letters, which, when read together, make up the text of the marching song of the French revolution (he also composed some of his ‘unprintable’ pornographic poems by the same coding strategy; see Tarnai 1966). Three pages of copied Condillac is followed by a Shandean imitation,‘Az én kedves uram Bátyámnak Sándi Gábor Fó´strázsamester Úrnak Élete és Vélekedései, ammint részenkint saját szájábúl hallottam’ (The Life and Opinions of My Dear Uncle Gabriel Shandy as I Have Heard from Him Part by Part). The 68-line-long fragment is subtitled ‘Az Ajtók’ (The Gates) – the original subtitle, which Verseghy crossed out was, ‘Gabriel Shandy looks me deeply in the eye’ – and the short narrative, telling the story of the re-opening of the garden gates of two families, is meant to deny the maxim,‘always regard your best friend as your potential enemy in the future’.The story offers the illuminating conclusion, that ‘without true sentiments friendship merely means cold visits, rigid conversations, artificial amusements, and empty compliments or vain contests as it can be seen in the pompous conversations of the fashionable world’.2 After his release in 1804,Verseghy wrote another Shandean imitation, this time booklength: Nagy nevezetú´ és nagy tekintetú´ Kolomposi Szarvas Gergely úrnak víg élete és nevetséges vélekedései (The Merry Life and Ridiculous Opinions of Gergely Kolomposi Szarvas, Esq., 2 vols, 1814-15). In this epistolary work the narrator appears as the secretary of Kolomposi Szarvas, his uncle. Kolomposi, visiting the town, Pest, promises to write letters about his adventures to a friend whom he has left behind in the village Kolompos. The nephew-narrator is asked to polish his uncle’s language: however, he also decides to publish the letters secretly. The novel begins with a Shandean dedication addressed to ‘My Honourable Lady’ whom the author begs to take the work with her to the country in her ‘ridicule’, that is, reticule. Another allusion to TS is the chapter on ‘My Uncle’s Kind Heart’ where the narrator praises the good-heartedness and sentimental feelings of Kolomposi: I know well that his opinion about the poor may seem ridiculous before the world: but when I think of how the good heart finds a sentimental pleasure in the practice of kind acts even when he is deceived by those to whom he does

2

‘szeretet nélkül a’ barátkozás csak hideg látogatásokbúl, merevény conversatiókbúl, eró´ltetett mulatságokbúl és üres complimentumokbúl vagy hiú contestatiokbúl állhat, mint a’ mostani nagyvilágban az etikettel körülsövényezett társalkodás’ (Gálos 1938, 374).

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good, I cannot but take him a man happier in this world than the one who, governed by his cold reason, questions even after his benevolent act as to whether he should rather not have done it.3

There is another truly Shandean character in the story: the young Bajzfalvi, who, like Walter Shandy, possesses a vast storehouse of theories but has not got the vaguest idea about their practical use: How many times did I hear poor Bajzfalvi about holding forth on the weapons and arms of the ancient Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians which can do neither harm nor good to us today; nonetheless, he heard nothing about the danger of gunpowder under his very nose until one day he exploded his own house with it.4

The author’s plan was to write a humorous novel, a polyphonic narrative which, in the Preface, he likens to ‘a big garden where ten or twelve bands, standing a few yards from one another, are simultaneously playing music, each playing a different note’ (Verseghy, 1804–05, 10). However, Verseghy could not maintain the humorous style and, although he prepared a third volume, he gave up publication. Together with his other manuscripts, this third part was published in 1982–83. The first translations Ferenc Kazinczy began to translate YE in prison and ASJ after he was released. He continued to revise his translations long after their publication. As he admits in his letters, he made comparative translations, consulting the French and German versions and having ‘the original on his table’ as well. About his knowledge of English he wrote years later that as early as 1791, ‘I took some lessons in the English language but illness did not allow me to continue. However, I grasped enough to be able to understand something by divination.’5 The earliest evidence of his having begun the translation we can find in a letter that he sent from his prison in Brno: ‘I can also show new pieces cleansed of all the dirt on them: Yorick’s letters to Eliza, from the

3

4

5

‘Tudom ugyan, hogy vélekedései a’ szegények iránt a’ világ eló´tt nevetségesek; de ha meggondolom, hogy a jó szív a’ jótéteményeknek gyakorlásában még akkor is érzékenyen gyönyörködik, mikor azokban, a’ kikkel jót tesz, megcsalatkozik; lehetetlen, hogy boldogabbnak ne tartsam e’ világonn azt, a’ ki hideg eszének vezérlését követvén, még jótéteménnye utánn is kételkedik, ha nem kellett volna-e azt inkább nem cselekedni’(Verseghy 1804–05, 60). ‘Hányszor hallottam szegény Bajzfalvit a’ régi Görögöknek, Rómaiaknak és Carthágobélieknek fegyvereirú´l, mellyek nekünk már most sem nem árthatnak, sem nem használhatnak, leczkéket tanúlni; az órra eló´tt fekvó´ puskapornak erejérú´l pedig semmit sem tudott mindaddig hallani, még vele saját házát meg nem gyújtotta’(Verseghy 1804–05, 77). ‘1791. nahm ich einige Stunden Lectionen in der engl. Sprache. Krankheit erlaubte mir nicht fortzufahren. So viel habe ich aber doch erhascht, dass ich etwas divinierend verstehen kann’ (Kazinczy 1890–1911, 17: 131).

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French!’6 Sándor Fest identified his French source-text as Frénais’ Lettres d’Yorick à Eliza, et d’Eliza à Yorick (Paris, 1776) (Fest 2000, 374). A few years after his release he began to work on the publication of his translations. By editing the works of his fellow poets and earlier poets, he wanted to establish a canon of Hungarian literature. When preparing the publication of his own translations he worked on the order of the volumes very carefully: from its earlier success he knew that his revised Bácsmegyey, the rendering of a German novel, would sell well and could therefore subsidize the rest. But he was also aware that his other translations – pieces by Goethe, Lessing, Herder, the whole of Ossian, and Sterne’s two novels – were more valuable. Kazinczy’s original plan was to publish them in fifteen volumes where Marmontel would have begun the volumes, Yorick and Eliza’s letters, together with Goethe’s work would have come in the second, Hamlet and Ossian in the sixth and Bácsmegyey in the ninth volume, preceding Gessner and Klopstock’s Messiah in the remaining four (Hász-Fehér 2000, 47). The publisher, Tamás J. Trattner, originally wanted to collect 400 subscribers, which would have enabled the launching of the publication (although this was thought to be an impossibly great number). In his advertisement, he wanted the buyers of the first three volumes to commit themselves to buy and prepay for the next three volumes and then, upon their publication, the following three. He sold no individual volumes, so it is perhaps not surprising that the following month, only one subscriber showed up at Trattner (Hász-Fehér 2000, 49). Kazinczy now offered a different agreement, to reduce the number of the volumes to nine and begin the publication with Bácsmegyey. He even took on himself the costs of the first 500 copies. In return Trattner would have to accept the payment of 100 subscribers and begin immediately to publish two volumes, Bácsmegyey and Ossian, together with smaller pieces because ‘the first is a romantic story which our public desires most – the other will be well accepted for the shining Ossianic colours and its easy style’ (Kazinczy 1890–1911, 11: 536). The cost of the further volumes was to be covered by the income from these two, he suggested. Another compromise was to be that the volumes should be allowed to be bought individually.The translations were finally published between 1814–16 under the title Minden munkáji (Complete Works). A different order of the works was arranged where the re-worked romance Bácsmegyey, despised by Kazinczy as the lightest piece, became the last volume although, to support the rest, it came out first. In 1813 Kazinczy reported on his translating ASJ and, once again, on his lack of knowledge of English: I am now translating Yorick’s sentimental journeys having the German, French and English texts before me. I do not read in English but I look into it many times and divine the meaning. The German [text] is a very tight translation, the French is beautiful but too loose.7

6

7

‘Azonban új darabokat is mutathatok, még pedig úgy, hogy rólok minden szenny le van fúva;Yoricknak leveleit Elizához franciából!!!’ (Kazinczy 1890–1911, 2: 421). ‘Most Yóriknak érzékeny útazásait fordítom, eló´ttem lévén a’ német, franczia és angol textus. Ángolúl nem olvasok, de sokszor belétekintek, ‘s divinálom az értelmet. A’ német igen szoros fordítás, a franczia szép, de tág’ (Kazinczy 1890–1911, 11: 29).

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The translation of ASJ, followed by that of YE and the Abbé Raynal’s ‘Éloge’ were published in the fourth volume. Kazinczy almost failed with ‘Yorick’: Trattner was first discouraged from printing it because he had been told that it was a ‘foolish work, which did not deserve to be read, it was full of French sayings which were left untranslated’. In February 1815, the translation of ASJ was finally sent to the censor who, not having known it before, ‘could not help admiring it’. At the end of March it was printing. That Sterne’s works were finally placed in the fourth volume was partly the result of a conscious choice, partly it was the publisher’s doing who, after the agreement, discarded Kazinczy’s plan. Kazinczy measured ‘Yorick’ against Ossian and found it light reading, although one that required good taste ‘which not only the unlearned can lack’ (Kazinczy 1890–1911, 12: 407). Kazinczy’s translations of Sterne were poorly received in some literary circles. Gábor Döbrentei, after expressing his disapproval of translating from translated texts, decided to re-translate YE from the original.We also know from his letters that to translate the word ‘sentimental’ presented him with a hard task: Döbrentei laments that, to achieve a more concise expression, Kazinczy mistranslated ‘sentimental’ by adopting the German ‘Sinn’ and called the letters ‘Érzék Levelek’ (Letters of Sense) instead of ‘Érzékeny Levelek’ (Sentimental Letters) where the roots of the two adjectives are identical in the Hungarian (Kazinczy 1890–1911, 12: 450). The Hungarian title finally became Érzékeny útazások (Sentimental Travels).A friend also sent his critical notes on the translation of YE to Kazinczy: he objected to his leaving too many foreign expressions untranslated where he could have chosen a Hungarian expression. He also complained about certain syntactic structures which Kazinczy ‘mirror-translated’ from the German although he could have used a simpler structure (Kazinczy 1890–1911, 13: 168–71). In the 1820s, more than five years after its publication, Kazinczy was still revising his ASJ, while apologizing for his shaky knowledge of English. As he writes to a fellow-poet, he found it the weakest piece in his published collection:‘what I have sent to the press in the past twenty years I have been revising now: I have corrected the mistakes and polished what was too arbitrary and too tight. I now have Yorick’s ASJ before me which I am completely reworking because, if anything, this is the worst among the already printed pieces’.8 That he seriously wanted to have a revised edition is testified by another letter in which a friend is asking him about the second edition.9 By returning to the text he may have hoped for a second edition. Unfortunately, no manuscript of any of his corrections survived. There is, however, an extant manuscript by Kazinczy of the last letters between Yorick and Eliza, in a version slightly different from the published text.

8

9

‘valamit húsz eszt. olta nyomtattattam, végig tekintem, a’ botlásokat, vétkeket megigazítom, a’ mi eró´ltetett, feszes, darabos, újra dolgozom. Épen a’ Yorick Érzékeny Utazása van eló´ttem; azt egészen újra fordítom, mert ha valami, ez volt igen rosszúl dolgozva a’ már megjelent nyomtatásban’ (Kazinczy 1890–1911, 17: 135). ‘Ist die erste Auflage von Yoricks érz.út. schon vergriffen? erscheint die 2te (ihre jetzige Umarbeitung) bald?’ (Kazinczy 1890–1911, 17: 141).

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Döbrentei’s rival translation of YE was published in 1828, thirteen years after Kazinczy’s, but he knew Sterne’s works much earlier. He ordered Sterne’s Select Works in Sammer’s edition from Vienna in 1815 and also had a copy of the 1828 Boston edition of The Beauties of Sterne. He had translated two letters from Sammer’s YE as early as 1813. He was so fond of Eliza, he writes in a letter, that he kept pursuing such a gentle heart in his own life (Kazinczy 1890–1911, 12: 407). After the letters were published in his translation in 1828 he became estranged from Kazinczy who felt offended by his rival’s critical remarks. Döbrentei’s translation, when compared with Kazinczy’s, is clumsier and less enjoyable to read today but at the time it was judged a more faithful translation.To the letters Döbrentei attached Sterne’s letter to Lydia, dated 9 April 1767, in which he complains about the illness of a very dear friend who was for a long time thought to be Eliza, but was in fact Mrs. James (LY, 283, n. 66). Döbrentei left out the epitaph which ends the letter. Although never translated by them, TS must have been among the works Kazinczy and Döbrentei read: Kazinczy refers to Tristram’s ill-fated baptism when his first daughter is born and each relative wants to add a new name to her originally chosen name, Eugenia, to honour the memory of a yet more distant relative. Kazinczy denies the favour, declaring that ‘in the matter of choosing a name I am as particular as was the father of Tristram Shandy’ (Kazinczy 1890–1911, 5: 241). Döbrentei, in his summary of Sterne’s life, offers more complete information on TS which he could not have found in Sammer’s original. The first extant translation made from TS appeared in a literary journal. In 1824 an anonymous translation of Walter Shandy’s letter of advice to Uncle Toby was published in the journal Kedveskedó´.The excerpt is entitled ‘Szeretó´zésre tanogató levél Aglegények számára’ (A letter of instruction on courtship meant for bachelors) and was meant to be a sample translation. The author of the translation, Pál Edvi Illés (for the evidence of his authorship and his source text, see Hartvig 1999–2000), must have consciously selected the letter from the novel because, although the piece was well known and in The Beauties of Sterne (1793) as well, he used Sammer’s Select Works. Apart from a few details where Edvi Illés softened the bawdiness of the original, it is a faithful translation and, as such, the first made from TS. He may have chosen the letter, as the invented title proves, because he showed great concern for the business of courtship and marriage: in 1861 he even published a conduct book on marriage. After these early translations a long silence followed in the Hungarian reception of Sterne’s works: between 1828 and 1956 there appeared no new translation. We find his name frequently mentioned among the great humorous writers, mainly attached to the name of Jean Paul, Sterne’s German follower. In 1864 there appeared a review of Percy Fitzgerald’s Life of Laurence Sterne in the literary journal Koszorú (Arany 1864, 597). The writer’s source was a review in the German journal Europa: Chronik der gebildeten Welt (Keresztury 1963, 439). In the latter half of the nineteenth century, following the German example, there appeared a number of articles on the nature of humour and ‘Laune’ so Sterne became the first ‘launiger

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Schriftsteller’ (moody author) in literature. These references, however, were limited to the repetition of general statements that the critics borrowed from German aesthetic discussions. Sterne in the twentieth century The twentieth century, after the establishment of German and French philology, saw the birth of English Studies, a new discipline in Hungary. In 1907 Magyar Shakespeare-Tár (Hungarian Shakespeare Storehouse) and The Hungarian Spectator were founded and the first English Department was also formed at the University of Budapest by Sir Arthur Yolland.10 Sándor Fest was later invited by the British Council to establish the second English Department in Debrecen, to further advance the study of English in the country. This renewed interest in English produced a revival of Kazinczy’s monumental plan of translating and re-translating English masterpieces into Hungarian.While the previous century witnessed an unprecedented number of Ossianic translations and imitations, in the twentieth century Gulliver’s Travels in Hungarian outnumbered all the other translations made from English works: the first full translation appeared in 1914 and was followed by three others up to 1952. The translation and re-translation of Sterne’s works by Gyó´zó´ Határ began in the 1950s. But equally important are the Prefaces and Postscripts attached to his and the newer editions of Kazinczy’s translations because they give an insight into the nationalistic atmosphere of the period in which ‘social-realistic’ works dominated the field of literature. A pocket-size, paperback edition of Kazinczy’s ASJ opens the set of twentieth-century publications in the ‘Cheap Library’ series, with an Introduction by Miklós Berki in 1907. His comprehensive portrayal reveals a thorough knowledge of Sterne’s works. Thackeray and Percy Fitzgerald’s criticisms served as groundwork for his survey and we find references to Goethe and Sterne’s early German translator, Bode. He informs the Hungarian reader, for the first time, that ‘the letters of Yorick and Eliza are not Sterne’s, they are mere forgeries’ (Kazinczy 1907, 13). Offering an image of Sterne similar to the one published in Koszorú, he refers to Fitzgerald’s unfavourable view of Sterne’s personality and emphasizes his fatherly love for his daughter, his benevolence and warm-heartedness. Berki supposes that Kazinczy’s German source for his translation of ASJ was Bode: as he writes, Kazinczy’s love of Sterne originated in Goethe’s interest in him and he probably used Bode’s translation who, following the advice of Goethe, used ‘empfindsam’ instead of ‘sentimental’ which is the reason why Kazinczy rendered the word into Hungarian as ‘érzékeny’. Berki also attached Kazinczy’s glossary to the work declaring that his notes offer accurate and

10

He arrived in Hungary in the late 1890s and became Professor of English Language and Literature.As well as editing an English-Hungarian and HungarianEnglish dictionary he promoted the introduction of English in secondary schools. In 1936 he launched the journal Hungarian Studies in English.

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exhaustive information on foreign expressions. As we know, Kazinczy left the French parts untranslated. The third translator of Sterne’s works after Kazinczy and Döbrentei was Gyó´zó´ Határ. He prepared his translations in the period later described as the three years of ‘political easing’ after political dictatorship in the period 1949–53. After a two-and-a-half year political imprisonment Határ was released in 1952. He gives a detailed account of this period in his lengthy biography: the foreign language departments knew that he was fluent in four languages so they gave his name as a possible translator of foreign works now being permitted for translation. The head of the English Language Department in Budapest, Éva Róna, who later became the book’s language editor, suggested that Határ should translate TS. Her plan was backed by the French Department – the contract signed and the honorarium guaranteed, there remained only one task: to find a copy of the original text. Határ recalls the adventurous story of how he found an English copy of TS:‘this unhappy eighteenth-century author made the mistake of writing this work, as his others, in the language of the enemy’; the few copies in the library which were not pulped by the Bureau, were hiding somewhere – even Lutter’s English Department did not own a single copy of it. Új Magyar Könyukiadó adopted the rather ridiculous point of view that it was the trans-lator’s task to acquire a copy. Éva Róna vaguely remembered that ‘there has to be found a copy in the University Library, only you should steal it during the night’ (Határ 1993–95, 2: 395). Thus Határ had to ask permission from the Party Secretary to borrow the work which was kept in the ‘sealed collection’. Finally, he obtained a 1905 London edition. He began to work on his translation in 1954 and finished within six months. About the cultural problems he had to face while he was working on his translation he recalls the following: I did not even understand the first page of the very first chapter: today I would not call it a translation, I rather just ‘divined’ it … I did not even know that in old English households, at the turn of the staircase, there used to be an old clock with a pendulum that had to be wound up from week to week – nor did I know that, as for sexuality, the insular kingdom was the waste desert of puritanism, women were not familiar with the technique of how to reach an orgasm etc. etc.11

As to the linguistic aspect, he could not decide whether he should try to imitate Sterne’s eighteenth-century English or use modern Hungarian. His main problem was, he confesses, that in either case, the Hungarian language was only a

11

‘Én ebben a könyvben már a nyitó fejezet elsó´ oldalát nem értettem; nem is fordítottam, inkább csak hasaltam … Nos, én azt sem tudtam, hogy a régi angol házban, a lécsó´pihenó´n, konvencionálisan pendelóra van s hogy a sétálója meg ne álljon, hétró´l hétre fel kell húzni – sem azt, hogy szerelmileg a szigetország a puritanizmus lepusztult sivatagja, a nó´k az elélvezés technikáját nem ismerik, orgazmusig a koituszban a legritkább esetben jutnak stb. stb’ (Határ 1993–95, 2: 397).

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modest inland sea compared to the vast ocean of the English … On this island, twisted by erosion throughout centuries and worn into a monosyllabic language called the English language the changes of half a thousand years had to be matched against one hundred and fifty years of changes or even less in our language! Was I allowed to use archaisms when the language of TS was almost ‘modern’? Even so, how far could I go without making it too exhausting? I had to face such problems during translation and I felt it to be my good luck that Sterne, in the slow process of his autobiographical novel got only to the age of three.12

Having had his earlier novel confiscated, Határ, while working on his translation, could not help feeling an acute pang for not being allowed to produce original works.While translating TS he composed a sonnet on his dejection entitled ‘Szegény Yorick’: Poor Yorick I had to be denied creative writing To translate my Tristram Shandy No pressure could reduce my pleasure And I didn’t say a word against the ban. Though the few Hungarians have no horizon Let them have their hundred times more precious Shandy To enjoy how, on its HOBBY HORSES, the pensive child Lived, trotted up and down, kept busy How Trim, a corporal, turned His master’s toy castle into London, How none was crazier than Uncle Toby And none more lonely than, oh, poor Yorick! Let me help him into the stirrup, I, paralyzed stump, I, a basket case, no roving lunatic. (Translated by Peter Zollman and John Neubauer)13

12

13

‘Ezen a századok-eróziója-csikarta, monoszillabikussá kopott nyelvi kontinensen, ami az angol, félezer év nyelvi változásának a miénkben százötven év felel meg vagy még annyi se! Szabad-e archaizálnom, ha egyszer a TRISTRAM SHANDY nyelvezete majdhogynem “modern”? És ha mégis a hátralépó´ archaizálás mellett döntök, meddig mehetek el, hogy azért fárasztó se legyen? Ilyen problémáim voltak fordítás közben, s ezer szerencse, hogy Sterne önéletrajzi regényének lassúdad pergetésében csak hároméves koráig jutott el …’ (Határ 1993–95, 2: 398). Szegény Yorick a Teremtésbó´l kellett kirekednem hogy lefordítsam Tristram Shandymet a szorongattatás se szegte kedvem se fel nem hánytorgattam senkinek ha szem-Határja nincs e pár magyarnak legyen százannyit éró´ Shandyje hogy VESSZÓ´PARIPÁIN – méla gyermek mint élt loholt mit volt mit tennie

hogy mint eró´sítette Trim a káplár urának Lócavárát Londonig bolondabb nem volt bácsi Tóbiásnál s árvább se nála haj: szegény Yorick! kengyelbe hadd segítem béna-csonk kosárban-éló´ – nem futó bolond

I would like to express particular thanks to Peter Zollman who kindly translated the sonnet especially for this volume.

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Határ produced an excellent and accurate translation, Tristram Shandy úr élete és gondolatai (1956).The source text for his translation was the single volume The Novels of Laurence Sterne (London: George Newnes, New York: Charles Scribner, 1905). This edition does not contain illustrations or notes but it does have a coloured marbled page; the Hungarian edition has two illustrations by George Cruikshank, a marbled and a black page, notes by Ferenc Kemény and a Preface by Miklós Szentkuthy. There are only a few mistakes or misunderstandings, for which Határ’s particular style and large vocabulary richly compensate the reader (thus, he did not know what to make of Walter Shandy’s ‘Waterlandish knowledge’, a reference to Daniel Waterland’s Advice to Young Students, which Sterne knew from Jesus College, Cambridge). The language of the translation is sometimes archaic but in a very humorous way, always entertaining, always grasping the essence of Sterne’s ‘ludicrous style’. Határ also translated ASJ. He recalls the story of it in his autobiographical work: besides TS he was asked to translate the work together with YE. However, he was tempted by a greater task, to translate Rabelais’ complete works. He had barely finished ASJ when the 1956 revolution broke out, which enabled him to leave the country. Having been a political prisoner he was denied a passport. Once again, he became a public enemy whose name had to be excluded from title pages and prefaces. However, his Érzelmes utazás Francia- és Olaszországban (1957) was already prepared for publication. His name as the translator appears only in the colophon of the book. The writer of the postcript, László Kéry, concludes his essay, which discusses Kazinczy’s translations of Sterne, with the following words: ‘The present translation endeavoured to retain as much of Kazinczy’s text as possible and where any corrections were necessary they were adjusted to the style of Kazinczy’s time’ (Határ 1957, 247). This was a revolting distortion of the truth: Határ, although paying his tribute to Kazinczy, by, for example, wanting to keep his original title, Érzékeny utazás, did not leave one single sentence unchanged in his translation; he modernized the style and corrected the mistranslations of Kazinczy whose text made the most taxing demands upon the reader. According to a reference in the colophon, his source text was a 1931 London edition by Macmillan: however, there is no such edition. Határ himself also remembers that he translated ASJ from a book other than the 1905 Newnes edition, his copy-text for TS, so the source text in this case must remain a mystery. He translated the French as well and adjusted the style to modern Hungarian. His translations of Sterne are among the finest achievements of the reception of foreign works in Hungary. Among the new editions of Határ’s and Kazinczy’s translations in the past thirty years it is worth mentioning the latest edition of Kazinczy’s Érzékeny útazások (1976). One may wonder why, after Berki’s 1907 edition of Kazinczy’s translation the publishing house Magyar Helikon decided to print the work, ignoring Határ’s much more modern translation of 1957. Interestingly, the writer of the postscript did not even mention that a new translation existed. Similarly, a review article on Sterne’s life and works, which concentrates on TS, mentions neither the Hungarian translation nor the translator (Julow 1963).

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In the late 1980s Sterne’s sentimental work again proved to be inspirational from a political point of view: in 1991 a self-conscious imitation of ASJ was published which, however, had been written four years earlier. Pál Békés, the author of Érzékeny útazások Közép-Európán át (Sentimental journeys through Middle Europe) is a postmodern writer of children’s books, novels and plays, many of which have been adapted for television and performed in theatres. His novel is a travelogue whose first-person narrator, András Jorik, departing from Budapest, travels through the former Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic. He is fleeing from History, which chases him in different forms through Prague, Dresden and Weimar. The narrative is full of Sternean reminiscences: on his way to the German Democratic Republic, Jorik meets Störn Ló´rinc who offers to drive him to the border. As it turns out, Störn, who learnt to speak Hungarian from Kazinczy’s translation of ASJ, is the Irish accredited military attaché whose hobby-horse is to take pictures of military objects, to act as a spy in the socialist countries.The final chapter offers a grotesque picture of Jorik’s hotel room which he finds in the outskirts of Weimar in the middle of the night. Waking up to a bright sunny morning, he is happily planning to visit Goethe’s and Schiller’s houses in the beautiful city.When leaving his hotel room, however, to his great astonishment, he is informed by the receptionist that the desolate barracks which he can see from his window are the former concentration camp of Buchenwald: it has been a futile endeavour to escape from history. As in ASJ, the narrative ends in an aposiopesis. On the plane which flies Jorik back to Budapest he is having a conversation with the stewardess: ‘If you need anything just ring the bell.’ … ‘I will, answered I.’‘I beg your pardon? – turned the beautiful reddish-blond to me and when I stretched out my hand, I caught hold of the stewardess’…’14 A contemporary review of Érzékeny útazások Közép-Európán át points out the symbolic geography of Békés’s travelogue and the significance of its belated publication: ‘when he [Békés] conceived and wrote this travelogue four years ago there still existed the Middle-Europe and Eastern-Europe in which the story takes place. By the time it got published they had collapsed and vanished’ (Kenyeres 1991, 635). Békés’s hero-narrator struggles with the instability of political systems and wants to recover from the memory of the past. In Hungarian literature the sentimental Sterne was received with more enthusiasm than the whimsical one: YE was translated twice in the early Romantic period and there was a plan to retranslate it in the 1950s. ASJ has been translated three times and Hungarian sentimentalism partly grew out of the reception of the French Eliza cult (via Raynal). In Kazinczy’s translation, following the European example, ‘sentimental’ received a new meaning in the Hungarian expression ‘érzékeny’. Interestingly, Sterne’s

14

‘- Ha szüksége volna bármire, csöngessen csak … - Csöngetek – feleltem. - Tessék? – fordult vissza a szép vörössz´´ oke szíves szolgálatomra, én pedig eszerént kinyújtva jobbomat, meg találtam fogni a légikisasszony …’ (Békés 1991, 322).

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sentimental works were understood as biographical records of his life: Kazinczy’s diary of his journey to Transylvania, Erdélyi levelek (Letters from Transylvania), is a remote imitation, an autobiographical travelogue written in the manner of Sterne. For over one and a half centuries TS owed its presence to the reception of German aesthetic discussions and humorous writers, the most eminent among them being Jean Paul whose name always appeared side by side with Sterne’s.Without Jean Paul, the humorous Sterne would have fallen into neglect in the nineteenth century as did other early novelists such as Smollett and Fielding, who were only discovered and translated after the post-war period. In his essay collection, Die Seele und die Formen (Soul and Forms,1911), Lukács also discusses Sterne in the company of such German Romantics as Novalis and Theodor Storm. The impact Sterne had on Hungarian culture and literature was always dominated by the national dimension in which his works gained special significance.

10

The Sentimental, the ‘Inconclusive’, the Digressive: Sterne in Italy Olivia Santovetti … and here I am, as happy as a king after all, growing fat, sleek, and well-liking – not improving in stature, but in breadth.We have a jolly carnival of it – nothing but opera-punchinelloes-festinoes and masquerades – (Letters, 269, to John Hall Stevenson, Naples, 5 February, 1766)

The refreshing energy that Sterne felt during his sojourn in Italy, is what his works gave and continue to give to Italian literature. This has been defined as the ‘Sterne effect’ by an Italian critic, Giancarlo Mazzacurati (1990), and it is a disseminated phenomenon that characterizes the reception of the English author in Italy. Sterne, according to Mazzacurati and recent Italian criticism, played a fundamental role in the development of a humoristic tradition in Italy in the nineteenth century. Moreover, during the modernist period Italian writers such as Luigi Pirandello saw in his works a tool from the past to help them break the shackles of literary convention and release themselves from the suffocating constraints of the then dominant pattern of the realist novel. Further, post-modernist authors including Italo Calvino looked upon Sterne as the progenitor of their own self-reflexive narratives. Today, another aspect of the ‘Sterne effect’ is clearly visible in the catalogues of most Italian publishing houses, that feel compelled to have Sterne in their collection. In the bookshops in Italy one may choose between three editions of TS (published by major publishing houses: Einaudi, Garzanti and Mondadori) and eight editions of ASJ (by both major and minor publishers). A translation of the YE is also available, and, more surprisingly, of PR. For the most curious reader there is also a translation of the spurious continuation of ASJ. It is evident that Sterne has reached classic status in Italy, but this does not mean that Sterne is read widely, indeed his public constitutes a select type of reader (as with many classic authors, his fate is to be better known than read). Nevertheless many Italians who have had a classical education recognize his name, since he is mentioned in school in relation to the important Italian poet Ugo Foscolo, who made the famous nineteenth-century translation of ASJ. My first step in retracing the story of his reception in Italy is to map texts, mainstream as well as marginal, which have been influenced by Sterne. Particular attention will be given to those texts or authors who have produced an original interpretation of Sterne’s art as well as to publishers and critics who have studied and promoted Sterne.

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My second and parallel path is to follow the change of perspectives that characterizes Sterne’s fortune in Italy during the centuries, a change that generally mirrors the waves or moods of the European reception. For example, the Sternean ‘sensibility’, so typical of the eighteenth century, is for the Italian Romantics identified without further distinction with the ‘sentimental’ or ‘pathetic’. A further example is that, due to the attention of modernists and post-modernists to Sterne’s narrative experimentation, the position enjoyed by ASJ in the nineteenth century was supplanted by TS in the twentieth century. (The nineteenth-century preference in Italy for ASJ was practically exclusive since TS was translated into Italian only in the twentieth century.) The sensibility that the English writer represented for the Italian Romantics is certainly not what we find in him today.And of course the sensibility is there in his works.The sense of the unfinished, and digressiveness, which perplexed nineteenth-century readers, so fascinated modernist writers that it became the hallmark of their philosophy of humour. During the centuries Sterne was continually rediscovered as if every period, every culture, found an aspect of itself reflected in his works.This is because Sterne’s texts are rich and malleable ‘to suit’ – as he wrote in a letter to an American admirer – the ‘passions, [the] ignorance, or [the] sensibility’ of all readers (Letters, 411). The eighteenth century: Milan Sterne’s fortunes in eighteenth-century Italy were made in two cities: Milan and Venice. In the second half of the century, Milan was the most active centre of diffusion of the ideas of the Enlightenment. Among the leading figures of this cultural and philosophical movement were the brothers Pietro and Alessandro Verri. Pietro was the founder and director of a journal, Il caffè (The Café, 1764–66) which, in the face of tradition, promoted a modernisation of Italian culture. Pietro was an economist, while Alessandro dedicated himself to literature. Beccaria’s De’ delitti e delle pene (Of Crimes and Punishments, 1764), the famous treatise on the reform of criminal justice which became a manifesto of the European Enlightenment, arose from discussions which took place in the Verris’ salon, and was written under the guidance and the provocation of Pietro. Alessandro met Sterne briefly in Milan and visited him in London when Sterne was preparing to write ASJ. In a letter dated 1 March 1767, he described to his brother Pietro a feature of Sterne’s compositional methods: Mons.r Sterne told me he is writing A Sentimental Journey through Italy. He said that he is implored continuously by many to do it, and further, that without having written a single word, he will have 1000 guineas from subscriptions. He has not written an account of his travels through Italy, but he will compose according to his whim: he wants to recount his many adventures in Milan, that is, he wants to fabricate them from scratch.1 1

‘Mons.r Sterne mi ha detto che sta facendo il Viaggio sentimentale d’Italia. Mi disse che molti lo pregano continuamente di farlo e che a questo, prima di aver scritto una sola parola, avrà unite per associazione 1000 ghinee. Non ha scritto memorie, viaggiando l’Italia, ma lo comporrà a suo capriccio: vuol contare molte avventure successegli a Milano, cioè le vuole fabbricare in pianta’ (Greppi 1923, 284). Except where a reference is given, the translations are my own.

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It is interesting to note that Alessandro understood that Sterne was about to subvert the traditional canons of travel writing, first of all, that of verisimilitude: Sterne was indeed to tell of his adventures in Milan, but he was going ‘to fabricate them from scratch’. In another letter to Pietro, written a few years later, 12 September 1770, a year after Sterne’s death, Alessandro gives us an amusing portrait of the writer: What a good man was the author! I went to visit him in London; he gave me chocolate, and thousands of caresses. He took off my tail-coat, which was wet from the rain, he spread it out on a chair, he hugged me, took my hand, conducted me to the fire; and, without knowing me, for I saw him little in Milan, he made me a world of hospitality. I met him also in a public meeting; he came to hug me, and whispered into my ear many things in his manner, it was a delightful conversation. In London, he told me, they let him enter everywhere, without paying anything: he was generally loved. His clothes were a grey tail-coat and a rounded wig.2

This passage is interesting mainly for providing an affectionate portrait of Sterne’s character. However, it was a reply to one of Pietro’s letters, dated 5 September 1770, which can be considered the first critical judgement made by an Italian on Sterne’s work: I would have never believed that such a man who was always laughing and speaking the language of a dissolute, could have in his soul such delicate sensibility and kindness towards men that I see in his books. He makes you laugh and cry at the same time. It is not possible to give more prominence to trivial things than he does. If you try to retell that which you have read, the events are so commonplace that it seems impossible that you had enjoyed the reading: and yet, you cannot leave it, and at the end of the second volume you are sorry that the author is dead and the journey interrupted.3

Pietro immediately singles out the original features of Sterne’s writing, which are the capacity to shift imperceptibly from humour to pathos and to draw the attention of the reader to what appear to be the most trivial details.

2

3

‘Gran buon uomo, ch’era l’autore! Sono stato a trovarlo a Londra; mi ha dato una cioccolata, e mille carezze. Mi levò il frack, che aveva bagnato dalla pioggia, me lo distese su una sedia, mi abbracciò, mi prese per una mano, mi condusse al fuoco; e, non conoscendomi, perché io poco lo trattai da noi, mi fece un mondo di ospitalità. Mi ha incontrato pure in un’accademia pubblica; mi tornò ad abbracciare, ed all’orecchio mi bisbigliò tante cose alla sua maniera, che fu una conversazione deliziosa. A Londra mi disse che lo lasciavano entrare dappertutto, senza pagar nulla: egli era amato generalmente. Il suo abito era un frack grigio ed una parrucca tonda’ (Novati 1911, 460). ‘Non avrei creduto che quell’uomo che rideva sempre e che parlava la lingua dei dissoluti, potesse avere nell’anima una così delicata sensibilità e tanta beneficienza e dolcezza verso gli uomini, quanta ne veggo nel suo libro.Ti fa sorridere e ti fa venire le lagrime agli occhi. Non si può dare maggior risalto agli oggetti più triviali. Se vuoi ridire quello che hai letto, son fatti tanto comuni, che pare impossibile che la lettura te ne sia piaciuta; eppure non la puoi lasciare, e alla fine del secondo tomo ti spiace che l’autore sia morto e il viaggio interrotto’ (Novati 1911, 446).

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In fact, he says, if you want to retell what you have just read, you cannot because there seem to be no relevant events to retrace, no plot to recap; and yet the reading is irresistible. The eighteenth century:Venice As mentioned above, the other important Italian centre for the reception of Sterne in the eighteenth century was Venice. It is here that the first translations of Sterne’s works appeared in 1792, both from the French.These were Viaggio sentimentale del Sig. Sterne sotto il nome di Yorick (Sentimental Journey of Mr Sterne under the name of Yorick)4 (an anonymous translation which, for its airy disrespect for the original and its Gallicisms, was defined a few years later as ‘filthy’, ‘laida’, by Foscolo) and the Lettere di Yorick a Elisa e di Elisa a Yorick (EY and YE); the latter was translated, according to Rabizzani (1920, 38–39), by Angelo Gaetano Vianello. It is interesting to note that Venice is also the place where French translations of Sterne were edited and reprinted.These included a Voyage sentimental translated by Frénais, disingenuously inscribed ‘Paris, 1787’, and a pastiche which included extracts from volumes 7 and 9 of TS, containing Tristram’s journey, under the title of Nouveau Voyage de Sterne en France suivi de l’Histoire de Le Fevre (Sterne’s Voyage in France followed by the History of Le Fevre). This volume was published in 1788 and, unlike the other, directly acknowledged Venice as the place of printing: ‘à Venise, chez Jean-Antoine Curti’. The nineteenth century: Foscolo In 1812 a second translation of ASJ was published anonymously in Milan. This was a much more faithful translation, apparently from the English. Some of the chapter headings coincide with the arbitrary ones of the Venetian edition, so it appears that Frénais’ version was still the model. However, both the Venetian and the Milanese translations were to be completely ousted by the 1813 translation of ASJ made by the well-known Italian poet Ugo Foscolo. Foscolo’s interpretation of Sterne is the key event which dominated the Italian reception of Sterne in the nineteenth century. The translation was extremely successful, judging by the number of reprints (ten in the nineteenth century and sixteen in the twentieth century, including selections) and the impressive body of literary criticism dedicated to it (seven monographs and more than twenty articles and essays, listed in the Bibliography, as well as various introductions to the translation). Even today no other translation has been able to supplant it. In 1813 on the occasion of the publication of his version of Sterne’s book, written under the pseudonym of Didimo Chierico, Foscolo wrote:

4

For further details of the first Italian translation see Messeri (1954) and Bertoni (1990).

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I print today in Pisa the Viaggio sentimentale which I had already translated for myself; but having to translate it for others, I have retranslated, remade it a thousand times, I have racked my brains, I have re-corrected, and copied, and used copyists, such that I have now I have lost ... almost half of my mind.5

The translation was a lengthy, tortuous job, which occupied the Italian poet at intervals for almost eight years, during which can be distinguished three main phases. The first phase goes back to 1806 when Foscolo, an officer of the Italian division in the service of Napoleon, was at the Hotel Dessein in Calais (whose owner, Monsieur Dessein, is described in ASJ ). Here, during pauses in the campaign, surrounded by English people, Foscolo set himself to translate Sterne’s ASJ (and to learn the English language) in order to ‘understand that bizarre author’ ‘(‘per intendere quell’autore bizzarro’) and, at the same time, ‘to experiment with the flexibility of the Italian language’ (‘per esperimentare l’arrendevolezza della nostra lingua’, Foscolo 1954 [1812], 190–91). The result was a very literal translation, in which, as he wrote to a friend, he intended to reproduce with religious faithfulness the ordering of the phrases of the original text (Foscolo 1952 [1805], 75). The second phase can be traced to the summer of 1812, while the poet was living in Tuscany. He then started to retranslate ASJ since the previous version ‘was too faithful and showed the “Anglicism” in the language and the effort in the style’ (‘era troppo fedele, e sentiva l’inglesisimo nella lingua e nello stile’, Foscolo 1954 [1812], 176). In this second version the poet followed completely opposite principles: if he had been a partisan of literal and faithful translation, now he was in favour of those translations that arise from a harmony of soul between author and translator and which tend to become original creations. Finally, in the winter of 1812–13, the third and final phase prior to publication, the translation was completed. Foscolo made some stylistic corrections to the text, and then wrote a Preface, the footnotes and the appendix, Notizia di Didimo Chierico (About Didimo Chierico), in which he aimed to provide Italian readers with a clue to understanding the English book and its author. It is interesting to note that after the publication, even though he declared himself ‘very happy’ (‘contentissimo’, Foscolo 1954 [1813], 271), Foscolo was still not satisfied: some months later in 1814 he had already revised the Viaggio. In 1817, in a new edition of his Le ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis (Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis, 1798) (an epistolary novel, much influenced by Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, which chronicles the disappointment and desperation to which Jacopo was brought by his love for Teresa and his patriotic ideals), he included a selection of chapters from the revised Viaggio. In 1820 he was still at work with the intention of producing a new edition of the translation. To understand why the translation of ASJ became so important for Foscolo we should go back to the reasons for which he engaged himself in

5

‘Faccio ora stampare a Pisa il Viaggio sentimentale ch’io aveva già tradotto per me; ma dovendolo tradurre per gli altri, l’ho ritradotto, e mille volte rifatto, e lambiccato, e ricorretto, e copiato e fatto copiare in guisa ch’io c’ho perduto ... quasi mezzo l’ingegno’ (Foscolo 1954, 274).

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the project, which were related to his desire to know better ‘that bizarre author’, Sterne, and to experiment and test himself on the Italian language. Regarding the first point, it must be said that the encounter with Sterne, whom Foscolo loved to call ‘my friend Lorenzo Sterne’ (‘l’amico mio Lorenzo Sterne’, Foscolo 1952 [1805], 73 and 1953 [1810], 385), had happened long before the translation. His admiration for the English author began in his youth, possibly during his Venetian studies (1792–97), and was confirmed in the early 1798 version of Jacopo Ortis, in which the episode of Lauretta is a clear imitation of Sterne’s Maria (as he openly admitted some years later).6 Foscolo knew both ASJ and TS, and the influence of the latter is evident in his correspondence with his mistress Antonietta Fagnani Arese and more remarkably in the Sesto tomo dell’io (Sixth tome of the self, 1802), a fragmented autobiographical novel that revealed something of the English model even in the title (‘Sixth tome’, because the first five were still in the mind of the author). Here Foscolo experimented with a new prose style, more flexible and lively, which, with frequent interruptions, was able to move from the humorous to the melancholy and to describe transitory and trivial events. Through the experience of the translation, Foscolo deepened and perfected this style and created Didimo Chierico, the translation’s fictitious author and clearly Yorick’s double, in whom he gave a very different portrait of himself. Didimo’s detached wisdom and elusive irony were just the opposite of the passionate and tragic temperament of Ortis, the protagonist of his novel, who was the poet’s alter-ego. In this stylistic change, which proved to be fundamental in the development of Foscolo’s poetics, the close reading and the translation of Sterne’s text were essential. The translation was not only an occasion to know better an author that Foscolo felt was very close and dear to him, but also, as mentioned above, an occasion for him ‘to test the flexibility of the Italian language’ with the prose of a writer who was ‘very delicate in his concepts, with strange expressions, and concise in style’ (‘per provare l’arrendevolezza della nostra lingua anche nella traduzione di un autore delicatissimo ne’ concetti, strano nelle espressioni, e stringato nello stile’, Foscolo 1952 [1806], 106). For Foscolo it was extremely important to try out the ‘flexibility’ of the Italian language, because at the time Italian was a language with a written rather than spoken tradition; a language with a great literary tradition (the Florentine of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio), but that lacked the freshness and vitality of daily usage, which on the contrary was possessed by the many dialects of the peninsula.7 These are the terms of the so-called ‘questione della lingua’, the ‘language question’ which was urgently becoming more important for

6

7

In a letter dated 29 September 1808 Foscolo wrote:‘And now I will remove those fragments of the Story of Lauretta because they reveal the inappropriatness of the episode and the imitation of Laurence Sterne’s Maria’ (Foscolo 1952, 485:‘Ed ora stralcerei que’ frammenti della “Storia di Lauretta” perché sentono l’inopportunità dell’episodio e l’imitazione della Maria di Lorenzo Sterne’). This is confirmed by the alarming fact that at the time of the Unification of Italy (1861) only 2.5 per cent of the population spoke Italian (De Mauro 1984, 43).

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Italian culture, especially in view of a possible political unification. For an intellectual like Foscolo, who took an active part in the democratic movement which spread through Italy with Napoleon’s invasion, the language question was immediately linked with the problem of national unification. His political battles, which eventually, at the time of the Restoration, resulted in his exile to England, paralleled his efforts for the modernization of the Italian language. The fragmented situation of the Italian states was reflected in a language which Foscolo disconsolately regarded as ‘half alive and half dead’ (‘mezzo viva e mezzo morta’, Foscolo 1954 [1812], 115). Foscolo and the other writers of the nineteenth century had to create their own models of a modern Italian prose. Foscolo’s decision was to use the language of the forefathers, updating it with the concreteness and naturalness of the spoken language.Thus, during the second revision of the translation, he wandered through the streets of Florence, in order to listen to and learn the fresh and living version of the language of Dante. His aim, as the poet declared in an essay written in England in 1818, was indeed to translate the text ‘with the words and phrases of the fourteenth century; not, however, to the prejudice of the conversational ease of our Yorick’ (Foscolo 1958 [1818], 470). This was an ambitious undertaking, whose contradictions characterized the style of the translation. On the one hand, Foscolo, whose knowledge of Sterne was deep and subtle, successfully reproduced Sterne’s conversational style: for example, he retained the use of dashes (unusual for an Italian text) and, more importantly, tried to maintain the sense of being unfinished which distinguishes Sterne’s text and which so bothered his contemporary translators. The best example is given by his solution to the final, unfinished sentence of ASJ.The final paragraphs were usually condensed and altered to give a conventional ending as in the 1792 Italian translation (copied from Frénais).8 or, as in the 1812 Italian translation, the text was faithful except for the addition of a brief sentence which specified what Yorick’s hand had reached – the guess was the fille-de-chambre’s arm. In order to maintain the effect of Sterne’s elusive ending which left to the imagination of the reader the outcome of the scene, Foscolo used an ellipsis without a period. (Foscolo still did not dare to leave the sentence cut off as in the original.) Foscolo’s close understanding of Sterne’s style was, on the other hand, compromised by the ‘words and the sentences of the fourteenth century’ which the Italian poet studied and selected so carefully and which gave the

8

After the the sentence beginning with ‘The lady would by no means give up her point …’ (ASJ, 164), the translator added a spurious phrase which has the effect of annihilating the suspense of the incomplete ending, as well as depriving it of its unstated erotic ambiguity: ‘The lady would by no means give up her point, tho’ she weakened her barrier by it, the new day dawned and we had no reason to blush on seeing each other.We left. I went to Rennes, and the lady and her Fille de Chambre went where they pleased’ (‘La signora non volle cedere, e la disputa indebolì un poco la sua barriera; venne il giorno e non ebbimo ad arrossire nel vederci. Partimmo. Io andai a Rennes, e la signora e la sua cameriera andarono dove vollero …’).

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translation a pinch of affectation (of which Foscolo was painfully aware (Foscolo 1954 [1813], 413)). As much as Foscolo tried to reproduce the naturalness of the spoken language by drawing on dialect, his main goal in the translation was to create a language so elegant, cultured and refined as to compare favourably with that of his forefathers. As he stated in a letter, he was a follower, ‘a disciple of the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century writers’, (‘discepolo de’ trecentisti e de’ quattrocentisti’, Foscolo 1954 [1812], 114). Their influence is such that Foscolo, as he admits in another letter, could not write without ‘wanting to embellish every phrase, in prose and in rhyme, in the style (graceful indeed, but old-fashioned or strange) of Guido Cavalcanti and Messer Cino and their predecessors, whom he had read carefully, taking notes’ (‘... e vorrebbe pur abbellire ogni verso che mi cada in prosa o in rima de’ modi (vaghissimi in vero, ma vecchiuzzi o stranetti) di Guido Cavalcanti, e di Messer Cino, e d’altri a loro anteriori, che lessi a questi giorni attentissimo, e postillai’, Foscolo 1954 [1813], 412).This is magnificently illustrated in the manuscript of the second version of Viaggio sentimentale (written in 1812 and preserved at the Marucelliana Library of Florence, Italy). Here every translated page is annotated with words or expressions taken from Cavalcanti, Petrarch, Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, and other poets, as if Foscolo, before adopting a word, needed to confirm the sound, the use and meaning from the pages of his beloved authors. The same linguistic concern is expressed in ‘Expressions of Language’ (‘Modi di lingua’), a long list of words and phrases from the pages of literary texts with some dialect examples, which appears at the end of the manuscript. Foscolo’s reference to the great poets of the Italian tradition may also be tied to his underlying aim while translating ASJ, which was to make a poetic transposition of the text. Indeed, translating Sterne became an occasion to experiment with his ability to create a poetic prose (parallel to creating a modern Italian prose). In order to illustrate Foscolo’s method of translation, it is best to turn to the text and analyse closely a few passages.Two examples will be enough to understand Foscolo’s techniques. The first is taken from the fourth of the chapters entitled Montriul, where Yorick considers that he is mean, with his heart and his money, only when between loves. ASJ:‘being firmly persuaded that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another.’ (ASJ, 128–29) VS, manuscript version 1812:‘io sono tenacemente persuaso che s’io farò mai una bassa azione, la farò nell’intervallo tra una passione e l’altra’ (‘I am firmly persuaded that if I ever do a base act, I will do it in the interval between one passion and the other’). VS, published version 1813: ‘la mia coscienza è convinta che s’io commettessi una trista azione, la commetterei sempre quando un amore è in me spento, ed il nuovo non è per anche racceso.’ (59) (‘my conscience is persuaded that if I ever do a sad act, I will commit it always when one love is extinguished in myself, and the new love is not yet ignited’).

While in the manuscript version of 1812, Foscolo’s words represent a faithful translation of both language and style, the final and published translation

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reveals a significant reworking of this sentence with the introduction of the image of ‘extinguishing/igniting’ passions. The image, not present at this point in Sterne’s text, expands and emphasizes the dynamic of ebb and flow of passion. This reformulation of Sterne’s phrase into a wider and more imaginative periphrasis and while in tune with Foscolo’s tastes and style is a typical example of how he added a poetic dimension to the text. It is clear though that, as much as the poetic reformulation is elegant, it does represent a significant divergence from Sterne’s text.9 Another interesting example is to be found immediately thereafter. It is a passage from the chapter entitled ‘A Fragment’, describing the effect of Euripides’ Andromeda in the vile town of Abdera: ASJ: ‘The fire caught’ (ASJ, 131) VS, manuscript version 1812: ‘Il fuoco s’infiammò’. VS, published version 1813: ‘E furono faville d’immensa fiamma’ (61), (‘And there were sparks of immense flame’).

Sterne’s plain observation that ‘the fire caught’ in the city of Abdera is clearly developed and ‘embellished’ in the translation of 1813 (whereas in his previous translation the poet was faithful to the original). Foscolo brings a strong poetic nuance to the sentence with the development of the theme of fire with the words ‘faville’ (sparks), and ‘fiamma’ (flame).This is in addition to the alliteration of the consonant ‘f ’ and the transformation into a twelvesyllable line, which give a musical result in Italian. Moreover, the phrase is

9

For the Italian critic Mario Fubini, divergences between Foscolo’s translation and Sterne’s ASJ become particularly strident in a passage of the final chapter entitled ‘La Cena’ (‘The Supper’). ASJ: ‘Close to the house, on one side, was a potagerie of an acre and a half, full of every thing which could make plenty in a French peasant’s house – and on the other side was a little wood which furnished wherewithal to dress it. It was about eight in the evening when I got to the house.’ VS:‘Avea prossimo dall’un de’ lati un orto di poco più d’una pertica, provveduto di quanto mai l’abbondanza può consolare la mensa d’un contadino francese – Prosperava dall’altro lato una selvetta liberale d’ombre al riposo, e di legna al focolare. Il giorno nell’ora in ch’io giunsi godeva degli ultimi raggi del Sole’ (‘It had to one side a garden of a little more than an acre, provided with a greater abundance than could satisfy the table of a French peasant – it benefitted on the other side from a small wood with plenty of restful shady spots, and with sticks for the fireplace.The day, at the hour of my arrival, enjoyed the last rays of the Sun’).

Here, according to Fubini’s analysis Foscolo imposed his taste and personality, transforming the description of the farm-house into a neoclassical sketch, far from the intentions of Sterne in ASJ. Note the poetic reformulation of the last phrase, where the matter-of-fact expression ‘about eight in the evening’ is transformed into the extended periphrasis ‘the day, at the hour of my arrival, enjoyed the last rays of the Sun’, conveying the sense of a bucolic idyll. See Fubini, ‘Introduction’ to Foscolo 1951, XV–CXVIII, in particular XL–L.

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charged with a Dantesque reminescence, not only because it recalls Dante’s famous line when he meets Beatrice in Purgatory (‘conosco i segni dell’antica fiamma’,‘I recognise the signs of the ancient flame’, Purgatory, Canto XXX, 48), but also because words such as ‘faville’ and ‘fiamma’ recur throughout Dante’s Comedy. The translation becomes a text loaded with echoes and suggestions, imbued with references to the Italian literature.These are absent from Sterne’s text in English, and are there to be experienced only by the Italian readers. Foscolo’s prose in Viaggio sentimentale was considered a masterpiece for its elegance and for the happiness of his solutions. Perhaps the most appropriate criticism, which explains its contradictions, is that given by an Italian critic, Attilio Momigliano, according to whom the translation is an ‘odd masterpiece’ (‘strano capolavoro’, 1938, 119), that is ‘the most evident proof of Foscolo’s natural aversion as a poet to spontaneous prose, and the point of maximum perfection that he reached in his style of studied prose’ (‘la prova più evidente di questa sua nativa avversione di poeta alla prosa spontanea, ed è il punto di massima perfezione che egli abbia toccato sulla via della prosa studiata’, 1938, 120–21). The translation imposed itself, in part due to the poetical transposition, as a masterpiece in its own right, as a classic of Italian literature. Indeed, publishers often present Viaggio sentimentale as a joint work, under the dual authorship of Sterne and Foscolo. Due to the literary reverence for this ‘odd masterpiece’, Foscolo’s version remained the only and uncontested translation of ASJ until the 1990s. The Romantics In 1819, shortly after Foscolo’s successful translation, the Vatican’s Index of Forbidden Books banned ASJ for its ‘licentiousness and obscenity’, and for the ‘incorrect and outrageous use of biblical texts’. In spite of this condemnation by the Catholic Church, the Italian Romantics came to know Sterne’s works very well. As Giulio Carcano, a writer and a critic, put it in an essay written in the mid-nineteenth century: ‘Who has not read Sterne’s ASJ and TS?’ (‘Chi non ha letto il Sentimental Journey e il Tristram Shandy dello Sterne?’, 1853, xcii). However, Carcano’s observation must be taken with a pinch of salt, since if ASJ was a must-read for the literary intelligentsia (thanks also to Foscolo’s mediation), the same could not be said of TS. First, there was no Italian translation of the latter available (apart from a few extracts published in a journal by Carlo Bini, see section below on Bini and only a very few could read it in the original language, while the rest had to content themselves with the French translation. Second, the text tended to be misunderstood by its first Italian critical readers: in 1845 G. Spini (Rabizzani 1920, 190), a scholar of English literature, claimed that the search for originality at any cost had led Sterne to affectation; and in 1851 Giuseppe Nicolini, secretary of the Athenaeum of Brescia, presented at the institute a lecture where with a few examples of translation he confessed his uneasiness and wondered whether TS, due to its strange form and inextricable obscurity, might be untranslatable. It thus came about that most of the Romantics based their knowledge of the English author on ASJ. Sterne’s message, though, was often presented in

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a one-sided pathetic model (leaving perhaps only the Holy Office to appreciate the duplicity of his text). This was partly with Foscolo’s connivance: while he was a fine interpreter of Sterne, he did emphasize the sentimental tone of ASJ, underlining, as he does in his Preface to the translation, that for Sterne ‘a smile can add something to this Fragment of life’ as much as ‘every tear teaches a truth to mortals’ (Foscolo 1954 [1813],V). It must be said moreover that in addition to ASJ, he also translated the episode of Maria from TS, which he interpolated in his translation at the beginning of the chapters on Maria, opportunely excising the last sentence which gives an ironic twist to the whole episode (it is true though that the crucial sentence – ‘What an excellent inn at Moulins!’ – was left out of nearly all the contemporary English editions of the Beauties of Sterne as well).With the Romantics the ambivalent laughter-tear was further dramatized and, rather than implying a subtle psychological transaction, it was presented as an opposition of contraries. The ‘sensibility’ of Sterne quickly became identified with the ‘sentimental’ of the Romantics. Consequently there were many examples of weak Romantic imitations.These include: Lo Spettatore Italiano (The Italian Observer, 1822) by Giovanni Ferri di San Costante, Viaggio e meravigliose avventure di un veneziano che esce per la prima volta dalle lagune e si reca a Padova e a Milano (The journey and marvellous adventures of a Venetian who for the first time leaves the lagoon for Padua and Milan, 1823) by Luigi Bassi, La fidanzata ligure (The Ligurian fiancée, 1828) by Carlo Varese and Viaggio sentimentale al camposanto colerico di Napoli (A sentimental journey in the cholera cemetery of Naples, 1837) by Lorenzo Borsini.These are some of the most derivative pieces at the expense of Sterne, all heavily sounding the chords of the pathetic. Some other imitations stand out somewhat more positively, since some original linguistic and stylistic experiments on the Sternean pattern are attempted. These include Avventure e osservazioni sopra le coste di Barberia (Adventures and observations on the Barbary Coast, 1817) by Filippo Pananti (which benefits from a true understanding of Sterne’s works since the author lived in London and could appreciate Sterne in the original language), Breve soggiorno in Milano di Battistino Barometro (The brief stay in Milan of Battistino Barometro, 1819) by Silvio Pellico, Viaggio di tre giorni (A three-day journey, 1823) attributed by Luca Toschi (1990, 111) to Luigi Ciampolini, Viaggio di un ignorante (Journey of an illiterate, 1857) by Giovanni Rajberti and Il buco nel muro (The hole in the wall, 1862) by Domenico Guerrazzi. The list of Italian authors influenced or inspired by Sterne in the nineteenth century could be extended. Some Italian critics have recently argued that it is restrictive to retrace a line of influence. For Giancarlo Mazzacurati, as mentioned at the outset, it is more appropriate to speak of a ‘Sterne effect’ because it underlines the important role Sterne had in initiating the tradition of humour in Italy. For Giorgio Manganelli, Sterne is the ‘magic name’ (‘nome magico’, 1985, 3) to which we must attribute a literary trend that developed in Italy in the first half of the nineteenth century in opposition to the mainstream model.This ‘Sternean idea of literature’ (‘idea sterniana di letteratura’, 1985, 3), as Manganelli calls it, is ‘a narrative without narration’, a narrative, in other words, in which the story is ‘discontinuous,

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fragmentary, a sort of a chat, a babble, a rambling, a wandering about from a digression to an invention of mood’ which naturally leads to the dismantling of the structure of the plot. This breaking of the narrative order is considered ‘a liberating event’ that contrasts with ‘the compulsion to narrate that existed in nineteenth-century Europe’.10 It would be fair to conclude the survey of Romantic authors by looking briefly at three authors of the Italian tradition who tried to move away from the Romantic misconception of Sterne as the progenitor of pathetic sentimentalism and adopted in their own way a ‘Sternean idea of literature’.These are Alessandro Manzoni, Carlo Bini and Ippolito Nievo. Manzoni was the author of I promessi sposi (The Betrothed, 1827), which is considered the first Italian modern novel. It is an historical novel, with allegiances to Walter Scott. And yet, it has a very peculiar structure, full of digressions and self-reflexive comments in which the narrator discusses the work and opens dialogues with the reader and with his sources, be they the fictitious author of the manuscript from which the story is supposedly taken or the historical texts on which the story is based.The main plot of Manzoni’s novel is continually fragmented into parallel narrations, leaving space for other stories, and for the story par excellence, history itself. Manganelli observed that Manzoni must have been aware that he was doing something ‘post-Sternean’ (cited in Pulce 1988, 98). Other critics have traced the presence of Sterne in Manzoni’s masterpiece, particularly in relation to his talent for the ‘management and cookery’ of the technique of digression.11 Carlo Bini is not of the same literary stature as Manzoni, but represents an interesting case. He was a young writer belonging to the democratic wing of the ‘Risorgimento’, one of the founders of ‘Giovane Italia’ (‘Young Italy’, a movement dedicated to the Unification of Italy) and a friend of Giuseppe Mazzini. It is to Bini that we must credit the first attempt to translate TS. In 1829 he published three episodes in instalments in the journal Indicatore livornese (Livornese Indicator).Two of these were of ironic-pathetic intonation, in conformity with the appreciation of a ‘sentimental Sterne’ (the story of Yorick and the story of Le Fevre), the third was the more satirical and surreal ‘Slawkenbergius’ Tale’. In the same journal Bini published an essay on Sterne, in which, along with enthusiastic admiration, he makes the surprising observation of the affinity of Sterne’s humour with the Italian feeling: If the softness of the Italian sky, and the melody of Italian sounds, and the rejoicing of the amiable land, which in all its forms unveil the thought of a smile, are wonderful and essential expressions of beauty; if the sons of Italy were once endowed with dispositions in harmony with their solemn language, who of us will not easily acknowledge as expressions of beauty all the works

10

11

‘Una narrativa senza narrazione. Tutto ciò che vi capita può essere materia di racconto; ma il racconto che ne verrà fuori sarà discontinuo, lacunoso, una sorta di ciarla, di cicalata, un vagabondare, un andare a spasso tra una digressione e un’invenzione dell’umore’ … ‘La rottura dell’ordine narrativo è un evento liberatorio; esiste una “coazione a narrare” che attraversa tutto l’Ottocento europeo’ (Manganelli 1985, 3, 212). The influence of Sterne on Manzoni is argued by Macchia (1989) and (1994), and Raimondi (1990).

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of Sterne? And the Irishman created them so beautifully in our manner, that in fancy you would say his thought had been developed in the breezes of our clear skies, and, mixed with his blood, there flowed within him a flame of the Italic sun.12

An original understanding of Sterne’s ideas is offered in Il manoscritto di un prigioniero (The manuscript of a prisoner) which Bini wrote in 1833 during his confinement in prison for his political and revolutionary activities. The text is an internal exploration, mobile and rhapsodic, of the condition of a prisoner, using the double register of irony and sentimental reflection. Ippolito Nievo was another young writer committed to the cause of the ‘Risorgimento’; he was one of the protagonists of the revolution of 1848 in Italy and one of the participants in Garibaldi’s expedition to Sicily, all events which he narrated in his book Confessioni di un ottuagenario (The Confession of an Octagenarian, published in English with the title of The Castle of Fratta, 1867). In this novel he makes wide use of Sternean digression and explicitly quotes the English author.There is also an amusing passage in which Nievo reflects on the characteristics of humour, and, overcoming his reverence to the English tradition, he sings the praises of the Italian or southern way of humour and attempts a definition of humour according to geographical location or climate: He who looked in England for the founders of humour certainly did not live in Venice nor pass through Portogruaro. Here he would have found, resulting from century-long idleness, full stomachs, and ready, cheerfully awake brains, the southern humour that is so different from the northern, as is the nocturnal fog of the swamp from the shining and hazy horizon of a beautiful summer sunset. Life and the things that are in it are equally despised, that is the affinity; but for this reason all changed to light-heartedness, to joy; that is the difference. In England on the contrary they turn to melancholy, they gnaw at themselves, they get heated, they kill each other. They are two different immoralities or follies; but I don’t really want to choose among them. The brain will probably run to one side and the heart to the other depending whether one appreciates more human dignity or human happiness.13 12

13

‘Se la mollezza del cielo italiano, e la melodia dei suoni, e l’esultanza del paese gentile, che in ogni sua forma svela il concetto del sorriso, sono meravigliose e principali espressioni della bellezza; se i figli d’Italia sortivano tempre armonizzate al solenne linguaggio, qual di noi non vorrà di lieve consentire espressione della Bellezza le opere tutte di Sterne? E l’Irlandese le creava così belle alla nostra maniera, che tu immaginando diresti il suo pensiere educato nell’aure dei nostri sereni, e che al sangue gli corresse mista una fiamma dell’italico Sole’ (Mazzacurati 1990, 349). ‘Chi ha cercato in Inghilterra i creatori dell’umorismo non visse certamente a Venezia, né mai passò per Portogruaro. Vi avrebbe trovato, frutto di lunghi ozii secolari, di ottimi stomachi e d’ingegni pronti allegri svegliati, quell’umorismo meridionale che tanto si distingue dal settentrionale quanto la nebbia notturna del palude dall’orizzonte lucente e vaporoso d’un bel tramonto d’estate. La vita e le cose che sono in essa, disprezzate ugualmente; ecco la parentela; ma perciò appunto volte tutte alla spensieratezza, alla gioia; ecco la diversità. In Inghilterra invece danno in melanconia, si rodono, si appassionano, si ammazzano. Sono due immoralità, o due pazzie diverse; ma non voglio affatto decidermi per nessuna delle due. Il cervello forse correrebbe da una parte e il cuore dall’altra secondoché s’apprezza meglio o la dignità o la felicità umana’ (Nievo 1867, 1: 279).

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This piece is typical of the first nineteenth-century theorizations of humour, which were generally influenced by the idea of the ‘national character’. Nievo’s true appreciation of Sterne’s art is furthermore evident in some of his earlier works, such as L’Antiafrodisiaco dell’amor platonico (The anti-aphrodisiac of platonic love, 1856) and La nostra famiglia di campagna (Our family in the countryside, 1855–56) where he borrows from Sterne techniques such as ellipsis, fragmentation of the narrative text, digression, dialogue with the reader and self-conscious reflection upon the act of writing. The discussion of the concept of humour was further developed in the Italian literary journals and periodicals of the mid-nineteenth century, where, not surprisingly, Sterne’s name recurs frequently. Among the articles which explore humour in its philosophical and literary dimensions we find the interesting essay of Gustavo Strafforello, ‘L’humour e gli umoristi’ (1855, On Humour and the Humorists). A series of articles specifically on Sterne’s humour was published the same year in the Milanese journal, Il caffè (The Café)14, by G.B. Castiglia (Mazzacurati 1990, 413–28): through an informed selection and translation of passages from TS, the author aimed to present an analysis of Sterne’s techniques, and in so doing demonstrated that his knowledge of these was not superficial. The ‘Scapigliati’: Carlo Dossi and the ‘Serpentine Line’ The influence of Sterne continued during the second half of the nineteenth century, and, through the interpretations of the ‘Scapigliati’, in particular that of Carlo Dossi, underwent a significant change of direction. The ‘Scapigliatura’ may be considered to be the Italian counterpart to the French bohème: a literary and artistic movement which arose in the second half of the century in reaction against the lachrymose trend of Italian Romanticism. The aim of the ‘Scapigliati’ was to modernize and make Italian culture less provincial and for this reason they discovered or rediscovered foreign models for prose and poetry. Some of the works of these supposed ‘rebel’ writers show the marks of a Sternean influence.This we see in particular in: Viaggio sentimentale nel giardino Balzaretti (A sentimental journey in the Balzaretti garden, 1865) and L’innamorato della montagna (The lovestruck of the mountain, 1888) by Iginio Tarchetti; Baciale ‘l piede e la man bella e bianca (Kiss the foot and the beautiful white hand, 1867) by Camillo Boito; and Vita di Alberto Pisani (The life of Alberto Pisani, 1870) by Carlo Dossi. Carlo Dossi made a final rejection of the pathetic cliché of Sterne15 and shifted attention to the narrative techniques of TS – a work as yet untranslated

14

15

The journal is not related to the homonymous eighteenth-century journal. It was founded at the beginning of 1855 by Vincenzo di Castro and stopped publication on 29 September of the same year. It was published twice weekly by F. Pagnoni, and printed in Milan. It focused on literary and theatrical news, and a considerable amount of space was given to the publication of poetry and short stories. Dossi wrote: ‘Sterne pretends to be tender, but it is a false tenderness’ (‘Sterne fa il tenero, ma è un falso tenerume’, 1964, 80).

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into Italian. Dossi was interested in the unmasking of narrative devices, and conceived literature as a parody of the narrative genres. He was also famous for his linguistic experimentation. His most important work, Vita di Alberto Pisani is clearly indebted to Sterne (as well as to the German writer Jean Paul Richter). From the English author he borrowed the self-reflexive attitude of the narrator, the dialogue with the reader, and the technique of digression which became for Dossi the most efficacious means to explore the narrative act. Sterne is moreover mentioned directly by the protagonist of Vita as his favourite author (Dossi 1870, 130) and there are several passages in the book that implicitly allude to him. These are: the meeting of Alberto, the protagonist, with a lady in a coupé (1870, 134) which recalls the chaise-related encounters typical of the sentimental travelogue initiated by ASJ; the description of Alberto’s writer’s block (1870, 130) which retraces the phases of Yorick’s difficulties in writing the letter to Madame L*** (ASJ, 61);16 and the narrator’s hymn to ignorance (‘O lucky ignorance! safe vault which spans the horrible abysses; thanks to you we walk safely, and never fall’ [‘O beata ignoranza! sòlida volta che celi orrìbili abissi; per te si cammina sicuri, nè si cade mai’, 1870, 82]) which can be considered as a parody/homage of Yorick’s famous hymn to sensibility in ASJ (‘Dear sensibility! source inexhausted of all that’s precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows!’, 155). Finally, a ‘Sternean’ flavour can be discerned even in Dossi’s apology for plagiarism.This occurs when the narrator affirms he has borrowed a passage from the book the protagonist,Alberto, is writing; to defend his practice, and to play another of his tricks on the reader, the narrator exclaims: ‘Oh the great crime of copying! Didn’t he copy as well?’ (‘Oh il gran male del copiare! Non ha copiato anche lui?’, 1870, 171). Dossi is copying from Alberto, but he feels justified because Alberto has copied from him? The ambiguity is total and the fictitious and the real blur together. Besides the puzzling interaction between fiction and reality, which is a typical Sternean device, we can positively suspect that it was Dossi who was copying from – or at least he was inspired by – Sterne’s invective against plagiarism in TS which was itself a clever plagiarism from another invective against literary

16

Dossi:‘Our friend sat at his desk. He felt his head full of wonderful ideas, but with no means of expressing them, he began to torment the wick with his pen; nothing! … Then, removing the pen from his mouth, a drop of ink landed in the middle of the page … He threw the pen away, crumpled the paper and cast it on the floor; he almost threw the ink-stand as well, when he stopped himself, noticing the rug. Such conventional anger!’ (‘L’amico nostro si siedette a scrittojo. Ei si sentiva la testa piena di belle pensate, ma senza verso di sprèmerle, si die’ con la penna a tormentar la stoppina; niente! … Senonchè, togliendo questa di bocca, gocciò a mezzo del foglio una macchia … Lanciò lontano la penna, strinse, gettò per terra il fogliuzzo; fu per gettarvi il calamajo financo, ma si rattenne, avvertendo al tappeto. Convenzionalissima ira!’).

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theft, made by Robert Burton (with whom Dossi was well acquainted) at the beginning of his Anatomy of Melancholy.17 It is interesting to note that in parallel to his literary activity, Dossi developed a theoretical reflection on humour, which was also briefly attempted by both Bini and Nievo. Indeed, in his asystematic and fragmentary notes, published posthumously in 1911, with the title Note azzurre (Blue Notes), he gathered and outlined a theory of humour, which he intended to publish as Storia dell’Umorismo (History of Humour). Dossi’s conception of humour was, on the one hand, influenced by the nineteenth-century reflections on ‘national character’ and, on the other, anticipated, in the concepts and in the images, Pirandello’s theory of humour: humour as a dismantling force, as ‘criticism in action’ (Dossi 1964, 74). Humour has for Dossi an important heuristic value; it embodies the spirit of contradiction and of doubt; it implies a balance between passion and reason; it offers an antidote against the monolithic conception of culture, and it marks the literature of modern times, sceptical and eclectic, always questioning itself.There was for Dossi one image that expressed the essence of humour, and that was the ‘serpentine line’ theorized by Hogarth in his Analysis of Beauty and immortalized in TS (9.4.743) by Corporal Trim flourishing his stick and leaving a twisting line on the page (in addition to the serpentine lines used by Sterne to describe pictorically the digressive pattern of the first five volumes of TS, in 6.40.570–71).The serpentine line is the ‘truer line of beauty’ (‘la vera linea della bellezza’, Dossi 1964, 95); it is the line that can attempt to reproduce the freedom, the lightness, the power of humour, as well as the zig-zag movement of its investigating reality. It comes as no surprise that in Dossi’s theoretical reflection on humour the name of Sterne, among those of Cervantes, Fielding and Hogarth, recurred as a fundamental point of reference. The Modernists In the twentieth century, TS was to take the pride of place that ASJ had held in the culture of the nineteenth century.The beginning of the century was, in this sense, a period of transition.The key figures were the Modenese publisher Angelo Fortunato Formiggini and the Sicilian writer Luigi Pirandello. Formiggini and the first Italian translation of TS (1922) Formiggini was the publisher of the first Italian translation of TS by Ada Salvatori in 1922. It is also thanks to Formiggini that Giovanni Rabizzani was able to publish his biography of Sterne, Lorenzo Sterne (1914) and the first systematic study on the English author, Sterne in Italia: Riflessi nostrani

17

Sterne’s plagiarism from Burton was noted by a near-contemporary critic, John Ferriar (1798). This apology for plagiarism became a playful practice quite common among French writers, including Charles Nodier (the chapter ‘Objection’ in Histoire du roi de Bohème et de ses sept châteaux, 1830) (History of the King of Bohemia and of his seven castles) or Gérard de Nerval (‘Reflexions,’ in Les Faux-Saulniers, 1853).

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dell’umorismo sentimentale (Sterne in Italy: Italian reflections on sentimental humour, 1920). Formiggini was an original figure in Italian culture of the period, and the end of his life was both original and dramatic: in 1938 he threw himself from the Ghirlandina tower of Modena, on the introduction of ‘racial laws’ by the fascist regime in Italy, as the last freedom he had as a Jew. Formiggini owned and directed with a personal style a small publishing company. He was, according to his own definition, an ‘amateur private publisher’ (‘un privato editore dilettante’, Balsamo and Renzo 1981, 153), and yet some of his collections, including ‘Classici del ridere’ (‘Classics of laughter’), in which the translation of TS was published, and ‘Italia che scrive’ (‘Italy writing’), to which belonged Rabizzani’s study of Sterne, had an important role in the formation of Italian culture.The collection ‘Classici del ridere’ was the most successful and the most dear to him – as he used to say, it was ‘the most serious thing in publishing he had ever done’ (‘la cosa editorialmente più seria che io abbia mai creata’, Formiggini 1977, 16). In 1907 Formiggini received his second academic degree in Philosophy, having written a thesis entitled Filosofia del ridere (Philosophy of laughter), which has many points in common with the philosophy of humour that Pirandello was elaborating at the time. Significantly, the theme of laughter or humour is one of the features that characterized the emergence of modernism at the beginning of the twentieth century and is in fact related to the various essays or meditations on laughter which were published in the period, including the essays of Baudelaire, Freud, Bergson and Pirandello. For Formiggini, humour had a social function: it was a means of fraternizing, of bringing people together (and here one cannot avoid recalling Uncle Toby’s episode with the fly and his message of tolerance). Humour for him was not simply a human mood, but a way of conceiving the world, of making a stand, of defending freedom, even when time and history were plotting against this, as was the case in 1938.The conception of humour as freedom, as tolerance, is precisely what led him to include and promote Sterne in his collections. Luigi Pirandello: appreciation of the ‘inconclusiveness’ Luigi Pirandello published his philosophy of humour as L’umorismo (On Humour, 1908), and in the following year he paid passionate homage to Sterne in a brief article with the illuminating title ‘Non conclude’ (Without Conclusion): I love and admire the inconclusive, restless souls, almost in a state of perpetual fusion, who disdain to congeal, to stiffen into this or that determinate form. And among the books to which I return most frequently, I love two above all others: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Sterne, the most inconclusive novel that has been ever written, and Hamlet by Shakespeare, which Goethe called the insoluble problem, sublime also for its tremendous inconclusiveness.18 18

‘Amo ed ammiro le anime sconclusionate, irrequiete, quasi in uno stato di fusione continua, che sdegnano di rapprendersi, di irrigidirsi in questa o in quella forma determinata. E tra i libri, a cui ritorno più di frequente, due ne amo sopra a tutti:

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What Pirandello ‘loved and admired’ about this ‘inconclusive’ novel was the technique of digression, a technique which has the subversive power to undo a text, to make it, as it were, open, without conclusion. In L’umorismo, Pirandello refers frequently to Sterne; in one passage he explicitly associates digressions with the art of humour, and, consequently, with Sterne who brilliantly embodies this art and this technique. It has often been observed that humoristic works are broken up, interrupted, interpolated by constant digressions … These things, which for Italian critics are in one way an excess and in another way a defect, constitute the most obvious characteristic of all humoristic books. It is enough to mention Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, which from beginning to end is a tangle of divergencies and digressions, notwithstanding the autobiographer’s intention to narrate everything ab ovo, point by point, beginning with his mother’s womb and with the clock that Mr Shandy, Senior, was in the habit of winding punctually.19 (Pirandello 1960a, 119)

The strategy of digression, exemplified by, but not restricted to Sterne’s work, became for Pirandello the hallmark of humorous writing and humour in general. Humour, of course, was theorized in a very personal way by Pirandello.The humorist was, for the Sicilian writer, the artist who could not conceive an idea without immediately decomposing this very same idea and perceiving its opposite: ‘he decomposes the character into its elements … and enjoys representing him in his incongruities’ (‘l’umorista ... scompone il carattere nei suoi elementi ... e si diverte a rappresentarlo nelle sue incongruenze’, Pirandello 1908, 184). Humour is the art of disassembling the composed. For this reason, ‘any genuine humorist is not only a poet, he is a critic, but – let us take note – critic sui generis, a fantastical critic’ (‘ogni vero umorista non è soltanto poeta, è anche critico, ma – si badi un critico sui generis, un critico fantastico’, 1908, 156); digressions are thus the most efficacious tool he finds available to take advantage of this strategy of dissection in the narrative text: they maintain and reinforce, with all the interruptions and disturbance that they provoke in the sequence of the plot, the critical dimension. They are, in Pirandello’s words, ‘the result of the reflection that dissects’20 (Pirandello 1960a, 143, 119, and 145). Digression, and Sterne, the recognized master of it, embodies for Pirandello the dismantling power of humour.

cont.

19

20

La vita e le opinioni di Tristram Shandy dello Sterne, il più sconclusionato dei romanzi che siano mai stati scritti, e l’Amleto di Shakespeare, che il Goethe chiamava un problema insolubile, sublime, anch’esso per la sua tremenda sconclusione’ (Pirandello 1909, 2). ‘È stato tante volte notato che le opere umoristiche sono scomposte, interrotte, intramezzate da continue digressioni … Questo che ai critici nostri è sembrato un eccesso per un verso, un difetto per l’altro, è poi la caratteristica più evidente di tutti i libri umoristici. Basta citare il Tristram Shandy dello Sterne, che è tutto quanto un viluppo di variazioni e digressioni, non ostante che l’autobiografo si proponga di narrar tutto ab ovo, punto per punto, e cominci dall’alvo di sua madre e dalla pendola che il Signor Shandy padre soleva puntualmente caricare’ (Pirandello 1908, 155–56). ‘il frutto della riflessione che scompone’, 1908, 186.

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This is the ground for Pirandello’s audacious experimentation with narrative – particularly in his first-person narrative novels and most of all in his last novel, Uno, nessuno e centomila (One, None and a Hundred Thousand, 1925–26). Significantly, this is the text that bears the most signs of Sterne’s influence. This is apparent not only in the long subtitle which follows the title in the first edition of the novel: ‘General observations of Vitangelo Moscarda, on the life of men and in particular on his own’ (‘Considerazioni di Vitangelo Moscarda, generali sulla vita degli uomini e particolari sulla propria’), but also in the division into many volumes, in the initial dissertation on noses, in the obsession with proper names, in the use of typographical devices,21 of lists to sum up questions, reflections, points of view and, of course, of digressions. Digressions, in particular, serve Pirandello to interrupt, in a very Sternean fashion, the movement of narration. This was done for two essential purposes. First, he signalled his dissatisfaction with the plot of the naturalistic novel (which recalls Sterne’s mocking of the story told ab ovo): What are those facts that you are trying to tell me about? The fact that I was born in such and such a year, in such and such a month, on such and such a day, in the worthy city of Richieri, in a house in such and such a street, at such and such a number, the son of Signor So-and-So of the So-and-So’s and of Signora So-and-So of the So-and-So’s; that I was baptized in Mother Church when I was six days old, sent to school at the age of six, married at twentythree; and that I am one meter and seventy in height, of a reddish skin, etc. etc. This is my description. Factual data, you say. And would you go on to deduce from it the reality that is mine?22 (Pirandello 1983, 110)

This passage constitutes a parody of the naturalistic novel where the character, followed through his moral, sentimental and cultural formation, is seen progressing towards a global and coherent construction of his personality. The result should be an ideal construction, made of facts which follow one after another according to a precise and coherent progression. Pirandello did not believe in representing the facts of a life by following the co-ordinates of space and time, or cause–effect relationships.That is why for him the plot, in its coherent progression and order, was inadequate for expressing the vitality, the restlessness and the uncertainty of reality as well as being unable to account for the fragmented and achronological dimension of subjectivity. Second, and consequently, digression, which insinuated itself as a wedge in the temporal sequence of the plot, created a new time: the time of the

21

22

In Chapter 1 of Volume 1, two circumflex accents (^ ^) are used to describe Moscarda’s eyes; the entire Chapter 7 of Volume 5 is put into parentheses to underline Moscarda’s soliloquy. ‘Di quali fatti volete parlare? Del fatto ch’io sono nato, anno tale, mese tale, giorno tale, nella nobile città di Richieri, nella casa in via tale, numero tale, dal signor Tal dei Tali e dalla signora Tal dei Tali; battezzato nella chiesa madre di giorni sei; mandato a scuola d’anni sei; ammogliato d’anni ventitré; alto di statura un metro e sessantotto; rosso di pelo, ecc. ecc.? Sono i miei connotati. Dati di fatto, dite voi. E vorreste desumerne la mia realtà’ (Pirandello 1926, 86–87).

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narrating self which questions itself and, in so doing, calls into question the reader as receiver of his message. Digressions are therefore used to provoke the reader and engage him/her in a game, which oscillates from a courteous dialogue to a bitter mocking. In the following passage the narrator is literally intruding in the space of the reader: There is a knock at the door of your room. And yet, you remain where you are, remained stretched out comfortably in your easy chair. I will sit here.You say no? Why? Ah, that is the armchair in which, all these many years ago, your poor mother died. If you don’t mind my saying so, you would not have given a penny for it, but now you would not sell it for all the money in the world; I can well believe that. Any one, meanwhile, who saw it in your well-furnished room would certainly, if he did not know the facts in the case, wonder how you could go on keeping it here, old, faded and torn as it is. These are your chairs. And this is a tiny table, as tiny as it could be.That is a window, looking out over the garden.And out there are the pines, the cypresses. I know. Delightful hours spent in this room, which to you is so beautiful, with a glimpse of those cypresses yonder.23 (1983, 56–57)

Similarly to its eighteenth-century model, TS, Pirandello’s modernist novel, Uno, nessuno e centomila is based on the active and open interplay between a (collaborative) reader and a (manipulative) narrator. Due to the many digressions which break the sequence of the plot and draw attention to the narrative process itself, the narration is no longer a linear sequence of facts but a dialectical game between different levels, that of the narrator and that of the reader, the fictional and the real – a dynamic which in the same period Pirandello made explode like a bomb on stage with his trilogy of theatre within the theatre.24 Italo Svevo At the same time, in Trieste, at the other extreme of the peninsula, there was another writer experimenting with the wandering Sternean prose: Italo

23

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‘Picchio all’uscio della vostra stanza State, state pure sdrajato comodamente su la vostra greppina. Io seggo qua. Dite di no? –Perché? Ah, è la poltrona su cui, tant’anni or sono, morì la vostra povera mamma. Scusate, non avrei dato un soldo per essa, mentre voi non la vendereste per tutto l’oro del mondo; lo credo bene. Chi la vede intanto, nella vostra stanza così ben mobigliata, certo, non sapendo, si domanda con maraviglia come la possiate tenere qua vecchia scolorita e strappata com’è. Queste sono le vostre seggiole. E questo è un tavolino, che più tavolino di così non potrebbe essere. Quella è una finestra che dà sul giardino. E là fuori, quei pini, quei cipressi. Lo so. Ore deliziose passate in questa stanza che vi par tanto bella, con quei cipressi che si vedono là.’ (Pirandello 1926, 39-40). See in particular Pirandello’s play Ciascuno a suo modo (Each in His Own Way, 1924) which dramatizes the dynamic between the text and its audience.

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Svevo (pseudonym of Ettore Schmitz). In 1928 Svevo wrote Corto viaggio sentimentale (Short sentimental journey; the short story remained unfinished since the author died in a motor accident in the same year). The influence of Sterne was expressed in the title as well as in the style of the text, where the author paralleled the small events of a real journey, a journey by train of a Signor Aghios from Milan to Trieste, with a sentimental journey in the mind. Svevo, who probably read Sterne at the suggestion of his English teacher and friend James Joyce, was the author of a masterpiece – albeit not recognized at the time of its publication – La coscienza di Zeno (Confessions of Zeno, 1923), which, representing the conscious and unconscious unfolding of the protagonist’s thought, is itself constructed in a digressive way (and in fact led some critics to recognize a Sternean presence in this novel).25 In spite of the first translation of TS by Formiggini, the scholarly effort made by Rabizzani with his biography and monograph on Sterne, and the interest and admiration shown toward the English author by important Italian writers, including Pirandello and Svevo, Italian critics and scholars were still indifferent to the spell of TS and continued to focus their attention on ASJ, in particular on Foscolo’s version of ASJ.26 Indeed, around the years of the First World War, the two Italian journals La Voce (The Voice, which was very close to the philosophy of Benedetto Croce, was founded in 1909 by Giuseppe Prezzolini,) and La Ronda (The Round, a literary journal, active from 1919–22, which advocated the restoration of the classic tradition of Italian literature) made a rediscovery of Viaggio sentimentale, and many critics wrote about it, but only to emphasize Foscolo’s archaic, allusive, contemplative language, which for them expressed the modern ideal of artistic prose. In this appreciation (and over-estimation) of Foscolo, Sterne was not involved at all. In fact, we can say that Sterne had disappeared behind Foscolo. Critical acclaim: Carlo Levi TS waited until the 1958 Einaudi edition to secure its position of prominence in Italy.27 This was a beautiful translation by Antonio Meo, and

25 26

27

See Mazzacurati (1987) and Botti (1982). It must be emphasized that among the many reprintings of Foscolo’s translation there was a new translation of ASJ by G. Ipsevich-Bocca in 1932 and the publication in 1926 of an excerpt in the original language from ASJ, the chapter ‘The Desobligeant, Calais’ in the elegant hand-printed collection of the ‘Officina Bodoni’ founded and directed by Giovanni Mardersteig. The text, as all the Bodoni catalogue, aimed for high artistic value and was printed in a run of only twenty-five copies. Before the successful translation of TS by Antonio Meo, in 1958 an interesting selection of Sterne’s works appeared edited by Carlo Linati (who also translated the extracts from TS, while using Foscolo’s translation for ASJ). Linati was a writer close to the futurist movement and trained in the circles of La Voce and La Ronda. The Sternean interest was shared with his friend, the writer Gian Piero Lucini, the author of an important critical work on Carlo Dossi (L’ora topica di Carlo Dossi, 1911).

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had an enlightening Preface by the Italian painter and writer Carlo Levi. Levi grasped the modernity of Sterne’s invention of a different time created by the Self, the duration. The invention of the Self as a fundamental motif and shape of reality creates a new dimension. For this reason Sterne is a great master of style, and a forerunner of the future. New forms and new contents are created; feelings and irony are introduced, and so is the sense of the infinite mutability of reality, of its being made of inexhaustible relations, of the contemporaneity of times … It is the invention of duration, which takes the place of time, and compels a vague running after evasive reality, and undoes and destroys the structure and the time of the novel, the borders of the characters and their psychology, almost two centuries in advance.28

It is in this sense that Sterne was a forerunner of the future, and TS – Levi concluded – ‘a major Ulysses, created, by a cast spell over clock time, in the eighteenth century’.The Sternean duration or conception of time, by Levi’s own admission, deeply influenced his own narrative (Levi 1958,VIII);29 his narrative differed greatly from Sterne’s style, ranging from journalistic reportage to the autobiographical, but managed to bring, according to the Italian writer Italo Calvino, ‘a spirit of digression and a feeling of unlimited time even to the observation of social problems’ (‘uno spirito divagante e il senso di un tempo illimitato anche nell’osservazione dei problemi sociali’, 1988, 46). In his Preface Levi considers other aspects of Sterne’s art. He praises, for example, the ‘modernity of transferring the interest from the external to the internal, preserving, at the same time, the full interest for the world.’30 Finally, his observations on the symbolic value of the clock, on Tristram’s escape from time and death, are brilliant and masterly:

28

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30

‘L’invenzione dell’Io come motivo essenziale e forma della realtà crea una nuova dimensione. Per questo Sterne è un grande maestro di stile, e un precursore del futuro. Si creano nuove forme, e nuovi contenuti: si introducono nelle cose i sentimenti e l’ironia, e il senso della infinita mutevolezza della realtà, del suo essere fatta di rapporti inesauribili, della contemporaneità dei tempi … È l’invenzione della durata, che si sostituisce al tempo, e costringe a una vaga corsa dietro alla sfuggente realtà, e scioglie e distrugge la struttura e il tempo del romanzo, i limiti dei personaggi e la loro psicologia, con quasi due secoli di anticipo. In questo senso più che un Don Chisciotte inglese, Tristram Shandy si potrebbe chiamare un maggiore Ulysses, nato, per un incanto di orologio, nel Settecento’ (Levi 1958, x). Levi writes: ‘I was, at the time, ingenuously astonished that, among the many and often strange things said about my books, and in particular of The Watch, it did not cross anybody’s mind, if only for extrinsic reasons, to mention Sterne … Only much later I realized that Sterne was generally unknown.’ (‘Mi ero, a suo tempo, ingenuamente stupito che, fra le molte e spesso strane cose che si erano dette dei miei libri, e in particolare dell’Orologio, non fosse venuto in mente a nessuno, se non altro per ragioni estrinseche, di citare lo Sterne … Soltanto molto più tardi, mi resi conto che Sterne era generalmente ignoto.’) ‘la modernità del trasferire l’interesse dall’esterno all’interno, conservando, tuttavia, nello stesso tempo, pieno interesse per le cose’ (Levi 1958, ix).

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Laurence Sterne, in the labyrinth of duration, carries all of himself and his world. Like a Metastasian hero, who, instead of smothering the tragedy with songs, covers it with smiles and digressions, he remains there, armed with Chaplinesque persistency, with human courage. His refusal is never a renunciation. Fleeing time and death, in a precarious balance, Duration arrives at Reason and Knowledge: and something is, really, added to the fragment that is life.31

This essay had a great influence on Italian critics. It is possible to say that, in a beautiful, clear and intense piece, Levi offered a key and a stimulus to critics and the public to read and appreciate TS. Indeed, his interpretation was adopted by contemporary Sternean criticism. In 1963, a few years after this publication, there was another important scholarly contribution by Giorgio Melchiori, a Professor of English Literature at the University of Rome, in which Sterne’s masterpiece and the eighteenth-century English tradition are viewed in connection with Joyce’s Ulysses (as remarked upon by Levi). The other important event in relation to the fortune of Sterne was the Italian translation of Shklovsky’s famous essay on TS in 1966, which shifted the attention almost exclusively to the devices of the Sternean narrative machinery. From this point onward the critics of the 1970s, including Giorgio Melchiori (1974), Agostino Lombardo (1974) and Nadia Fusini (1974), focused on and analysed one or another of TS’s strategies, from the dialogue with the reader to the technique of digression. Italo Calvino and the Italian translation of PR (1981) At the beginning of the 1980s another event key to Sterne’s reception in Italy occurred. PR was translated by Giuseppe Martelli and published by Einaudi in 1981, in the collection ‘Centopagine’ (‘One hundred pages’) promoted and organized by the Italian writer Italo Calvino. It was not by chance that Calvino, one of the most experimental writers in Italy at the time, proposed the publication of this minor Sternean text, which at the time was not even available in UK bookshops.Two years earlier Calvino had published his own ‘digressive’ novel, which was Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore (If on a winter’s night a traveller, 1979), a novel built from interruptions and interpolated stories, in which the game of narration and the relationship with the reader are explored with agility and contagious humour. A similar exploration of the narrative act was what attracted Calvino to Sterne and to PR; indeed, as Calvino stated on the back cover of the translation (Un romanzo politico, 1981):

31

‘Laurence Sterne, nel labirinto della durata porta tutto se stesso e il mondo. Come un eroe di Metastasio, che anziché coprire la tragedia di canti, la copra di sorrisi e di digressioni, egli vi sta, armato di chapliniana ostinazione, di umano coraggio. Il suo rifiuto non è mai una rinuncia. Fuggendo il tempo e la morte, in un pericolante equilibrio, la Durata si accompagna alla Ragione e alla Conoscenza: e qualche cosa, davvero, si aggiunge a quel frammento che è la vita’ (Levi 1958, xiv).

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The progenitor of all vanguard novels of our century is without any doubt the eighteenth-century Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. But this progenitor itself had a forerunner, albeit in reduced format and from very nearby: in 1769, a few months before giving free rein to his inspiration as an experimental novelist ahead of his time in Shandy (as well as founding English humour), the Reverend Sterne, then an obscure anglican ecclesiast in Yorkshire, published a pamphlet … It is in this pamphlet (with the ironically pompous title of Political Romance) that Sterne gave the first example of literary invention which led him to construct his texts like jack-in-the-boxes or traps, or spider’s webs hanging in a void.32

Calvino’s fascination for a ‘digressive’ pattern of writing (a pattern, until If on a winter’s night a traveller, very different from his own) and his admiration for Sterne are apparent in Lezioni americane (American Lectures, published in English with the title of Six Memos for the Next Millennium, 1988). In the essay on ‘Quickness’ – the book being a meditation on literature according to five categories, ‘lightness’, ‘quickness’, ‘exactitude’, ‘visibility’ and ‘multiplicity’ – Calvino mentions the apparent opposite category ‘delay’ and dwells on the devices adopted in literature to achieve this effect, and calls them ‘the pleasures of delay’. The most important of these is evidently the technique of digression, and, needless to say, the reference is to Sterne: Laurence Sterne’s great invention was the novel that is completely composed of digressions, an example immediately followed by Diderot … Digression is a strategy for putting off the ending, a multiplying of time within the work, a perpetual flight. Flight from what? From death, of course.33

Giorgio Manganelli’s essayistic writing A contemporary interpretation of Sterne’s work is that of the author and critic, Giorgio Manganelli (who was Professor of English Literature at the University of Rome). Like Calvino, Manganelli focused his reading of TS on the technique of digression, but from a slightly different perspective which is original and interesting. For Manganelli, digressing, wandering and

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‘Il progenitore di tutti i romanzi d’avanguardia del nostro secolo fu senza dubbio il settecentesco Tristram Shandy di Laurence Sterne. Ma questo progenitore aveva avuto a sua volta un precursore, sia pure in formato ridotto e a distanza raccivinata: nel 1769, pochi mesi prima di dar via libera col Shandy al suo estro di romanziere sperimentale avanti-lettera (nonché di padre-fondatore dello humour inglese), il reverendo Sterne allora oscuro ecclesiastico anglicano nello Yorkshire, aveva dato alle stampe un pamphlet … Ed è in questo libello (dal titolo ironicamente pomposo di Political Romance) che Sterne dà per la prima volta prova di quell’inventiva di scrittura che lo portava a costruire i suoi testi come scatole a sorpresa o trappole o ragnatele sospese sul vuoto.’ ‘La grande invenzione di Laurence Sterne è stata il romanzo tutto fatto di digressioni: un esempio che sarà subito seguito da Diderot … La divagazione o digressione è una strategia per rinviare la conclusione, una moltiplicazione del tempo all’interno dell’opera, una fuga perpetua: fuga da che cosa? Dalla morte, certamente’ (Calvino 1988a, 46). English translation from Calvino (1988b, 46).

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straying from the topic express the nature and the beauty of narrative. Digression begins from the smallest entity, the word. It is the word that, with its many latent meanings, nuances, images and sonorities, has a potential and a capacity for wandering. Manganelli theorizes and practises what he has already described as a ‘narrativity without narration’, a writing, in other words, which is free from the constrictions of the plot, which is sensitive to apparently insignificant minutiae and finally which is capable of following the infinite wanderings of the word. In this Sterne is a master and an unsurpassable model. More than Don Quixote, Tom Jones or Gargantua, TS testifies to what Manganelli calls with corporeal words a ‘gluttony or greed’ for the ‘lateral inventiveness of the word’: If we take certain great novels like Don Quixote, if you can call it a novel, or Tristram Shandy or Tom Jones or Gargantua, we see that these are texts in which the gluttony, the greed, I do intend it in the medieval sense of vice, of the lateral inventiveness of the word is always ready, lying continuously in wait. … This in Sterne reaches a vertex, an extraordinary dizziness. It is really fascinating to read this book which is printed as all books are printed but that in reality is not read as all books are read, it’s not necessary to read it in the way other books are read. It is a book in which every page is the first and every page is the last, and this is always one of the great aspirations of literature: to write or to have a book in which all pages have this function, all pages have the same page number, for which there is no reciprocal justification, but every page is a moment of self-justification.34

References to Sterne are studded throughout Manganelli’s own texts, but what is significant is that this conception of writing – writing as digressing – finds its expression in the concept of ‘chatting’, which is an obvious paraphrase of Sterne’s notion of ‘writing as a different name for conversation’ (TS, 2.11.125).This conception effectively shapes Manganelli’s activity both as a narrative writer and critic. In fact, it is what makes the two fields blur together.The essayistic style thus becomes for Manganelli the archetype of writing, precisely because it implies the action of straying from the topic.

34

‘Se noi prendiamo certi grandi romanzi come Don Chisciotte, se si può chiamare romanzo, o Tristram Shandy o Tom Jones o Gargantua, noi vediamo come ci troviamo di fronte dei testi in cui la golosità, la gola, intendo proprio nel senso medioevale di atto vizioso, dell’invenzione laterale della verbalità, è continuamente pronta, continuamente in agguato. … Questo in Sterne raggiunge un vertice, una vertigine straordinaria. È veramente affascinante leggere questo libro che è stampato come si stampano tutti i libri ma che in realtà non si legge mica come tutti i libri, non è necessario leggerlo in quel modo. È un libro in cui tutte le pagine sono la prima e tutte le pagine sono l’ultima, e questo è sempre uno dei grandi miti della letteratura: scrivere un libro, avere un libro un cui tutte le pagine abbiano questa funzione, tutte lo stesso numero per cui non si pongono mai come giustificazione reciproca ma ciascuna pagina sia un momento di autogiustificazione’ (Pulce 1988, 97–98). The volume edited by Pulce includes the texts of the conferences held by three critics, Giorgio Manganelli, Pietro Citati and Alberto Arbasino, respectively on 19 April 1985, 8 May 1986, and 17 March 1987.

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An essay is for Manganelli nothing more than ‘a little block of chat’ (‘un quadratino di chiacchiera’, Pulce 1988, 114) with the condition, though, that one understands the complex meaning of ‘chat’. Considering that Manganelli was the author of a culture column in il Corriere della Sera (The Evening Courier), the highest-circulation newspaper in Italy, his ‘little blocks of chat’ were well known and influential. Alberto Arbasino is another author from the same cultural background as Manganelli (they both belonged to the experimental literary movement of the 1960s called ‘Gruppo 63’), and he too deliberately intermingled his literary and critical productions under the banner of Sterne. For Arbasino, Sterne, together with Cervantes,‘set down once and for all the archetypes of ready reference for “novels within novels” and “essay-novels”’ (‘Cervantes e Sterne hanno attuato una volta per tutte gli archetipi di più pronto riferimento per i “romanzi sul romanzo” e per i “romanzi-saggio”’, 1971, 345). Arbasino’s open and digressive writing was inspired by TS, which he described, not surprisingly, as an ‘exemplary narration’ (‘una narrazione esemplare’, 1971, 135). Signs of admiration when not directly of imitation of Sterne come, moreover, from very different quarters: from Francesco Tullio Altan to Aldo Busi. Altan, besides being a successful children’s writer, is a very popular political cartoonist who works for left-oriented weeklies, and he declared in an interview published in la Repubblica (the Republic) in 1990 that TS was his favourite book (Mura 1990, 25). Busi is a sarcastic and provocative contemporary writer, whose second novel, Vita standard di un venditore provvisorio di collant (The standard life of a temporary pantyhose salesman, 1985) has as the epigraph a quotation from TS, 4.32.400; the homage-parody is already in the title. Vita standard, which is a mixture of social satire and gay culture in a detective story with kitsch effects and linguistic experimentation, takes Sterne’s text as a model in rejecting a progressive and coherent plot in favour of a structure continually interrupted by flashbacks and anticipations. Recent translations and critical contributions The interest demonstrated by influential Italian writers including Levi, Calvino and Manganelli and the growing importance that Sterne assumed in academic research in Italian and English studies in the universities of Italy, might suggest the increasing number of publications related to Sterne, which characterized the publishing market of the 1990s in Italy.The starting point was the publication in 1990 of a collected volume which, under Giancarlo Mazzacurati, gathered the works of several Italian scholars and has become an indispensable tool for those interested in the reception of Sterne in Italy, entitled Effetto Sterne: La narrazione umoristica in Italia da Foscolo a Pirandello (The Sterne effect: humoristic narration in Italy from Foscolo to Pirandello). In 1991, Mazzacurati also undertook the difficult task of translating ASJ, which was only available in Foscolo’s version (the 1932 translation attempted by G. Ipsevich-Bocca was both unremarkable and unsuccessful). Mazzacurati’s work stands up to the inevitable comparison with the work of the famous poet, and at the same time matches the elegance of his

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forerunner, in a modern Italian prose. The translation was the first accurate translation of ASJ and was published in two volumes, one of which was a very rich and complete apparatus criticus.This led to a new perception of ASJ, which was until then embodied by and restricted to Foscolo’s nineteenthcentury interpretation. Indeed, since 1990, in addition to five reissues of Foscolo’s version, two further new translations have appeared, one in 1996 by Gianluca Guerneri and the other in 2002, translated and edited by Viola Papetti, Professor of English Literature at the University of Rome. Papetti’s translation contains the double meanings and erotic nuances of Sterne’s original, which were generally tamed, left out, or subordinated to the ASJ’s predominant sentimentality in nineteenth-century European translations. TS has also been the subject of a new approach: in 1992 Lidia Conetti retranslated it for the publisher Mondadori, adopting in its entirety the Sternean sentence structure and punctuation, including the bewildering use of dashes, rarely used in Italian and for this reason avoided by all the previous translations. It might be at first sight a difficult and unusual reading experience for an Italian, but it proves well worth the effort. Other editorial events testify to the growing interest in Sterne. They concern the publication of some of his minor writings, as well as that of some of his spurious works. In 1990 the sequel of ASJ supposedly written by Eugenius was published: Viaggio sentimentale di Yorick, continuato da Eugenio, in a good translation (for such a poor text) and with an interesting introduction by Loretta Innocenti.35 In the same year there was a reprinting of Per Eliza (BJ), in the popular collection of Sellerio. In 1994 and 2001 there were re-issues of Un romanzo politico, and in 1993 there was a translation of a selection of the sermons: Dieci sermoni di Mr Yorick. In 1999 two monographs on Sterne were published (both resulting from PhD dissertations at the University of Rome): the first, by Polletti, is a study of the narrative techniques of TS, the second, by Testa, is a survey of the reception of TS in Italy.36 Finally, at the Research Centre of the Humanities Laboratory of the Milan Libera Università di Lingue e Comunicazione, a project of digitalization of TS is nearly completed, so to offer a new tool for scholars, researchers, and students.The purpose of the Tristram Shandy Web, explains Patrizia Nerozzi Bellman, the director of the project, is ‘to create a virtual space dedicated to the study of a literary work which could be considered as a printed anticipatory hypertext as well as an encyclopaedia of eighteenth-century culture’ (Nerozzi Bellman 2002, 111). In summary, after fluctuating fortunes, Sterne’s works have achieved classic status in Italian culture. Their journey through Italy has been tortuous, perhaps appropriately, considering the author always sang the praises – in travelling as well as in writing – of a ‘serpentine’ style. Indeed, Tristram’s encounters in Italy were not always positive, as when a ‘cunning gypsey of a laundress at Milan’ (TS, 9.24.780) cut off the fore-laps of his

35 36

Loretta Innocenti is also the author of several articles on Sterne. Other studies on the reception of Sterne in Italy before Testa’s are by Rabizzani (1920), Kirby (1971), Felici (1983), and Santovetti (1996).

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shirts (although ‘she did it with some consideration’).The northern humour was not always in tune with the southern mood, in spite of Bini’s enthusiastic proclamation that there ‘flowed within Sterne a flame of the Italic sun’. And yet Laurence Sterne continues to attract new readers and to stimulate new interpretations, and the reception of his works testifies to a very rich and stimulating experience for the culture of the Italian peninsula.

11

Sterne’s Arrival in Portugal Manuel Portela

Translation, literacy and the marketplace Translation, imitation, appropriation, adaptation in other works and media, as well as articles and monographs are some of the primary signs of reception from which one can measure the impact a given work or author has had on a foreign literary culture. Although a number of indirect influences are traceable in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, sometimes mediated by another European author or literary trend, there are very few Portuguese authors who have explicitly drawn on the works of Sterne. In Portugal, the number of texts devoted to Sterne in newspapers, literary magazines and academic journals was, and remains, negligible. Despite the continuing commercial relations and political alliances between Portugal and England (the oldest treaties date back to the fourteenth century), mutual knowledge of the culture and language was very limited in the early modern period. It was not until the eighteenth century that several travel narratives, by English travellers in Portugal and by Portuguese travellers in England, and a small number of literary translations began to appear. A recurring intercourse between Portuguese and English literary culture started only in the nineteenth century, with the Romantic generation, and it has been intensifying ever since. During the nineteenth century several Portuguese authors either lived or travelled in England, and many of them wrote about English culture, though French culture remained the main foreign source for Portuguese writers and readers until at least the first half of the twentieth century. This dependence on French culture was satirized by Eça de Queirós in his essay ‘O Francesismo’. According to one of his characters in Os Maias, published in 1888,‘In Portugal, English literature is unknown’. By then there was already a small market for translations from the English language. Although a few and occasional titles were published in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, translation of English into Portuguese had really begun in the second half of the eighteenth century with the efforts of neo-classical authors who translated works by Pope (1769),Young (1781) and Milton (1789). In the 1780s a number of poets, novelists, playwrights, philosophers and scientists were being read in translation for the

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first time: Bunyan (1782), Gabriel Harvey (1782), Congreve (1783), Mary Wortley Montagu (1783), Defoe (1783), Gray (1787), James Harvey (1787), Joseph Priestley (1788) and Goldsmith (1789). However, it was only in the Romantic period that the market for translations began to expand and translation became more of a commercial activity, rather than a gentleman’s occupation. José Agostinho de Macedo satirized this new urge for translation as part of his attack on the commercialization of literature in Os Burros (The Blockheads) (1827). The early decades of the nineteenth century saw the establishment of a literary market, with increasing opportunities for authors. The growing number of newspapers and magazines also testifies to the development of the book and print trade. Literary property and the freedom of the press were recognized by the liberal Constitution of 1822, and the political turmoil of the 1820s and 1830s increased the number of printers and publishers. Although a certain number of new translations were being published every year, English novels in translation were still rare in the early nineteenth century. By 1830 only a few of the prose masterpieces of the eighteenth century had been translated, namely works by Defoe, Swift, Richardson, Fielding and Goldsmith. A chronology of their first translations makes it clear how slow and late English literary commodities were arriving in the small Portuguese marketplace: Robinson Crusoe in 1783; Gulliver’s Travels in 1793; Pamela in 1790; Clarissa (translated from the French) in 1804; Tom Jones between 1812 and 1816; and The Vicar of Wakefield in 1830.Translations from the French far outnumbered those from other western European languages, including Spanish. Many of these early Portuguese editions from English and German were in fact translated via French versions. The market for translations was dominated by popular French novels and novellas, some of which were French versions of English originals. Many of these popular titles were published anonymously, without acknowledging that they were translations. To these more ephemeral Grub-street products, we could add the works of authors such as Voltaire, Diderot, Chateaubriand, Dumas and Hugo. As to the various genres, there are examples of the sentimental, the philosophical, the epistolary and historical novel, as well as an older form, the picaresque novel. Travel narratives, gothic novels and eastern tales were also popular commodities in the first decades of the century. Scott and Anne Radcliffe were among the few British authors regularly translated in the first half of the nineteenth century. Scott had at least seven novels translated into Portuguese between 1835 and 1842 (see the bibliography in Rodrigues 1992–99). For English works which were not translated into Portuguese, most readers would have read them in a French translation. That must have been the case with the few early Portuguese readers of Sterne.Very few educated people could have read Sterne in the original. Almeida Garrett (1799–1854), who lived in exile in England in 1823–24 and again in 1828, was certainly one of them. Historians of the Portuguese literary market have pointed out that there was an expansion of the regional and provincial press in the second half of the nineteenth century, although the book market continued to be dominated by publishers from Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra. The number of published

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translations from the English language shows that there was a slow but constant increase during the century. In 1800–09, there was an average of six titles a year; in 1850–59, an average of ten titles a year; and in 1890–99, an average of twenty titles a year.1 It was not until the second half of the century that a steadier if still small stream of English novels was issued in translation and those were usually the European best-sellers of the time. While Scott was the most translated English-speaking author in the first half of the nineteenth century, Dickens, Byron and Shakespeare dominated the second half of the century. The size of the nineteenth-century literary market reflects the pattern of economic development of a rural society with a small commercial elite and very little industry, as well as a high rate of illiteracy.The literacy rate during the century increased very slowly and education remained the social privilege of a bourgeois and aristocratic elite. In the second half of the century, middle-class women were an increasingly important group of readers for serialized fiction and novels in book form, but the working class was kept illiterate by the limited reforms in education. Despite the increase in the number of primary schools in the second half of the century, the general illiteracy rate in 1900 was still 78.6 per cent; for women, 85 per cent; and for men, 71.6 per cent (Ribeiro 1999, 189). Historians have shown that the rising bourgeoisie delayed mass education. Even if the reading public was confined to the middle class, there was an increase in the consumption of works of fiction. ‘Gabinetes de leitura’ (reading rooms), the Portuguese equivalent of the ‘circulating libraries’, developed in the 1830s and 1840s. They were important in promoting reading as a leisure habit. Publishers started several cheap collections of both Portuguese and foreign classics in translation. It was precisely in one of these popular series, which mixed classics with contemporary works of fiction, that the first translation of Sterne appeared in 1902. The number of translations from the English rapidly increased in the twentieth century, especially after the Second World War when many classics were translated or retranslated more systematically. Today, translations from the English, both from North American and British texts, outnumber those from any other language. Many contemporary works are now published in translation soon after their original publication. Expansion of the book market has encouraged new translations of already available works or, as was the case with Sterne, translations of forgotten classics. Nineteenth-century reception of Sterne The lack of a wide reading public and the history of literary transactions between Portugal and England help us to understand why the reception of Sterne in Portugal was delayed in time and of marginal impact. There was

1

Estimates based on the bibliography compiled by Lousada, which includes reissues and publications in periodicals.

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not a single translation of any of his works before the twentieth century.2 All eighteenth- and nineteenth-century references would have been made via the French language versions or directly from the English. There were no imitations, and appropriations or quotations can only be found in a very few narratives.Thus, many influences would have to be traced to Sterne via other French or German authors, such as Diderot or Heine. Even a satirical novelist such as Eça de Queirós, who lived in England between 1874 and 1878, made practically no references to Sterne in his fiction, criticism and journalism. Although there were no imitations or appropriations per se, at least two major authors of the nineteenth century have acknowledged the influence of Sterne: Almeida Garrett and the Brazilian author Machado de Assis.The former was the leading figure of the Romantic Movement in Portugal. His travel narrative Viagens na minha Terra (Travels in my Homeland) was first published in serial form in the Revista Universal Lisbonense (Universal Lisbon Review), in 1843–45, and then in two volumes, in 1846. This work reveals the influence of European sentimental and digressive narratives, including ASJ and TS, and also Xavier de Maistre’s Voyage autour de ma chambre (Voyage around my Room). In the case of Machado de Assis, the Sternean touch is especially noted in his novel Memórias Póstumas de Braz Cubas (Posthumous Memories of Braz Cubas) (1881),3 which looks back on TS for many of its metafictional devices. Machado de Assis was one of the leading authors of Brazil and his works were widely read in Portugal at the time. Assis challenged the realist orthodoxy by insisting on the openness and playful nature of fictional language. Sterne and Almeida Garrett Viagens na Minha Terra (1846) is one of the masterpieces of the century and it is still widely read today, as it has been on the secondary school syllabus for several decades. No single text in Portuguese literature is more indebted to Sterne than this one. Garrett was consciously working with the European travel narrative of the time, as his many allusions to authors and texts make clear. Sterne was certainly his major model for the intertwining of detailed descriptions, constant digressions, dialogue with male and female readers, embedded novella and accounts of the writing process. One striking difference is that Garrett’s novel is more politically committed than either ASJ or TS. Garrett, who had been involved in the liberal revolutions of the 1820s and 1830s, was himself a politician and Member of Parliament between 1837

2

3

Rodrigues mentions a 1851 translation of ASJ, but this reference, which is repeated in Lousada, has been taken from a bookseller’s catalogue.The edition is attributed to one of the French publishers established in Portugal and the translator is not mentioned. As far as I know, no copy of this edition has ever been located and it may have never been printed. Posthumous Memories of Braz Cubas. The title of the English translation by William L. Grossman, originally published in 1953, is Epitaph of a Small Winner.

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and 1842. His concern with the political issues of the day is an over-riding topic of his digressions, to which the narrator keeps coming back in many chapters. The use of irony and self-irony often strikes a Shandean note, particularly when the difficulties of the writing process and the reception of the text by readers and critics are being foregrounded. The ironic and comic use of ellipsis, although much less frequent than in TS, is still reminiscent of Sterne. The same is true of the references to the structure of the work: order and topics of the chapters, relation between digressions and plot, and references to the mechanics of the literary market (newspapers, magazines, reviewing, readers, critics, booksellers). The serial publication of the original narrative (two chapters a month for two years, forty-eight in all), which explains the fairly similar size of each chapter, is also addressed from within the narrative. The novel has two plots: the account of the journey between Lisbon and Santarém, and a story heard by the traveller at one of the stages of his journey, the valley of Santarém. Even that famous novella within the novel, known as the ‘story of the girl of the nightingales, or the girl with the green eyes’ (which starts in Chapter 10), is constantly interrupted by the selfconscious writing narrator. What makes Garrett’ s work highly original is that the influence of Sterne, and of other English and French Romantic writers, has been shaped into a coherent and very personal text, where most of its sources have become mere parodic echoes. Garrett is not so much imitating, as putting certain narrative and stylistic devices to a new and very specific use. His novel is also acknowledged as a landmark in shaping a new colloquial literary language, a remarkable step in freeing the Portuguese literary idiom from the neo-classical and Latinate syntax and vocabulary. Other features could also be related to Sterne: the conversational style of his writing; the refined combination of humour with the picturesque in the places and people he comes across in his journey; and even some of his characters.The character of Joaninha has other Portuguese sources, both in popular and literary culture, and her story is an embodiment of Romantic love in a specific historical context, that of the liberal revolutions of the 1820s and 1830s. Nevertheless, the natural landscape and the characterization of Joaninha also vaguely echo the Maria-episodes in TS and ASJ. Almeida Garrett seems to have achieved a unique blending of irony and sentimental pathos that we can certainly trace to Sterne. Another similarity with TS can be found in the narrator’s many allusions to classical and contemporary European authors, whom he often quotes and paraphrases. As in TS, there are quotations in English, French, Greek and Latin. There are also a few quotations in translation, including what is probably the first published passage from Sterne in Portuguese. It appears in Chapter 11 (Garrett 1977, 73), when the narrator is ready to begin the novella and writes about the effects of love in writing. He cites Yorick in ASJ, and works into his text the well-known passage from the fourth chapter entitled ‘Montriul’: having been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so till I die, being firmly persuaded that if ever I do a mean action,

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it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another: whilst this interregnum lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up – I can scarce find in it, to give Misery a sixpence; and therefore I always get out of it as fast as I can, and the moment I am rekindled, I am all generosity and good will again. (ASJ, 44)4

A second allusion to Sterne occurs in Chapter 41. In a paradox that alludes to Fielding’s theory of the novel as ‘historical writing’, the narrator evokes TS’s black page as a more eloquent device than any amount of imagination: Oh! I hate the imagination. Whereof the chronicle is silent and the tradition speaks not, I would rather have a whole page with little dots, either completely white – or completely black, as in that venerable story of our very special and respectable friend Tristram Shandy, than a single line of the chronicler’s invention. That is good for novels and romances, trifling books that nevertheless everyone reads, even those who deny it.5 (1977, 249–50)

Because Garrett’s novel assimilated a significant number of Sternean devices and because it became such an influential work in the development of modern Portuguese literary language, we might say that Sternean motifs were received, in many cases, as Garrettean motifs. It is fairly clear from this example that reception is also an act of transformation and reshaping. TS and ASJ have been creatively appropriated in very much the same way in which Sterne appropriated the Rabelaisian and the Cervantesque narrative. It is not so much a question of allusion and pastiche, but a question of writing a new work by ‘pouring from one vessel to another’. Sterne’s works are not a beginning nor an end, but a point of passage, a stage in Garrett’s narrative journey. Sterne and Júlio Dinis Another writer deeply influenced by the English novelists, especially by Fielding and Austen, was Júlio Dinis. By virtue of his family background he was very close to English culture and showed great appreciation for Sterne.

4

5

‘[Estou, com o meu amigo Yorick, o ajuizadíssimo bobo de el-rei de Dinamarca, o que alguns anos depois ressuscitou em Sterne com tão elegante pena, estou sim.] “Toda a minha vida” diz ele “tenho andado apaixonado já por esta já por aquela princesa, e assim hei-de ir, espero, até morrer, firmemente persuadido que se algum dia fizer uma acção baixa, mesquinha, nunca há-de ser senão no intervalo de uma paixão à outra: nesses interregnos sinto fechar-se-me o coração, esfria-me o sentimento, não acho dez réis que dar a um pobre … por isso fujo às carreiras de semelhante estado; e mal me sinto aceso de novo, sou todo generosidade e benevolência outra vez.”’ ‘Oh! Eu detesto a imaginação! Onde a crónica se cala e a tradição não fala, antes quero uma página inteira de pontinhos, ou toda branca – ou toda preta, como na venerável história do nosso particular e respeitável amigo Tristão Shandy, do que uma só linha da invenção do croniqueiro. Isso é bom para novelas e romances, livros insignificantes que todos lêem todavia, ainda os mesmosgue o negam.’

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In his novel Uma Família Inglesa (An English Family, first published in 1868, but written in 1858) there are several allusions to Sterne. The title of the novel refers to a middle-class family of English origin who lives in the city of Porto. The action of Chapter 3 takes place in a café, where a literary discussion involves a journalist and the male hero, Carlos. ASJ is praised as the ultimate example of a delicate mixture between philosophy and humour. The character even asserts that ‘humour has died with Sterne’ (Dinis 1991, 59). In Chapter 15,‘English Life’, readers have a detailed account of the daily habits of Mr Richard Whitestone, Carlos’ father and a successful English businessman. TS is referred to as his favourite novel, which he would often talk about enthusiastically at the end of dinner: ‘Mr. Richard enjoyed everything in that extravagant book. Although he knew it almost by heart, every time he read it he would laugh heartily, even if he could not find any unexpected thing during the course of his reading.’6 Later on, in Chapter 32, Mr. Richard Whitestone opens the book at ‘My Father’s Lamentation’ (TS, 4.19) and he quotes a passage on the effects of Shandyism. This very short passage and a comment of Tristram on the eloquence of his father, which Júlio Dinis has translated and inserted into the chapter, are important elements in the characterization of the middle-class merchant: That morning, when the events reported in the last chapters took place, Mr. Whitestone, after toiling in the garden and in the greenhouse – transplanting, weeding, layering, sowing and watering several plants from his collection, to the detriment of many others – had finally retired to his study, and out of curiosity he opened the volume of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, an inexhaustible source of delight and instruction for the good-humoured gentleman. Every time he read it – and it was very rare to see a day when he would not read from it – he would discover new things in the book: serious, comic, philosophical, and profound speculations, useful observations, in a word, everything. Mr. Richard was intimately persuaded of the truthfulness of the opinion expressed by Sterne about this odd and unclassifiable work:‘True Shandeism opens the heart and lungs,’ he says somewhere, ‘and like all those affections which partake of its nature, it forces the blood and other vital fluids of the body to run freely thro’ its channels, and makes the wheel of life run long and cheerfully round.’ In short, half an hour of reading a humorous page of Sterne was for Mr. Richard a powerful remedy against the melancholy and contrarieties of life.7

6

7

‘Mr. Richard apreciava tudo naquele livro extravagante. Sabia-o quase de cor e, apesar disso, lia-o ainda e de todas as vezes ria com a mesma vontade, não obstante não encontrar no decurso da leitura já coisa alguma imprevista’ (1991, 182). ‘Na mesma manhã, em que se realizaram os acontecimentos narrados nos últimos capítulos, Mr.Whitestone, depois de muito lidar no jardim e na estufa, transplantando, mondando, alporcando, semeando, regando as várias plantas da sua colecção, com não pequeno detrimento de muitas, recolhera-se enfim ao gabinete, e por curiosidade abrira o volume da Vida e Opiniões de Tristram Shandy, mina inesgotável de prazer e de instrução para o bem disposto gentleman. De cada vez que o lia – e raro era o período de vinte e quatro horas que passava sem o fazer – descobria no livro coisas novas, sérias, jocosas, filosóficas, de profundeza especulativa, de utilidade

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And the novel closes with yet another reference to Mr. Whitestone’s continuing ‘habits of English life’ and his ‘readings of Sterne’ (1991, 413). Despite the many references to Sterne, however, Júlio Dinis’ portraits of the bourgeois city life and the traditional village life, with their idealization of domesticity and social order, do not adopt Sterne’s stylistic or narrative devices. His dialogues and scenes of bourgeois life embody a sentimental realism that does not endorse any parodic view of writing or ironic view of love. Later in the nineteenth century, the major novelists looked to the French realist and naturalist models of the time, particularly Zola and Flaubert. Eça de Queirós, who produced several realist and naturalist masterpieces, not least impressive for their command of satire, irony and sarcasm, does not seem to have been directly influenced by Sterne. His humorous style is always moving towards the comic effect, but narrative structures are never laid bare for the reader’s inspection. It fell to his Brazilian counterpart, Machado de Assis, to produce one of the most striking appropriations of TS in Portuguese: Memórias Póstumas de Braz Cubas. Sterne and Machado de Assis In Memórias Póstumas de Braz Cubas (1881), the book and the writing experience become significant players in the narrative. In the foreword, ‘To the reader’, the narrator acknowledges his indebtedness to the ‘free form’ of Sterne and de Maistre. Machado explicitly reverses Sterne’s opening of TS by beginning with the exact hour of Braz Cubas’ death. Braz Cubas says in the dedication: ‘To the worm who first ate the cold flesh of my corpse I dedicate in loving remembrance these posthumous memories’. This postmortem narrator then proceeds by association in a series of flashbacks about his family origins, early childhood, education, political and literary activities, travels and love life. He frequently plays games with the expectations of the reader. Associations interfere with chronological order and narrative causality in a long series of short episodes told in short chapters (most of which are only one or two pages long). In Chapter 22, for instance, Braz Cubas is back in Rio de Janeiro after earning his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He cuts the chapter short with the following paragraph: I came back … But let’s not make this a long chapter. Sometimes I forget to write, and my pen eats my paper with great prejudice to myself, the author. Long chapters are best for heavy readers; and we are not a folio readership, but

cont.

prática, tudo enfim. Mr. Richard mostrava-se intimamente convencido da opinião expressa por o próprio Sterne, a respeito desta obra singular e de difícil classificação: “O verdadeiro Shandeismo dilata os pulmões e o coração”, diz ele algures, “e à maneira de todas as afecções que participam desta propriedade, faz com que o sangue e os outros guias vitais do corpo corram livremente em seus canais e que gire livre e desimpedida a roda da vida.” Ora efectivamente meia hora de leitura de uma página humorística de Sterne era com Mr. Richard remédio eficaz contra melancolias e contrariedades na vida’ (1991, 348–49).

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a duodecimo, little text, wide margin, elegant type, gilt edge and many plates … yes, specially plates. No, let’s not make this chapter long.8

Experiment with typographic notation also occurs. Chapter 55 is a dialogue between Braz Cubas and his girlfriend, entitled ‘The old dialogue between Adam and Eve’.Their conversation is given by lines of dots, punctuated by question marks and exclamation marks, which suggest both an idealized romantic encounter and sexual intercourse culminating in simultaneous orgasm. Similarly, Chapter 139,‘How I was not a Minister of State’, contains only six dotted lines. Self-references to the book are also fairly frequent. In Chapters 71 and 72, for instance, the writer-narrator regrets the fate of his work and he imagines a future bibliophile who finds the remaining single copy of his book in seventy years time.There is also a one-line chapter, 136, ‘Uselessness’, which reads: ‘But, either I am mistaken, or I have just written a useless chapter’ (Assis 1985, 227: ‘Mas, ou muito me engano, ou acabo de escrever um capítulo inútil’). Discursive conventions that structure the book form are thus highlighted. The conflict between discourse and narration is the subject of several comments that bear on the differences between writing and living, and between writing and reading. In Chapter 138, ‘To a Critic’, he challenges critics by exploring the paradoxes of writing after death, thus echoing Tristram’s infinite regression in time: My dear critic: A few pages after saying that I was fifty, I added: ‘One begins to feel that my style is not so swift as in my first days.’ Perhaps you will think that this sentence is incomprehensible, knowing my present state; but I will draw your attention to the subtlety of that thought. What I mean is not that I am older than when I began this book. Death does not grow old.What I mean is that, at each stage of the narration of my life, I experience the corresponding sensation. Good God! One has to explain everything.9

In a recent and remarkable book, Autobibliographies (1998), Abel Barros Baptista argues that Machado de Assis’ fiction is a fiction concerned with the experience of the book.Through his fictions of books and fictions of authors Assis explores the necessary relationship between typographic materiality and the genre of the novel (Baptista, Introduction).This reading of Machado

8

9

‘Vim … Mas não; não alonguemos este capítulo. Às vezes, esqueço-me a escrever, e a pena vai comendo papel, com grave prejuízo meu, que sou autor. Capítulos compridos quadram melhor a leitores pesadões; e nós não somos um público infolio, mas in-12, pouco texto, larga margem, tipo elegante, corte dourado e vinhetas … principalmente vinhetas … Não, não alonguemos o capítulo’ (Assis 1985, 67). ‘Meu caro crítico, Algumas páginas atrás, dizendo eu que tinha cinquenta anos, acrescentei: “Já se vai sentindo que o meu estilo não é tão lesto como nos primeiros dias.” Talvez aches esta frase incompreensível, sabendo-se o meu actual estado; mas eu chamo a tua atenção para a subtileza daquele pensamento. O que eu quero dizer não é que esteja agora mais velho do que quando comecei o livro. A morte não envelhece. Quero dizer, sim, que em cada fase da narração da minha vida experimento a sensação correspondente.Valha-me Deus! é preciso explicar tudo.’ (Assis 1985, 230).

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de Assis shows how deeply he assimilated the Sternean experiment both with the book form and with the narrator’s stream of consciousness. Lacking the mediation provided by translations, Sterne entered the history of literature in Portuguese through the writings of Garrett and Assis. Modernism and post-modernism Experimental and typographical Sterne has been appropriated in many ways in the twentieth century. It has been highlighted by the modernist aesthetics of visual form connecting language and print; it has been re-read as a precursor of the stream-of-consciousness technique, particularly when applied to the writing-narrator figure; and it has been appropriated by playwrights for his complexities in drawing character. His command of association and ellipsis has continued to inspire writers such as Pirandello, Joyce, Beckett and Julián Ríos. The lack of a Portuguese text of TS meant that there was no significant twentieth-century reception of Sterne. His work remained largely unknown, and most writers did not get to read Sterne.The contemporary novelist Augusto Abelaira acknowledged in Jornal de Letras (10 April 1996) that much when he stated in an interview: ‘My literary career would have been different if I had read Sterne at the right time, but I read it too late.’ In modernist authors, such as Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) and José de Almada-Negreiros (1893–1970), there is no evidence of any special interest in Sterne.Their prose and poetry experiments with association, intersection and page layout owe a lot more to the Cubist and futurist aesthetics than to the rationalist play with book form. Despite this absence of visible influence and the general lack of interest in his work, four contemporary authors deserve to be mentioned as post-modern descendants of Sterne: Alberto Pimenta (b. 1937), Mário de Carvalho (b. 1944), Manuel da Silva Ramos (b. 1947) and Alface (b. 1949). Sterne never shows up directly in their works, but their weaving of humour, narrative self-reference and satire often strikes a Shandean note. All of them have acknowledged their admiration for TS. Alberto Pimenta is an experimental poet and critic, who has adopted parody as a kind of arch-rhetorical device. Personal and social experience is given a rare poetic force by a series of generic and formal echoes and pastiches. He has produced many outstanding works using a large number of literary genres and forms, both modern and classical, in different media (books, performance, video). Social satire, genre parody and an acute sense of the spatial nature of typographic meaning are entwined to vibrant comic effect. In his work, modernist and post-modernist poetics are blended with a unique sense of classical topoi and classical genres. Pimenta has developed what he calls a poetographic poetics, that is, a poetics concerned with the materiality of signs. His critical works, especially concerned with the symbolic and metaphorical nature of language, show his deep knowledge of the history of literary meanings and forms. His work belongs to the Western satirical tradition and it is often a shandean celebration of the absurd and erotic condition of human life. Mário de Carvalho is a novelist and playwright. He has used both the historical novel and the contemporary plot to address a number of political

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and social issues. His keen eye for comical detail and his lexical inventiveness have given many of his tales a childlike liveliness. His taste for pure narrative is perhaps what strikes the readers at first. But his evident delight in fiction and his confidence in its magical devices are not entirely devoid of metafictional reflections. An overt consciousness of fiction, character, dialogue and plot is often similar to Sterne’s, especially when it draws the reader to the connections between events and their alternative outcomes. The structuring of narrative as a collage of memories of previously read narratives is particularly striking in his first novel O Livro Grande de Tebas, Navio e Mariana (The Great Book of Thebes, Ship and Mariana) (1982). Fiction is enacted as a self-sustained world of meanings without reference, where characters and plot are travelling ghosts in the head of the writer-narrator. Manuel da Silva Ramos and Alface are co-authors in a trilogy of experimental novels published between 1977 and 1996. These three novels describe the Portuguese diaspora: Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads) (1977) deals with leaving the homeland; As Noites Brancas do Papa Negro (The White Nights of the Black Pope) (1982) is mainly about life abroad; and Beijinhos (Kisses) (1996) is concerned with the return to the homeland. A very complex cacophony of interior monologues, full of blended words and puns, unfold in a Joycean mode, as a surreal notation of the mechanisms of association of the mind. Even if these novels are more akin to Finnegans Wake than to TS, it is possible to point out a number of Shandean features: the relentless humour of the phonetic distortions and semantic associations; the impulse to pastiche and parody; the self-referential remarks about the writing process; innumerable scatological and genital images and episodes; the use of typography, page layout and book structure as part of the meaning. Translations and criticism Translations reflected the general pattern of reception of ASJ and TS in modern Portuguese culture. With a single exception, it was only recently that Sterne caught the eye of publishers. The first Portuguese translation of ASJ was published in 1902, in pocket book format in a popular collection. This first edition of Sterne included YE, and was translated by Luís Cardoso. The fact that it was never reprinted meant that even ASJ has not been available for most of the twentieth century, which is another signifier of Sterne’s modern absence in the Portuguese imagination. A new translation of ASJ, by Manuel Portela, appeared only in 1999. The case is slightly different when we include the Brazilian translations, although their circulation in Portugal is always residual. Different spelling systems, trade barriers and costs of distribution generally prevent the simultaneous distribution of new editions in both countries, unless there are specific agreements for local editions.Thus most Brazilian editions will not be readily available in Portugal, and vice versa. If new Brazilian translations are not necessarily made available immediately in Portugal, once a text exists in Portuguese its local pattern of reception may be different. More detailed research could perhaps unearth some evidence of these exchanges, and the Brazilian reception deserves a study of its own.

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The first Brazilian translation of ASJ, by Berenice Xavier, was published in 1939. A new Brazilian translation by Anna Maria Martins came out in 1963 (re-issued in 1988 and 1993). This Brazilian edition includes a new introduction by Jorge de Sena, a Portuguese poet, novelist and critic, then living in exile. Although he lived and taught in Brazil and in the United States, Jorge de Sena was influential in developing knowledge and appreciation of British writers in Portugal. His introduction to the Brazilian translation of 1963 is probably one of the very few pieces of Sterne criticism before the 1990s. In another essay on the English novel, Sena stressed the bizarre narrative structure of TS and the unconventionality of travel reporting in ASJ: In the Sentimental Journey, the borders between what is remembered and what is imagined, between truth and fiction, are entirely changed by an intelligent whim that revolutionizes hierarchies and for which a gesture or a conversation is more important than a monument or History. (1986, 83–84)

Jorge de Sena is aware of the changes in the representation of time and space, and other narrative categories. Since his works were later published in Portugal, Sena’s reflections on Sterne were important in rescuing Sterne from his twentieth-century Portuguese oblivion. TS had to wait until the last two decades of the century for its first translations into Portuguese. Its first translation, by the poet José Paulo Paes, was published in Brazil, in 1984 (revised edition 1998). Native speakers could finally experience TS in Portuguese. The Portuguese edition, in two volumes, came out in 1997 and 1998, in a new translation by Manuel Portela.10 This translation was received with significant critical attention and Sterne was even given his fifteen-minute appearance on television. This translation of TS attempts to be faithful to Sterne’s intricate syntactic structures as well as to all the typographic elements of the novel. Although the language of the translation has a contemporary fluency, acknowledged by reviewers, there is still a system of personal address between characters, and between narrator and readers that enacts the various degrees of deference. Irony and self-irony are often dependent upon the effects created by the combination of elaborate syntax, sexual allusions and discursive decorum. In 2000, a new Sterne volume was published in Lisbon. This included three texts translated for the first time: BJ, PR and the ‘Rabelaisian Fragment’, again by Manuel Portela. As far as critical reflections are concerned, Sterne’s absence is even more conspicuous. During the fascist regime, known as ‘Estado Novo’ (‘New State’, 1926–74), a number of scholars and writers contributed greatly to the interest in English literature, either by absorbing its influence in their works or by writing about and translating English works. Adopting a sociological and materialist approach, the historians of Portuguese literature Óscar Lopes and António José Saraiva carried out a mapping of the connections between Portuguese literary works and European culture, giving significant attention

10

For a comparison between the Portuguese and the Brazilian translations of TS, see Cláudia Nina (1998).

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to English influences. However, the critical attention given to Sterne has remained very limited. Little read, his works were even less written about, not just in newspapers and magazines, but also in schools and universities. The English Institute, later the Institute of English Studies, was established at the University of Coimbra in 1939, to advance the study of English Culture and Literature. Many English Studies and Anglo-American departments have been set up at other universities since then, but Sterne has never been taken up as a dissertation topic and very few articles on his works have been published in academic and literary journals.11 Sterne is almost exclusively referred to in connection with the history and the theory of the novel. His works and his Portuguese reception have not been studied before. The minor impact that his work has had is testified by indexes in histories and dictionaries of Portuguese literature, where only one or two references will be found.The fact that most of his works are now available in Portuguese will certainly make them more popular and more widely known, perhaps altering the story line of the Portuguese reception that I have tried to sketch in these pages.

11

My introductions to the translations of TS (1997), ASJ (1999) and Journal to Eliza (2000), and my essay on the representation of the book in TS (1996) are examples of recent Portuguese critical reception.

12

Sterne Castles in Spain Luis Pegenaute

Sterne’s reception in Spain has been seriously hampered by the fact that his works have been translated at a very late stage, and not always satisfactorily (although there are important exceptions). His ‘journey’ through Spain is quite an unsentimental one, involving censorship, indebtedness to French sources, overt manipulations, rare impact on Spanish literature and significant paradoxes (for example, no translation of TS was published in more than two hundred years, which contrasts with the fact that in a very brief period of time, just four years, three different versions appeared). In recent times, however, we have seen a significant attempt to make his works available not only to speakers of Spanish but also to speakers of Basque, Catalan and Galician, that is, the other three languages spoken in Spain. Although his letters and most of his sermons still remain to be translated, in 2002 BJ and PR were finally translated into Spanish.1 Yet despite these delays, major Spanish writers have known Sterne, whether through other language versions or the original, and some brilliant works, in Spain and Latin America, testify to his continuity and renewed impact. Spanish translations of ASJ The first trace of Sterne in Spain is provided by Bernardo María de Calzada, an army man who became quite a prolific translator (he translated Condillac, Voltaire, Racine, the Countess of Genlis, La Fontaine, Addison, Diderot, Charlotte Lennox and a number of anonymous pieces, in all cases from the French) and was also the author of some unimportant works, a few of them in verse.2 In 1791 he published in Madrid El viajador sensible. (The Sentimental Traveller), a novel written in imitation of ASJ, or, to be more precise, in imitation of an unidentified French version of ASJ.3 Although in

1 2 3

See also Pegenaute (1994b) for an earlier account of Sterne’s reception in Spain. See Freire (1989) for a full study of Calzada’s activities as translator. E.M. Pérez Rodríguez, the modern editor of El viajador sensible (The Sentimental Traveller), advances the hypothesis that the French version used by Calzada may have been Baume’s Nouveau voyage de Sterne en France (New Journey of Sterne to France).

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the footnotes Calzada calls himself ‘the translator’, the Spanish text differs significantly from Sterne’s, not only in style but also in content. However, the attitude of the traveller is unmistakably Sternean in his sentimentalism. The debt to Sterne’s novel did not pass unnoticed by one of the readers of Calzada’s work. In a letter appended to the second edition of the volume in 1826 (dated ‘Lausanne, March 27, 1796’), he says: ‘I thank you for the pleasure provided by your journey. I thought Sterne had died a long time ago, but see – to my admiration – that he is still alive.’4 ASJ was published in Spanish for the first time in 1821, but this must not prompt us to think this was the first translation attempted. In the National Historical Archive in Madrid there is a manuscript which states that on 12 February 1799 one Pedro Manuel de Rueda, representing Arias Gonzalo de Mendoza y Francia, had submitted to the censor a translation from the French entitled Viaje sentimental (Sentimental Journey). Mendoza’s translation did not prosper. On 7 June, the censor declared that an individual whose opinion he respected had examined the translation, and that, based on his report, it was considered unsuitable for publication. According to the censor: Such a translation does not contain anything opposed to the Faith, the Royal prerogatives, nor the [sic] of the Kingdom, but it proves to be very useless and shows no advantage at all. Neither delight nor pleasure can be obtained from reading it as it consists merely of a collection of incoherent trivialities, and that is the reason why it is not considered desirable to let it be offered to the public5

One month later Mendoza asked that his translation be returned along with the French original ‘to be able to fight the censorship’, but eventually he decided not to do so. Unfortunately, as a result of his petition his manuscript was sent back, and has been lost forever.6 According to Palau (1948–77, 22: 160), the first translation of ASJ published in Spain was entitled Viaje sentimental de Sterne a París, bajo el nombre de Yorick (Sterne’s Sentimental Journey to Paris, done under the name of Yorick); supposedly, it became available in 1821, twenty-two years after Mendoza’s translation had been rejected by the censor. I have not been able to locate this work, which – if it ever existed – is neither at the National

cont.

4

5

6

She bases her hypothesis on the fact that there are quite a few references to Geneva in El viajador sensible. Some of these are rather general, like the lamentation over its religious and political conflicts; others more specific, like the mention of particular places and people. ‘Recibid las gracias que os doy por el placer que me ha causado vuestro viaje. Creí muerto a Sterne mucho tiempo hace, y veo, con grande admiración mía, que aún vive’ (Calzada 1791b, 191). ‘Dicha traducción no contiene cosa alguna que se oponga a la Santa Fe, buenas costumbres, regalías del Rey, ni [sic] del Reino: que así mismo, la considera muy inútil y ningún provecho, pues ni se obtiene gusto ni deleite alguno en su lectura, y sí un conjunto de bagatelas, por lo que considera que no debe darse a la luz pública’ (Ms. 5563/31, National Historical Archive, Madrid). For a full account of the Mendoza affair, see Pegenaute (1992).

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Library in Madrid nor the Catalan Library in Barcelona. However, a work with the same title published in Madrid by Ignacio Boix in 1843 may constitute its second edition. It contains 155 engravings and twelve full plates, mostly by Tony Johannot, a well-known illustrator of the era. The name of the translator is not mentioned. In 1984 the Espasa publishing house brought out a limited facsimile edition. It is interesting to point out that this 1984 work must have been one of the first times that the term ‘sentimental’ was used in Spanish.The translator decided to keep it untranslated in the title of the book, for the simple reason that no other term could so effectively indicate that the traveller intended to base his chronicle on the analysis of feelings.7 Although it is very unlikely that the anonymous translator was aware of the ban on Mendoza’s previous translation of ASJ, he mentions that he has decided to censor some parts of the text which might not meet with universal approval because of their somewhat indecent tone: I translated it into our language taking the liberty of suppressing some original passages or expressions because I did not consider them to be in accordance with the rules of decency in a refined people. One must know how to respect public morality and good manners, independently of the requirements of prepublication censorship.8

Pre-publication censorship obliged authors and translators to submit certain writings to governmental authorities for their examination and approval before they could be granted permission for publication. Translators were perfectly aware of the fact that censors would not accept texts ‘telling, showing or dealing with lewdness, illicit love affairs or any other topic which might prove to be harmful to the respectability of the (Catholic) Church, even if heresies or incorrect interpretations (of proper faith) were not included’.9 In 1851 the Imprenta y Despacho de la Biblioteca Universal,

7

8

9

‘I am perfectly aware that some purists, both rigid and intolerant, will raise their voices against the adjective “sentimental”, proscribing it from our language because of its strangeness; but my lordships must grant me that only with extreme difficulty would I be able to adapt another adjective expressing in a single term and so precisely the goal of this journey’ (‘Bien comprendo que no dejarán de levantar la voz algunos puristas, tan rígidos como intolerantes, contra el adjetivo sentimental proscribiéndolo de nuestra lengua por extraño; pero deberán hacerse cargo estos señores míos, que con dificultad podrá adaptarse otro, que en una sola palabra marque con tanta precisión el objeto de nuestro viaje’, Viaje sentimental de Sterne a París, 7). ‘Lo traduje al nuestro [idioma] tomándome la libertad de suprimir algún pasaje y expresión del original por no parecerme enteramente conforme con las leyes de la decencia de un pueblo nimiamente delicado, que sabe respetar la moral pública y las buenas costumbres, sin que se vea obligado por la censura previa.’ ‘Índice ultimo de los libros prohibidos y mandados expurgar para todos los reinos y señoríos del Católico Rey de las Españas’ (Index of All the Forbidden Books and Expurgated Books in the Kingdom of the Catholic King of Spain) (Defourneaux 1973, 150).‘[Q]ue tratan, cuentan y enseñan cosas de propósito lascivas, de amores y otras cualesquiera, como dañosas a las buenas costumbres de la Iglesia cristiana, aunque no se mezclen en ellas herejías y errores de fe.’

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directed by D.A.F. de los Ríos, reprinted the translation under the title of Viaje sentimental por Sterne, bajo el nombre de Yorick (Sterne’s Sentimental Journey, done under the name of Yorick) at the price of one real in Madrid and one and a half reales in all other provinces. The format was large folio and consisted of twenty-four double-columned pages with six engravings. Although very much the same translation, a few cuts were made and many of the chapter titles were suppressed, making the ‘chapters’ far longer than in the original. A new translation, Viaje sentimental por Francia y por Italia (literal translation of the original title), by Diego Alejandro Douse was published in Madrid in 1890, with a prologue by P. Sañado Antrán, and yet another one, Viaje sentimental por Francia e Italia, by Edmundo González Blanco in 1915. The latter also translated Carlyle, Ruskin and de Quincey. According to Ynduráin (in his prologue to López de Letona’s 1975 translation of TS), ‘it was not a model of correctness’. The Mexican writer and critic Alfonso Reyes prepared yet another translation, published by Calpe in 1919 with a brief introduction by Reyes himself.This new version (reissued in 1929) was published as volume 76/77 of their Colección Universal. Around 1932 Hernando Press released a bilingual edition entitled A Sentimental Journey. Un viaje sentimental and prepared by M. Modesto Rincón, as vol. 7 in the Nueva colección de novelas bilingües para aprender idiomas (A New Collection of Bilingual Novels for Language Learners). In 1940, Apolo Press published a new translation by María Luz Morales Godoy, Viaje sentimental por Yorick (Sentimental Journey by Yorick). Godoy wrote in her Introduction:‘If the most frequent sensation of the reader – and of the critic too – when facing Sterne is perplexity, that of the translator – why not say it? – is despair, nearly that of impotence’.10 She also refers to the deficiencies of previous translations and expresses her desire to offer Spanish readers an improved version which would at last convey the true spirit of the original text. The same translation was included in an anthology of English novels prepared by Luis Solano Blanco and published in Barcelona in 1965 under the title Las diez mejores novelas inglesas (The Ten Best English novels). A revised edition of Reyes’ ASJ was published by Espasa-Calpe in 1943 in their series Austral, reprinted in 1993 in Barcelona.Yet another Spanish translation appeared in April 1967 when Bruguera published an anonymous version, Viaje sentimental por Francia e Italia (literal translation of the original title), in the series Libro Clásico (Classic Book). The Introduction was by Francisco Luis Cardona, who offered a brief analysis of the novel and concluded by suggesting that a definite end would have lessened its charm. Post-war translations are by A. Lauvent, published by Teorema in Barcelona in the series Minivisión in 1983; by Jesús del Campo, published by Krk in Oviedo in 1997; and by Francesc Lluís Cardona, published by Mundivisión in Barcelona in 1998.

10

‘Si la sensación más frecuente del lector – y aún del crítico – es frente a Sterne el desconcierto, la del traductor – ¿por qué no decirlo? – es la desesperación, casi la impotencia.’

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Spanish translations of TS and Sterne’s other works The first Spanish translation of TS was not published until 1975 (quite significantly, the year when Spain started its transition to democracy, after forty years of dictatorship under Franco’s regime). However, there was an earlier attempt to publish one, if we are to believe what F.L. Cardona wrote in his Introduction to the 1967 translation of ASJ: ‘Those interested in bibliographies on Sterne and his work may consult our volume of the author’s principal work, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (to be published in this series), where, in a preliminary study, we provide further bibliographical and critical notes on the author and his work.’11 Unfortunately, that is the only reference to such an edition.What happened to this project must remain an enigma, since Bruguera Publishing House closed down in the mid-1980s. Ediciones del Centro (Centre Publishing House) published Vida y opiniones del caballero Tristram Shandy as volume 31 in the series Trébol Rojo (Red Clover) (with a list of errata covering only a slight number of the many printing errors). The translator was López de Letona, whose work was welcomed by the press (see, for example, Giménez Frontín 1975). In the Introduction by Francisco Ynduráin, readers are told about Sterne’s life and works, his influence on other writers and the influences that he himself underwent, and the most notable characteristics of his style and a section entitled ‘Sterne and Spain’, in which he focuses on the similarities between Cervantes and Sterne. He also points out the few Spanish terms that appear in the original text. According to Ynduráin, not much has been said about Sterne in Spain, which he thinks is due to the lack of curiosity of the Spanish, who (he says) are more inclined to repetition than to variation (Letona 1975, 21). In 1984 Akal reissued Letona’s translation as volume 124 in the series Akal Bolsillo (Akal Pocket Book).This edition includes both Ynduráin’s introduction and the chapter index, adds a brief chronology of Sterne’s life, but omits the errata (although most of the errors were still there). Sterne’s portrait is on the cover. This translation became available in paperback in 1985. That very same year Cátedra (Cathedra) also published a revised paperback edition of the same translation as volume 16 of Letras Universales (Universal Letters), which contained an interesting introduction to Sterne by Fernando Toda, who also provided a bibliography and annotation to Letona’s text. Among other things, Toda comments on the differences between this and previous editions, in particular on the corrections which were made. These corrections were certainly not exhaustive, as they were more to do with layout than content. However, the attention paid to the typographical features of the original text resulted in a substantial improvement. For example, more (if still not enough) dashes are included. Toda also mentions a number of changes in the translation itself, which prove to be quite insufficient if we

11

‘Para bibliografías sobre Sterne y su obra puede recurrirse a nuestro volumen de la obra capital del autor, Vida y opiniones del caballero Tristram Shandy (de próxima publicación en nuestra colección), en cuyo estudio preliminar, ampliamos las noticias bibliográficas y críticas sobre él y su obra.’

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consider the results. Letona deprives Sterne of many of his most distinguishing literary features, standardizing his style and suppressing his originality. Many of his puns and word games are lost, partly because of the translator’s incompetence, but also because of his wish to censor the text (see also Toda 1992). The narrator’s voice ceases to be spontaneous, becoming instead restrained, formal and objective; the dialogues lose their freshness and naturalness; the interpolations written in other languages are suppressed; the notes supposedly written by an editor, which distanced the narrator from the author, also disappear. Even those aspects of the book which served to draw attention to its fictitious nature and to the limitations of language do not receive proper attention. In 1976, one year after the publication of Letona’s, there appeared a second translation of TS, by Ana María Aznar, as volume 71 of the series Clásicos Universales Planeta (Planeta’s Universal Classics). In her Introduction, Doireann MacDermott points out the influences of other writers on Sterne and some differences with his contemporaries. The scarcity of footnotes in the translation contributes little to our understanding of the work, though Aznar’s translation is more faithful to the original work than Letona’s, and contains far fewer errors. Aznar also introduces elements which allow the target text to maintain the same function that the original text had. In 1978 Alfaguara published a new translation of TS by Javier Marías, now a well-known novelist, which was awarded the National Prize for Translation the following year. This was published together with four of Sterne’s sermons (The Levite and his Concubine, The House of Feasting, Self-Knowledge and Job’s Account), included in order to differentiate Marías’ work from those of his predecessors.12 After an introduction by Andrew Wright, there is a brief chronology of Sterne’s life, followed by a bibliography.The text proper is accompanied by Marías’ notes and a glossary of military terms (as in Ian Watt’s edition). Marías proves to be a very conscientious translator. In a note to his translation, he says that he preferred to leave some traces of the English texts. He is very faithful to the Sternean punctuation, particularly to dashes, preserving the conversational style and formal presentation of the text. It is quite clear that he did not hesitate to violate the literary and/or linguistic conventions of the target system in order to reproduce as faithfully as possible the dominant textual relations of the original text.13 Marías thus

12

13

J. Marías has become a very well known writer, not only in Spain, as well as a prolific translator (of, among others, Brodsky, Thomas Browne, Burgess, Conrad, Dinesen, Hardy, Nabokov, Salinger, Wallace Stevens, Stevenson and Updike). The Sterne project, according to Marías (personal communication), originated in 1974 or 1975. At that time he could not possibly have imagined that two more translations were to be published within the next two years. His own words are highly significant because they illuminate the norm he is following: ‘First, I would like to say that, as regards the text itself, I have tried to follow the original with the highest degree of faithfulness, trying to keep within the limits of intelligibility Sterne’s syntactic punctuation, which in principle is chaotic and unintelligible for a twentieth-century Spanish reader. As a

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does not intend to produce a second original. On the contrary, he is explicitly offering the reader a translation. In September 1989, in the ‘My favourite book’ section of the weekly literary supplement of the newspaper Diario 16 (Newspaper 16), Marías chose to comment on his own translation of TS. He observes that he had never devoted so much time (two years) or so much effort to a novel, and that as a translator he has in a sense rewritten it, rewriting being ‘the most perfect and passionate way of reading’. He says:‘This text seized my prose, it made me think like the author, speak like him, say everything the same way that he had said it.’14 He confessed that, when rereading his translation he could not avoid feeling that he had accomplished a task which would be impossible again, and that his admiration for the book was to a great extent due to the conviction that it had gone far over his own head.This was not the only occasion on which Marías has written about TS. In one of his regular contributions to the magazine Claves he offered his personal impressions of Sterne (‘Laurence Sterne’s Farewell’), in which paradoxically he calls ASJ ‘his masterpiece’ (Marías 1992, 51). The most recent Spanish translation, by Pep Verger Fransoy, is of BJ, in an edition which also includes PR and the Rabelaisian Fragment. This has been very well received by the critics, with I. Echevarría pointing out that BJ ‘occupies a discreet but strategic place in the context of Sterne’s scanty literary output’ (8).15 Basque, Catalan and Galician translations The first translation of Sterne into one of the other languages spoken in Spain was published in 1912. This was the Catalan translation of ASJ undertaken by Manuel Vallvé and published in two volumes in the series

cont.

14

15

consequence of this, the translation is never excessively faithful, even if most of the time I have tried to test the limits of what is acceptable with Spanish syntax and punctuation (so as to enable the guessing of the English text by the Spanish reader) instead of following the widespread and deplorable tendency of hispanicizing foreign texts in such a way that their English, French or German nature is erased by inopportune hispanicisms’ (‘He procurado seguir el original con la mayor fidelidad posible, tratando de conservar hasta el límite de lo inteligible la estructura sintáctica y la puntuación de Sterne, caóticas e ininteligibles, en un principio, para el lector español del siglo XX. Las más de las veces he preferido forzar al máximo la sintaxis y la puntuación castellanas (en pro de posibilitar la adivinación del texto inglés por parte del lector español) a seguir la lamentable y generalizada tendencia de los traductores a castellanizar los textos extranjeros de tal forma que cualquier vestigio de su condicion de obra inglesa, o francesa, o alemana, queda borrado por completo o barrido por inoportunos casticismos’ (Marías 1989, viii). ‘Este texto se apoderó de mi prosa, me hizo ponerme literalmente en la piel del autor, pensar como él, hablar como él, decir lo que él como lo dijo él más.’ ‘[El Diario a Eliza] ocupa un discreto, pero estratégico lugar en la obra má bien exigua de su autor.’

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Biblioteca Popular de L’Avenç (Popular Library of Progress). Un viatge sentimental (A Sentimental Journey), a direct translation from the English, was a complete and accurate text (see Mallafré 1995). A new Catalan version, based on Vallvé’s, was published in 1934 in the series Quaderns literaris.The translator, Josep J. Margaret, included a brief biographical note on the author. According to Mallafré 1997, 109, C.A. Jordana – who also translated Shakespeare, Hardy and Woolf – intended to publish a translation of TS, but the work was never completed.The Institució de les Lletres Catalanes (The Catalan Letters Institution), devoted to the promotion of Catalan language and literature, had suggested he undertake this translation, but the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War put an end to the work, which apparently was well advanced by 1938. The subsequent Francoist dictatorship prevented the publication of books in Catalan for many years to come. The first Catalan translation of TS came about only many years later in an excellent version by Joaquim Mallafré, a scholar who has also translated Ulysses into Catalan (in 1981), as well as Dubliners (1988) and Fielding’s Tom Jones (1990). He also translated ASJ in 1996, together with Virginia Woolf ’s essay on Sterne. According to Mallafré, he ‘did not intend to produce a critical edition, with plenty of notes and long studies which do not properly belong to translation itself but to erudition’, but this opinion was not universally shared, as can be seen in a review by Jordi Cassellas (1993) entitled ‘The Challenge of Translating Sterne’. According to Cassellas, the understanding of Sterne’s text could have been improved by the mere addition of a few footnotes which did not necessarily need to be philological, but merely utilitarian. However, this is, in any case, the only objection raised by Cassellas, who finds that ‘Sterne’s shameless, insolent, cynical, impudent and witty tone is maintained in Mallafré’s Catalan.The translation of phraseology and double entendres, often with sexual puns which are extremely difficult to preserve, is solved in a very successful way.’16 Cassellas equally praises Mallafré’s handling of punctuation, a question, he notes, which had caused numerous problems for all previous translators, since English uses dashes in a different way from other languages, and Sterne’s rhetorical style is largely based on his highly idiosyncratic abuse of them. Mallafré tends to reduce their number, but Cassellas observes that Sterne’s rhythm is maintained when the text is read aloud (1993, 28). Sterne has never been influential in Spain, but Mallafré reminds us of two Catalan writers who were particularly interested in him: Mercè Rododera, who opens her novel Mirall trencat (Broken Mirror) (1974) with a Sterne quotation, and Josep Pla – probably the best known Catalan writer – who ‘often refers to ASJ, praises Foscolo’s Italian translation, and uses the incident with the ass in TS to meditate on death’ (Mallafré 1997, 109).

16

‘El to descarat, insolent, cínic, desvergonyit, impúdic i jocós del llibre de Sterne és excel.lent en el català de Mallafrè; la traducció de la fraseologia i les expressions de múltiples sentits, sovint amb jocs de sentit sexual dificilíssims de mantenir, se solucionen amb un gran percentatge d’éxit’ (Cassellas 1993, 28).

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No translations of TS into Basque or Galician have been published so far, but ASJ exists in both languages. Manuel Outeiriño – a poet who has also translated James’s The Aspern Papers (1995), Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1997) and Heaney’s The Cure at Troy (1998) into Galician – published Unha viaxe sentimental por Francia e Italia (literal translation of the original title) in 1992.17 Like Mallafré’s, this edition has Woolf ’s essay as a Preface.The Basque translation of ASJ by Josu Barambones was published in 2000. Critical reception and intertextuality ASJ appeared much earlier in Spanish than did TS, but still later than other major English novels of the same period. In general terms, the only notable foreign influence on the Spanish literary scene during the eighteenth century had come from France. Only in the last decade do we find translations of English novels such as Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1793); Richardson’s Pamela (1794–95), Clarissa (1794–95) and Sir Charles Grandison (1798); Fielding’s Amelia (1795) and Tom Jones (1796); and Johnson’s Rasselas (1798). Sterne was not the only major British novelist to be absent from the Spanish literary market in the eighteenth century, since nothing by Smollet was translated, nor by Defoe, whose Robinson Crusoe did not appear in Spanish until 1835 (and then translated from a French version).18 In other prose genres the presence of English authors was more pervasive, since Addison and Steele were relatively well known as essayists, as was Hugh Blair in the field of rhetoric. Poetry was much better known, especially Milton, Pope, Young, Gray, Thomson and Macpherson. During the first three decades of the nineteenth century English literature becomes better known, partly as a result of a reaction against the excessive influence of France, but also as a result of the alliance with England during the Peninsular War and the presence in London of numerous Spanish intellectuals who went into exile there fleeing from the repressive policy of the absolutist monarch, Fernando VII. During the Romantic period, which reached Spain very late in comparison with other European countries, the most significant English influences were those of Byron, whose poems were often put into prose form and converted into tales, and Scott, who reigned as king of the English novel in Spain. Sterne had little impact. Calzada’s El viajador sensible (The Sentimental Traveller) is perfectly within the spirit of some of the most popular works published in Spain at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, an era in which so-called sentimental literature proliferated, as exemplified by collections of short stories: El café (The Coffee Bar) (1792–94, 2 vols) by Alejandro Moya; Las noches de invierno (Winter Nights) (1796–97, 8 vols) by Pedro María de Olive; La Voz de la naturaleza o anécdotas graciosas e instructivas (1787–88) (The Voice of Nature, or Funny and Instructive Anecdotes) by Ignacio García Malo; and Mis pasatiempos.Almacén de fruslerías (My pastimes. Stock of

17 18

See Casas Vales (1993) for a full review of ASJ in Galician. See Montesinos (1983) for a full account of the translations of foreign novels in nineteenth-century Spain.

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trifles) (1806, 2 vols) by Cándido María Trigueros. In general, these stories focus on the analysis of the feelings of the characters, and include numerous moralistic comments by the author, whose principal goal often seems to be to reduce the possibility of censorship in passages which otherwise might be considered too passionate. No particular direct influence of Sterne is traceable, however.Travel literature was also quite popular, which makes the question of Sterne’s lack of influence more intriguing. This includes, for example, José Viera y Clavijo’s account of his journey to France and Flanders (made between 1777 and 1778) and to Italy and Germany (1780–81); Francisco Pérez Bayer’s 1782 travels to Valencia, Andalusia and Portugal; and Leandro Fernández de Moratín’s impressions of his experiences in Apuntaciones sueltas de Inglaterra (Sketches from England) (1792–93) and Viaje a Italia (A Journey to Italy) (1793–95). Very few Spanish writers in the nineteenth century seem to have been familiar with Sterne. Larra, who is probably the most important Romantic prose writer, constitutes a significant exception. Bergnes de las Casas included a brief excerpt from Sterne in his 1846 Crestomatía (Chrestomathy), a volume which provided fragments from British authors for translation by students wishing to learn English. Menéndez Pelayo (1974, 236), the bestknown Spanish critic around the turn of the century, mentions José Somoza, a minor writer, as having a sentimental humour similar to Sterne’s. Interestingly, this is not the first time that he mentions Sterne, although significantly it is the only occasion in which he makes an explicit connection to any Spanish writer. In his monumental Historia de las Ideas Estéticas en España (A History of Aesthetic Ideas in Spain), he compares Jean Paul Richter to Sterne and points out the former’s debt to the latter, although he also mentions the criticisms of some of Sterne’s detractors, who considered his sentimentalism insincere:‘[Richter] was a genuinely good person, with a natural and unaffected goodness, not like the malicious Sterne’ (1974, 102). He also compares him with Töpffer, ‘a Sterne without maliciousness or irony’, and of whom he says that ‘imitating Sterne in choosing to talk about the strange and unexpected, he indulges in humorous digressions’.19 One of the best Spanish writers of the early twentieth century familiar with Sterne was Pío Baroja. In La caverna del humorismo (The Cave of Humor) (first published in 1919), he refers to him in the following terms: ‘This one is Sterne, who comes along with a number of idiots, damsels and all kinds of artificially eccentric people who simultaneously laugh and cry.’20 Baroja, who probably discovered Sterne via Jean Paul, did not like Sterne’s sense of humour, which he described as frivolous and affected. Far more interested in Sterne was José Martínez Ruiz (‘Azorín’), who in Veraneo

19

20

‘[Richter] era verdaderamente bueno, con bondad natural y no afectada, como la del maligno Sterne ... un Sterne, pero sin malignidad ni ironía ... imitando a Sterne en lo de tomar el asunto por vía rara en insólita, se pone a divagar con su habitual humor.’ ‘Éste que sigue es Sterne, que viene acompañado de petimetres, damiselas y tipos de estampa afectados y excéntricos que ríen y lloran al mismo tiempo’ (1986, 100).

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sentimental (Sentimental Summer) proves to be greatly influenced by his way of perceiving the journey as a means of better understanding both one’s own and others’ sentiments (see González 1985). As far as TS is concerned, before the publication of the first translation into Spanish, the novel was considered quite esoteric: something which would be referred to as a cornerstone of modern narrative, but whose reading would be restricted to those who were able to read the text in the original language or were interested enough to make the effort necessary to gain access to it through a third language, mainly French. The following remark, made by José Luis Giménez Frontín in the journal Pueblo (The Nation) when the first Spanish translation was published, is significant: Tristram Shandy is one of those literary figures that I have most frequently heard about in the intellectually initiated circles of this country, but until now I had not been able to gather any proof that any of my interlocutors or informants had ever read the novel, to the extent that I had even doubted of its existence (1975).21

It is quite symptomatic that the first Spanish TS was published precisely in 1975, the year Franco died and a key reference point in the recent history of Spain. A few years before that, the cultural rejection of Francoism had set in.Young authors seemed to have discovered western narrative, and, encouraged by the boom of the South American novel, were eager to write selfconscious novels in which the concept of literary creation constituted the crux of the work. It is precisely at this point that TS appears on the Spanish literary scene. As Lee (1989) has pointed out, Sterne’s influence is very noticeable in the work of Juan Goytisolo, one of the most innovative Spanish writers in recent decades. Sterne’s influence is especially clear in Juan sin tierra (Landless Juan) (1975), the third part of the Mendiola trilogy, in which metaliterary references are most evident and where, consequently, it is possible to find the largest number of similarities with Sterne. In both TS and Juan sin tierra the numerous reflections on the creative process make the reader continually aware of the fact that what he is reading is fiction, an invention of the author’s imagination. Once we appreciate this, it becomes easier to discover other similarities which might otherwise have gone unnoticed. For example, both authors show off humoristically exaggerated erudition, attach great importance to language and sex, do not seem to care about plot and continually reflect on space and time. In addition, there are detailed descriptions of the conception and birth of the main character. There are other authors whose work, if analysed in depth, would probably also manifest similarities with TS. Marías has pointed out to me that the late Juan Benet knew the novel well and on more than one occasion expressed

21

‘El caballero Tristram Shandy es una de las figuras literarias de las que más he oído hablar en los círculos iniciáticos del país, sin que hasta el momento haya podido recoger prueba alguna de que ninguno de mis interlocutores o informantes lo hubiera nunca leído, hasta el extremo de haber llegado a dudar de su existencia’ (1975).

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his surprise at the absence of Spanish translations of it. He also claims to have heard Julián Ríos say that Sterne was one of his favourite writers and thinks that Sterne was known to authors of the previous generation such as Gil de Biedma, Joan Ferrater o Barral. Marías acknowledges Sterne’s influence on himself, in his ‘manipulation of time, which allows one to go back and forth and interrupt the narrative line with a digression’ (‘manipulación del tiempo, que permite ir adelante y atrás e interrumpir la narración con un excursus o una digresión’, personal communication). Finally, Fernando Arrabal in his novel La extravagante cruzada de un castrado enamorado (The Extravagant Crusade of a Castrated Man in Love) (1990) uses one of Sterne’s innovative devices, in what we may well imagine to be an homage to him: he suppresses Chapters 10 and 11 (because ‘they would have been embarrassing to Theo’, one of the main characters) and he places his dedication after Chapter 29. Sterne in Spanish America According to Harold Bloom, ‘it cannot be accidental that so many of the best contemporary Spanish-American novels are Shandean, whether or not the particular writer has read Sterne’ (1987, 1).The first influence that comes to mind is that exerted on the Argentinian Julio Cortázar’s novel Rayuela (Hopscotch) (1963).22 Reading this novel implies no less than rewriting it, since the active participation of the reader is compulsory. The book is overtly manipulated as a real object. Cortázar himself points out that in Lezama Lima’s Paradiso, which is probably the greatest Cuban novel, and definitely one of the best ever written in Spanish, we can also find Sternean features. According to Cortázar, ‘Lezama may have been aware of the fact that the development of the plot was similar to the one in Tristram Shandy. It is quite evident that the main character upon whom the novel is constructed remains in the shadows as the book advances’ (1984, 2: 58).23 Jorge Luis Borges’ novels and short stories also share a common ground with Sterne: digressions, fictitious footnotes, fragments translated from other languages (some of them fictitious), numerous references to other authors (most of whom are invented), etc. Borges was extremely well read in English literature and we can infer that he was familiar with Sterne, but the correspondences may be partly due to the fact that both of them were very

22

23

Two doctoral dissertations have called attention to the relation between Rayuela and Tristram Shandy. Janice Annen Jaffe (1989) suggests that the authors playfully exploit and subvert the traditional love story plot. According to Jaffe, in Tristram Shandy, Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas and Rayuela, the conventional protagonist’s role as the wooing lover seems to have been usurped by an implied author, who pleasingly plots to court his readers. Dennis L. Seager (1989) analyses Don Quixote, Tristram Shandy and Rayuela from the perspective of Russian Formalism. ‘No sé si Lezama vio que el desarrollo inicial del tema llevaría a pensar con gran regocijo en Tristram Shandy. Es evidente que el protagonista en torno al cual se organiza Paradiso queda en la penumbra mientras la obra avanza.’

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much inspired by the same writers, in particular Cervantes, Burton and Swift. Both Borges and Sterne were fascinated by obscure writers and by the lesser known works of those who belong to the canon. Both of them are true representatives of what Jefferson (1952) has described as ‘the tradition of learned wit’. The clearest influence is found in Tres tristes tigres (Three Trapped Tigers) (1964), by the Cuban Guillermo Cabrera Infante, who has often acknowledged his indebtedness to Sterne (see Nelson 1980 and Pegenaute 1996). There are numerous similarities between TS and Tres tristes tigres: their selfconsciousness, the conversational style, the manipulation of the book as an object, the abundance of interpolations, the recurrent use of bookish references and (pseudo-) philosophical maxims, the concern for both the metaphysical nature of time and its manipulation for literary purposes, concern for the nature of language. Alfredo Bryce Echenique, the Peruvian writer, was also inspired by Sterne, most notably perhaps in Un mundo para Julius (A World for Julius) (1970), where the reader is playfully teased by the narrator and extensive use is made of metanarrative techniques. He often mentioned Sterne as one of his major influences, and even called the main character in No me esperen en abril (Do not Expect Me in April), Manongo Sterne. In his ‘Sobre el humor y la ironía’ (On humor and irony), he invites us ‘to compare ASJ, where there is a changeable, fickle, inconstant kind of humour with TS, whose irony is critical, rational and self-annihilating’ (see also Krakusin 1995).24 Clearly there are Sternean echoes in the Mexican Carlos Fuentes’ novel Cristobal Nonato (Christopher Unborn) (1987), which begins nine months before the birth of the main character. Fuentes plays a kind of artificial game, with constant manipulations of language, and brief interpolations in Latin, French, English, etc. Like TS, his novel presents itself as an object: it contains crossword puzzles and diagrams, pages which look like a pyramid or stairs, a spermatozoid-like drawing. More important still is the presence of the ‘Elector’ (‘the Reader’,‘the one who chooses’), whose function reminds one of all the Sirs and Madams addressed by the narrator in TS. Finally, we can mention Fernando del Paso’s highly experimental, encyclopaedic and comic Palinuro de México (Palinuro from Mexico) (1976), which, according to an anonymous review of the English translation in Booklist (1 June, 1996) ‘makes nods to Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift and Sterne, evokes Joyce in its design, and inspires comparisons to such Cuban [sic] authors as Cortázar and Infante in complexity’.

24

‘Compárese Viaje sentimental de Sterne, donde brilla el humor cambiante, tornadizo, fantástico, con su obra posterior Tristam Shandy, cuya ironía es crítica, racional, destructora del mundo y de sí mismo.’

13

Sternean Material Culture: Lorenzo’s Snuff-box and his Graves W.G. Day

When the London edition of volumes 1 and 2 of TS first appeared early in 1760 it was rapidly recognized that Sterne’s text was ideal for the generation of what today would be called spin-off material. Initially this material was literary: The Gentleman’s Magazine for June 1760 published a TS soup recipe – though this was merely a re-hash of a poem by John Gay1 – while The Grand Magazine of the same month produced a most complicated set of rules for ‘TRISTRAM SHANDY: a New game at CARDS’ (pp. 290–93). But Sterne and his works were so modish that the literary parasites, best represented by the pamphleteers and the hacks who produced spurious volumes 3 and 9 of TS before the genuine articles, were made to seem relatively uninventive when a number of racehorses took to English tracks bearing the names of some of his most famous characters (Monkman 1998, 21–27). Several of these horses were quite successful, one so much so that he was immortalized by George Stubbs in an oil painting for his owner, Viscount Bolingbroke.2 Sterne’s determination to have his publications adorned by leading artists – TS by Hogarth, and the Sermons by Reynolds – was echoed by the number of individual paintings and suites of illustrations to the works which were published without being associated with a particular edition: Henry William Bunbury (de Voogd 1991, 138–44; Day 1992, 245–47), Joseph Wright of Derby (Egerton 1990, 106–10, 165), Robert Dighton (de Voogd 1994, 87–98), Richard Newton (Alexander 1998, 40–1) and John Nixon (McKitterick 1992, 85–110), among others,3 all saw the 1 2

3

George L. Barnett, N&Q, 1943, 185, cited in EMY, 37, n. 83. Important British Art, London: Christie’s catalogue of the sale of Wednesday 14 June 2000, with an extensive note by Mrs Judy Egerton, pp. 20-23; for an account of the sale and some minor corrections to the Christie’s note in the light of the Monkman article, see ‘Sterne in the sale rooms’, The Shandean, 12 (2001), 127–29. Alexander (1993, 110–24) for details of works by George Romney, Samuel Rickards, George Carter,Thomas Patch, John Hamilton Mortimer, John Raphael Smith, Andreas van Rymsdyck, Mary Bertrand, Daniel Gardner, Richard Hurleston, J.H. Benwell, Thomas Gaugain, J. Sheldrake, Francis Wheatley, James Northcote and Thomas Stothard. Many of these were also engraved.

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possibility of financial benefit in the representation of Sternean episodes. Possibly the artist who was most successful in this area was Angelica Kauffmann, whose several versions of Poor Maria came to dominate the public’s perception of that character. The original oval oil on metal was exhibited at the Royal Academy show of 1777 and an engraving by William Wynne Ryland was published on 12 April 1779 (Alexander 1992, 182).The success of this one image has been described as ‘immeasurable’ (Adam and Mauchline 1992, 135); in a version by Lady Elizabeth Templeton, it appeared on a pole-screen, a tea-tray, a Wedgwood cameo mounted in a cut-steel frame by Matthew Boulton, and, it was recorded in 1809,‘was transferred to an incalculable variety of articles of all sorts and sizes from a watch case to a tea waiter’.4 W.B. Gerard, pursuing the Wedgwood connection, has further listed Kauffmann-inspired images of Maria in a scent flask, a tea canister, a sugar bowl and a pair of medallion bracelets, all in jasper-ware; a twelve-inch high black basalt figure of Maria gazing soulfully down at the trusty Sylvio; and has identified menu-holders, pins, clasps and cut-steel shoe buckles all depicting Maria (Gerard 2001, 78–88; 2002, 69–86). On a rather larger scale there is a large painted commode in the board room of Coutts’ Bank in the Strand, of which the principal decoration, after a design by Kauffmann, is Telemachus at the Court of Sparta, the secondary decoration is a variation of her painting of Maria – both images depicting personal grief. Despite Kauffmann’s removal to Rome, in the 1780s prints continued to appear from Ann Bryer, who brought out several prints by Delattre, including ASJ: The Snuff-box in 1781 and its pendant, The Handkerchief in 1782 (Alexander 1992, 183). Across the Channel other countries were no less immune to the temptation of transmogrifying Sterne and his works into non-literary formats. These may be classified in three ways: (1) items which were imported from the British Isles; (2) items which were either direct copies or clearly very closely based upon British products; and (3) those productions which were the results of local genius. The first two categories are dominated by prints. It has been calculated that the British print export market at the end of the eighteenth century was of immense value: in 1787 The World claimed that the export trade produced profits 400 per cent greater than the home trade and the total value of the export market in prints was generally held to have been in the region of a quarter of a million pounds annually (Clayton 1997, 262). It appears that prints of episodes from Sterne’s works were not entirely insignificant in this total. Ryland’s prints of Kauffmann’s paintings became very well known on the Continent and copies soon appeared, many done in Paris – some of these by women, including Rose Le Noir; others distributed at a low price throughout Europe were piracies produced by the Bassano firm of

4

Editorial note to J. Moser, ‘Memoirs of the Late Angelica Kauffmann’, in The European Magazine, April 1809, reference first cited, with a minor misattribution, by Gordon (1974). I am indebted to W.B. Gerard for pointing out Gordon’s slip.

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Remondini,5 and these prints have no publication lines. Other copies were published by A. Suntach. For a selection of copies after Kauffmann, see the 1986 exhibition catalogue, Donne Artisti nelle Collezione del Museo di Bassano (Women Artists in the Collection of the Museum of Bassano) (Alexander 1992, 202).The whole subject of the European market in Sternean prints is far too complex for the space limitations of this chapter and is currently being researched by David Alexander who expects to publish his findings in the near future.6 As a more manageable example of the importation of British Sterneana one may look at the cameos of James Tassie (1735–99). As a young man Tassie had learned from Dr Henry Quin of Dublin the art of making copies of ancient jewellery in glass paste. He subsequently moved to London where the quality of his work was recognized by Wedgwood, for whom he made the majority of the cameos and intaglios advertised in Wedgwood’s first catalogue of 1773. Branching out on his own, two years later Tassie issued his initial catalogue listing 3,106 impressions of antique and modern gems, and then started to diversify into portrait cameos. By the time of the final catalogue of Tassie’s works, published in 1791, but with a Preface dated 1785 recording a letter of March 1783 that offered to display the entire collection to the Royal Family, there were 15,800 numbered items. In the section ‘d’Hommes célèbres’ [sic] were four portraits of Sterne, the catalogue numbers of which, 14436–14439, suggest that they were created closer to the end of the productive decade. The catalogue (Raspe 1791, 2: 750) includes a brief description of each: 14436] 14437] 14438] 14439]

– – – –

– A bust of L. Sterne, Author of Tristram Shandy, &c. In front. – Ditto. – Ditto, with four stars, and the device;VIVE LA BAGATELLE. – Ditto, without a device.

In the ‘Miscellaneous’ list is also to be found a cameo, item 15038, which is described as ‘A Lady sitting holding a favourite dog with a ribband’. This clearly depicts Poor Maria, and there may well be other Tassie cameos of Sternean scenes which have not yet been identified. Though there were many buyers who acquired individual items from Tassie’s catalogue, the most notable of his clients was the Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, who bought the entire set together with a set of cabinets designed by James Wyatt, RA, in which to house them at her palace of Czarsko Zelo. This collection, now in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, appears to be the sole location where all four portraits of Sterne together with the cameo of Poor Maria may be seen.7

5

6 7

Some fifty copies of English prints after Kauffmann by Regona, Bonato, dall’Acqua, Gabrielli and others are listed in the Remondini Catalogue for 1803; information provided by David Alexander. See Alexander (1993, 110–24). I am indebted to Catherine Phillips of the Hermitage Museum for providing me with information about these cameos.

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The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe

The finest example of the second category – items copied from British productions – is an entertaining illustration of the deliberate confusion of origin so often found in the earlier printed material generated by Sterne’s publications. Charles Robert Leslie’s painting of My Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman, exhibit 238 at the Royal Academy show of 1831, spawned a remarkable amount of derivative material, including prints, book-markers, prattware plates and pot-lids, and ceramic representations. Of the latter, the outstanding British example was the Copeland parian ware group first issued around 1870.This model was evidently seen by a member of Edmé Samson et Cie of St Maurice near Paris, a firm noted for its remarkable range of reproductions and imitations of ceramic wares.Though generally it appears that Samson indicated that works were imitations by adding one of his factory’s own marks, this was not the case with My Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman which is marked with an anchor and intersecting capital D, all in gilt.This mark, when genuine, indicates a piece made at the Chelsea factory of the Derby Porcelain Works between 1764 and c.1784, an impossibility in view of the date of the seminal Leslie painting. The likelihood that the Samson group was created by taking a mould of a Copeland model indicates a terminus a quo of 1870 for this French contribution to European Sterneana (Day 1997, 83–108). Another example of Sterneana where it is curiously difficult to be very precise about the detail provides the first illustration of the third category: original material resulting from local genius. On 4 April 1769 the Hamburgischer Correspondent printed an open letter from Johann Georg Jacobi, the author of Winterreise and Sommerreise, both imitations of Sterne. Writing to Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, the Anacreontic poet, Jacobi recounted that together with his philosopher brother, Friedrich Jacobi, and a group of ladies, he had been reading the Father Lorenzo passage in ASJ. As a result of this reading, he wrote, they had all purchased for themselves horn snuff-boxes, and had had the words ‘Pater Lorenzo’ written in gold letters on the outside of the lid with ‘Yorick’ within. The group had taken an oath for the sake of Lorenzo to give alms to any Franciscan who might ask of them and that further:‘If anyone in our company should allow himself to be carried away by anger, his friend holds out to him the snuff-box, and we have too much feeling to withstand the reminder even in the greatest violence of passion’ (Thayer 1905, 85–86).This appears to have given birth to a remarkable cult. In a matter of weeks Jacobi received a letter from a journalist called Wittemberg telling him that a hundred or so of the horn snuff-boxes were being manufactured and that in addition to the name Lorenzo they were to bear the legend ‘Animae quales non candidiores terra tulit’; production of these Lorenzodosen appears to have continued, with Jacobi claiming that a multitude of the boxes had been distributed throughout Germany and even into Denmark and Livonia.8 References to this Lorenzo-Kult started to appear in German Sternean imitations which initially treated it with a degree of amusement, as seen in Ernst August Anton von Göchhausen’s M.... R.... of 1772: 8

Thayer (1905, 87), citing Quellen und Forschungen, xxii, 127.

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So as not to leave anyone standing on tip-toe – since this is an extremely uncomfortable position – I shall tell you straight away: it was the postman who knocked at my door just as I opened my Lorenzodose*, and the story of the poor father affected me as much the twentieth time as it did at the first reading. God be praised! After all, I would not be the first who has freely admitted as much.

To this passage Göchhausen adds the footnote: ‘*Stop continually laughing at my snuff-box, my dear Sirs, or else forgive me if in return I laugh at you.’9 Friedrich Nicolai’s Das Leben und die Meinungen des Herrn Magister Sebaldus Nothanker (The Life and Opinions of Sebaldus Nothanker, 1798) of 1774 referred to the cult with rather more evident ridicule: ‘Ha! Ha! Ha! cried the Blue … Herr Säugling (since the two horsemen were none other than Säugling and Rambold), look there, a scene for your sentimental novel, the chap has a true Lorenzo head, does he not? ...Whether the alms, the poverty, or the wonderful scene, or the Lorenzo head ever existed, nobody can tell, not even the giver. Enough …10

Thayer, in his account of the reception of Sterne in Germany, records that there was a picture of a Lorenzodose at the end of the chapter ‘Yorick’ in Göchhausen’s M.... R...., where it is shown as a small oval box. But here the mists descend, as in the same footnote Thayer notes that Emil Kuh, in his life of Friedrich Hebbel, describes the Lorenzodose as ‘dreieckig’ – threecornered (Thayer 1905, 88). In those few copies of Göchhausen’s work which I have seen or had reported to me, at the end of the ‘Yorick’ chapter there is a blank space taking up two-thirds of the subsequent page suggesting that an illustration was intended, though none is present.11 Joseph Longo, 9

10

11

‘Um niemand auf den Fusszehen stehen zu lassen, – denn diese Stellung ist verzweifelt unangenehm – will ich es nur gleich sagen: es war der Briefträger, der an meine Thür klopfete, eben da ich meine Lorenzodose*) öfnete, und die Geschichte des armen Paters schon zum zwanzigsten mal eben so stark auf mein Herz würfete, als da ich sie das erstemal las. Gott sey gelobt! ich meyne, ich werde nicht der erste seyn, der dies gern laut gestehen wird. *) Lassen Sie mir immer diese Dose, liebe Herren, die Sie über alles lachen, oder vergeben Sie mir, wenn ich zur Vergeltung auch Sie lächerlich finde.’ (E.E.A. von Göchhausen, M.... R...., Eisenach: in der Mittekindtischen Hofbuchhandlung, 1798, 3–4). For assistance with translations from German I am indebted to Julia Adlam and Anna Brock. ‘Ha! Ha! Ha! rief der Blaue … Herr Säugling, (denn die beiden Reiter waren niemand anders als Säugling und Rambold) siehe da, eine Scene für ihren empfindsamen Roman, der Kerl hat einen wahren Lorenzokopf! Hat er nicht? … Ob er das Almosen, der Armuth, oder der schönen Scene, oder dem Lorenzokopfe gegeben habe, kann niemand, auch vielleicht der Geber selbst nicht, bestimmen. Genug …’ ([Friedrich Nicolai], Das Leben und die Meinungen des Herrn Magister Sebaldus Nothanker, Dritte Auflage, Berlin und Stettin: Friedrich Nicolai, 1776, 3: 85–87).Throughout the novel, Säugling is the principal vehicle for Nicolai’s satire on the affected sentimentality of the Jacobi circle. I am grateful to Neil Stewart for reporting on the copy in the university library in Bonn, and to Gabriele Klara for details of one offered for sale by Hamburger Antiquariat Keip GmbH.

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in his Laurence Sterne und Johann Georg Jacobi (1898), noted that despite extensive enquiries he had been unable to locate a single example of a Lorenzodose. I have been equally thwarted. No examples are recorded in the standard histories of snuff-boxes, nor do any appear to be listed in the holdings of those museums where one might expect to find one.This total disappearance of an object said to have existed in multitudes, together with the confusion over the existence or not of the sole recorded illustration of the object, suggests the possibility that the whole Lorenzodosen cult was a carefully cultivated figment of J.G. Jacobi’s imagination. Another fertile German imagination leading to more understandably ephemeral results was owned by Louise von Ziegler of Darmstadt. She was so taken by the story of Poor Maria that, in a notably early example of what might be termed performance art, she took to leading a lamb about and, on the death of this animal, it was replaced by a faithful dog, which rather more accurately echoed the role of the trusty Sylvio.12 More in the mainstream of German Sterneana was von Ziegler’s version of a memento mori in the form of Maria’s grave beside which she spent time in contemplation. Sternean graveyards are Germany’s unique contribution to the author’s European reception. In the Seifersdorfer Valley at Radeberg, some fifteen kilometres from Dresden, Gräfin Christina von Brühl had constructed in 1781 a contemplative garden which contained many memorials to literary figures. The garden was highly regarded in its day and the Brühls counted among their circle Goethe, Schiller, Herder and Wieland. Of the forty-three memorials and garden buildings recorded and illustrated by Becker (Becker 1792), thirty-two remain in varying states of repair – several having been completely restored.Two of these memorials were to Father Lorenzo: a hut or hermitage and a gravestone. Having described the Hermit’s prayer-seat Becker comments: The love of solitude and devoutness have not always led to a solitary and monastic life … A venerable model of patience and endurance … described by Yorick in his sentimental journey in such a charming way, it was not just among goodly people that the name he described became a byword for gentleness and humanity, but also as a result of the good-hearted enthusiasm about his snuff-box and monastic attributes gave rise to imitations.And in this valley two small areas have been consecrated to this good man: Not far from the hermit’s hut one takes the same path to Lorenzo’s grave It is situated in a small garden planted with violets and encircled by willow.

12

Thayer, 89, citing as his source, Herders Briefwechsel mit seiner Braut, 92, 181, 187, 253, 377. J.C.T. Oates comments dryly that von Ziegler ‘so far assumed the character of Maria as to adopt as the companion of her contemplations not, indeed, a goat – some grain of sense, it seems, survived in her – but, more hygienically, a lamb’ (Oates 1968, 23).

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Behind the fence one can see a large rough stone with a staff, a sack and a snuff-box. On either side are mossy banks to rest on.13

Though the little garden, the willow and the emblems, all clearly shown in the plate inserted at this point in Becker’s description, have long since gone, the ‘large rough stone’ is still standing, albeit in a rather dilapidated state.14 Becker continues: In the middle of a copse in the small garden opposite, on a knoll planted with roses, are two stone tables. On the one beside the path can be read the words: To the Individual. Nearby a winding path leads to the other table which bears the following inscription: Whoever is my enemy, whoever bears the human form, is he not my brother? From this bank one can see both Lorenzo’s grave and Lorenzo’s Hut on top of the hill … The hut is built partly out of rough stone and partly of wood and is situated in a very pleasant position. One has a view over a large part of the valley and away to the distance. The interior is painted to look as though it were hewn from planks.The Graf, who had long thought of erecting a memorial to his wife, but at the same time did not want to contradict her own wish which had been to dedicate this hut to the memory of the good Lorenzo, decided to combine both ideas. He pretended that Lorenzo had chosen St Christine (the name of the Gräfin) as his patron and protector, thereby extolling her virtues and her good deeds.This is why one finds inside a painting of her in a costume appropriate to the role, as well as several paintings in the small chapel which allude to her exemplary characteristics. Outside, over the door are the words: Dedicated to Lorenzo.15

13

‘Nicht immer haben Liebe zur Einsamkeit und Frömmigkeit zum einsamen und klösterlichen Leben geführt … Ein so ehrwürdiges Muster von Gelassenheit und Duldung … schilderte Yorick in seiner empfindsamen Reise auf eine so liebenswürdige Art, dass der Name dessen, den er schilderte, nicht nur unter guten Menschen eine Losung zur Sanftmuth und Menschenliebe geworden, sondern der gutmüthigen Schwärmerei durch seine Dose und Staff zu Orden und Nachahmungen derselben gegeben hat. Und diesem guten Manne sind in diesem Thale ebenfalls: zwei Plätzschen geheiliget: denn unweit dem Betstuhle des Einsiedlers gelangt man auf dem nämlichen Wege zu Lorenzo’s Grab.

14 15

Es befindet sich in einem kleinen Garten, den ein Zaum von Weiden umgiebt, und ist mit Veilchen bepflanzt. Hinter demselben sieht man einen grossen rohen Stein mit einem Stabe, einem Sack, und einer Dose. Auf beiden Seiten des Steins sind Ruhebänke von Moos angebracht.’ (74–75) See http://www.radeberger-land.de/region/index.html?region.html ‘Dem Gärtchen gegenüber liegt mitten im Gebüsche ein Hügel, der mit Rosen bepflanzt ist, an welchem man zwei steinerne Tafeln findet. Auf der einen gegen den Weg zu lieset man die Worte: Der Persöhnlichkeit.

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There is a fine plate depicting this now vanished hut, inserted to face page 77.After describing the inscriptions on the tablets on either side of the door, Becker adds: I want those of you who do not know the dear Lorenzo yet, or those whose memories of Yorick’s description of him have faded, to know the most important things about him in order to enable you to understand his worth or the description of his virtues.

There follow extensive extracts from ASJ. Many of the Seifersdorfer memorials still stand: sadly, those which filled the garden at Marienwerder have vanished. It is conceivable that when Christina von Brühl gave orders for her garden she had in mind the extraordinary lay-out by Jobst Anton von Hinüber at Marienwerder, just to the west of Hanover, which was first described in print in an anonymous pamphlet published in 1777, though internally dated 28 December 1774: Schreiben an J**. zu M**. den chinesischenglischen Garten zu Marienwerder ohnweit Hannover betreffend; Marienwerder is said to be the first English landscape garden in Germany and there was a carefully designed route through the garden to ensure that the visitor approached vistas and eyecatchers from the right direction.16 The area devoted to Sterne may be seen as the culmination of the experience. Hinüber created an interesting mixture

cont.

16

Ein sich schlängelnder Weg führt nahe dabei zu der andern Tafel.Welche folgende Inschrift trägt: Wer ist mein Feind, wer trägt eine menschliche Hülle, der nicht mein Bruder sei? Von dieser Bank sieht man gerade auf Lorenzo’s Grab und zugleich auf Lorenzo’s Hütte oben am Berge. Man gelangt dazu auf einem Fusssteige, der gerade den Felsen hinam führt. Wem aber dieser Weg zu unbequem ist, der muss es sich gefallen lassen, den Weg, den er gekommen, bis an den Stuhl, der beim Eingange des Hains steht, zurückzugehen, wo ein anderer Fusssteig sich allmählich hinauf schlingt. Die Hütte ist halb von rohen Steinen und halb von Holz, und hat eine sehr anmuthige Lage; denn man übersieht hier einen grossen Theil des Thals, und hat auch einige Aussicht in die Ferne. Das Inwendige derselben ist so gemalt, als wenn sie mit Brettern ausgeschlagen wäre. Der Graf, der schon lange darauf dachte, seiner Gemahlin ein Denkmal zu errichten, und doch ihre Lieblingsidee, dem guten Lorenzo diese Hütte zu weihen, nicht aufopfern wollte, verband die seinige mit der ihrigen, und nahm an, als hätte sich Lorenzo die heilige Christine (so heisst die Gräfin) zur Schutzpatronin erwählt, um dadurch ihre Verdienste und wohlthätigen Gesinnungen zu charakterisiren. Daher findet man auch darinn ihr Bild in einem dazu passenden Costume, und in der kleinen Capelle verschiedene Bilder, welche Anspielungen auf ihre vorzüglichen Eigenschaften sind. Aussen über der Thüre stehen die Worte: Lorenzo gewidmet’ (76–78). I am most grateful to Dr Michael Rohde of the University of Hanover for providing me with a copy of the relevant sections of this unique pamphlet, and for showing me around the Marienwerder Garden. See also his Parkpflegewerk Hinüberscher Garten in Hannover-Marienwerder, Hanover, 1997.

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of the beautiful and the terrifying, possibly in an attempt to construct a garden which satisfied Burke’s definition of the sublime: I think we are now ready to go to the graveyard which is in this small garden. We pass several ancient oaks. On one of them a skull is nailed …17

Shortly after this macabre memorial the visitor found himself in the Gottesaker: Standing on a grave is a drum resting on two diagonally crossed spears. The inscription on it reads: Honest Trim –– Weed his Grave clean, ye Men of Goodness, for he was your Brother.

For those readers of the pamphlet who might have missed the allusion there is then the specific reminder: ‘From this you will remember the splendid Sterne and his TS’, and the description moves on to the subsequent memorials: first a simple white cross with the words ‘Alas! poor Yorik [sic]’; nearby a slightly more complex memorial: a black cross surmounted by a snuff-box and the words ‘Father Lorenzo’; and finally, a white cross with black edging and the name ‘Maria of Moulines’. This last cross also bears a wreath on which there is written vertically ‘Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio!’ And next to her, carved out of wood, is her faithful hound, held by a red ribbon. The anonymous pamphleteer provides another helpful gloss at this point: Yorick’s deeply felt sensitivity toward Maria was displayed in his ASJ and her melancholy story provided the impulse for a moving poem which started: Poor Maria sat under the solitary poplar A little stream running at her feet Yet now we receive nothing any more: he has gone, like Maria.

It would appear that Hinüber continued to devote attention to this corner of his garden, as subsequent visitors provide descriptions both of these grave crosses with further embellishments and of further graves. Friedrich von Matthison in a letter of 17 October 1785 to the Hofrath von Köpken in Magdeburg and again in his ‘Vaterländische Besuche’, dated 1794, gave a sympathetic account of the garden and recorded how the labyrinthine paths led to an eminence where the unprepared stranger is surprised by the sight of a cemetery. On the crosses there one reads beloved names from Yorick’s Journey and Tristram Shandy, Father Lorenzo, Eliza, Maria of Moulines, Corporal Trim, Uncle Toby and Yorick were gathered by a poetic fantasy to this graveyard. (Thayer 1905, 89)

17

In view of the great rarity of the pamphlet, the German text relating to the Sternean memorials is given at the end of this chapter.

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Christian Cay Lorenz Hirschfeld, whose five-volume Theorie der Gartenkunst was published simultaneously in German and French, notes that Yorick’s memorial was decorated with a starling; and adds brief descriptions of the graves of Le Fevre and Eliza, both of whose memorials are said to have appropriate, though unspecified, inscriptions and emblems, and of Uncle Toby, whose cross displayed a map of Namur. Hirschfeld also records a newly dug grave which was supposedly both labour and destination of the putative occupant of the hermitage. The Gottesaker was not the sole Sternean memorial in Hinüber’s garden. In a further similarity with the Seifersdorfer garden, which might reinforce the suggestion that Christina von Brühl had had some inkling of Hinüber’s venture before starting her own, there was a small building: Hard by this graveyard is a hermit’s hut carefully constructed out of rough stone, with the joints, both inside and out, filled with moss. The wretched thatched roof serves also as the ceiling.Two miserable small windows give the narrow hut much needed daylight. Up above the rough-hewn door hangs a muffled bell with a rope on which the curious pilgrim can pull and call the absent hermit. Inside, my friend, it gives the appearance of a true hermitage. One can easily and vividly imagine how few are the needs of simple humanity and how artificial many of our needs are. Here is to be found everything a man requires in a confined space without having to live the life of a semi-barbarian. And yet everything is so neat and simple, but nonetheless comfortable enough that one has to wonder at it. In this hut only the necessary devotional objects of such a Catholic have an intrinsic worth.They are for the most part, antique pieces, crucifixes, and bas-reliefs beautifully made in wood and fine stone. These are immediately visible to the visitor entering, and are placed on a small altar made in the same simple style as the hut.An old silken cloth covering the altar also shows that devoted Christians only allow themselves such costly items as an aid to prayer. Next to it is a roughly hewn wooden prayer-stool. A shelf with some twelve spiritual books and meditations on death constitute the hermit’s library.The bed is merely a shelf, just slightly raised for the head, and covered with mats. I must not forget to mention that on the little altar is a horn Lorenzodose. Inside it, lying on top of the snuff, lies a scrap of paper with the following words: If in the future a saint should live in this hut undisturbed by the troubles of the world and with each pinch of snuff he were reminded of Lorenzo and Yorick O then – then at last all my effort will have been well rewarded.

There is a fine illustration of the external view of this hermitage in Hirschfeld (Hirschfeld 1782–85, 4: 99).Today there remains but the foundations of one wall of the building. It is possible that the two Lorenzodosen at Marienwerder: one on Yorick’s cross, the other on the altar in the hermitage, together with that on Lorenzo’s grave at Seifersdorfer Tal were the only three examples of the cult posited by J.G. Jacobi.

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Schreiben an J**. zu M**. den chinesischenglischen Garten zu Marienwerder ohnweit Hannover betreffend Ich denk, wir sind nun vorbereitet auf den Gottesaker zu gehen, der sich in diesem Garten befindet. Wir kommen einige uralte Eichen vorbei. An der einen ist unten ein Todtenkopf befestigt … Ich weiss nicht wie: aber er hat mir doch so was Schwermüthiges, was Traurgeistiges an sich, das jedoch neben der vielen andren Augenweide, die der Garten darbent, mir gar nicht misbehaglich war. Allhie steht nun auf einem Grabhügel eine Trommel, die auf zwei kreuzweise schräggestelten Speeren ruhet. Diese Inschrift ist dran zu lesen: Honest Trim. –– Weed his Grave clean, ye Men of Goodness, for he was your Brother. Sie erinneren sich hiebei des herrlichen Sterne mit seinem Tristram Shandy: aber gleich werden Sie noch näher an ihn erinnert, mein Liebster. Denn auf einem andren Grufthügel nebenbei steht ein weisses Kreuz mit den Worten: Alas! poor Yorik. Gleich in der Nähe steht ein schwarzes Kreuz auf einem Grabhügel, auf der Spize des Kreuzes ist eine hornene Dose. Die Worte stehn dran: Father Lorenzo. Und endlich hat ein andrer Grabhügel ein weiss Kreuz mit schwarzen Rande. Drauf steht: Maria of Moulines. Ein Rosenkranz hängt dran. Senkrecht hinauf ist geschrieben: Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio! Denn neben ihr ist ihr treuer Hund Sylvio, den sie an rothem Band’ hält, in Holz geschnitz angebracht. Ich weiss es, mein Bester, Ihnen ist es interessant genung, wenn ich Ihnen hiebei ein klein Anekdötchen von unsrem sel. Höltz mittheile. Sein tiefempfindsamer Sinn fand an dieser Maria in Yoriks empfindsamen Reisen, und ihrem trüben Geschik Stof zu einem rührenden Gedicht, welches sich so anfangen solte: ‘Unter der einsamen Pappel sass die arme Maria Und zu ihren Füssen bebte ein Bächlein vorüber.’ Doch nun bekommen wirs nicht; er ist dahin, hat, wie diese arme Maria, ausgeduldet. Hart neben diesem Gottesaker liegt eine Einsiedlerhütte von rohen Steinen kümmerlich zusammengesezt, deren Fugen von innen und aussen mit Moos dürftiglich verstopft sind. Das schlechte Strohdach ist zugleich inwendig die Deke. Zwei kleine ärmliche Fensterlein geben der engen Wohnung das benöthigte Tageslicht. Oben hängt von einer dumpftönenden Gloke ein Strik die grob zusammengeschlagne Hüttenthür hinab, woran der neugierige, vielleicht mildthätige Vorbeiwaller ziehen und dem der Welt entflohnen Einsiedler rufen kan. Inwendig siehts nun recht einsiedlermässig aus, mein Lieber. Ganz gut kan man sich hier anschaulicher und lebhafter gedenken, wie wenig die kunstlosere Menschennatur bedarf; wie unsäglich viel erkünstelte Bedürfnisse wir bei unsrer verfeinten Gesittung haben. –

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Hier ist alles unentbehrliche Hausgeräth eines Menschen, der doch aber nicht als roher Halbwilder lebt, in engem Bezirk zusammen.Aber alles ist so schlicht, so roh und einfältiglich, und doch dabei noch bequemlich genung, dass man sich drüber wundern muss. Nur die Andachtsgeräthe eines solchen katholischen Christen, die diese Hütte enthält, haben innern Werth, sind zum Theil schöngearbeitete, antike Stüke, Kruzifixe und Basreliefs in Holz und guten Steinmassen. Diese stehen dem Eintretenden gerad im Gesichte, auf einem kleinen häuslichen Altare von eben der dürftigen Bauart, als die Hütte. Die drauf liegende altseidne Deke zeiget auch, dass solcherei Fromme bloss zur Andacht sich was Köstliches erlauben. – Daneben steht ein Kniesessel von grober Holzarbeit. Ein Brett von etwa 12 geistlichen Büchern und Todesbetrachtungen macht die Einsiedlerbibliothek aus. Die Nachtlagerstätte ist nur ein zur Seite angebrachtes, fürs Haupt etwas erhöhetes Brett, das bloss mit Matten belegt ist. Das muss ich doch nicht vergessen, dass auf dem Altärlein eine hornene Lorenzdose liegt. In dieser befindet sich oben auf dem Tabak ein Zettel mit folgenden Worten: Wenn einst ein Heiliger in dieser Hütte wohnt, Und abgesondert vom Geräusch der Welt Bei jeder Prise dann Lorenzo ihm und Yorik ihm einfällt; O dann – – dann bin ich längst für meine Müh belohnt.

14

Shandean Theories of the Novel: from Friedrich Schegell’s German Romanticism to Shklovskii’s Russian Formalism John Neubauer and Neil Stewart

Friedrich Schlegel Diderot’s repeated and important uses of TS in Jacques le fataliste (Jacques the Fatalist and his Mastert) (see Chapter 1) show that this novel of Sterne’s found quick resonance in eighteenth-century narratives, even if it could not match ASJ in popularity. The full theoretical appreciation of Sterne’s narrative innovation in TS had to wait, however, until the adoption of Shandean techniques in other novels made it evident that Sterne’s deviation from the novelistic norm signified a major departure in the ‘craft of fiction’. Friedrich von Blanckenburg’s Versuch über den Roman (Essay on the Novel) (1774), for instance, gives ample praise to both of Sterne’s novels without recog-nizing the implications of Sterne’s innovations in TS. Blanckenburg’s study of the novel, the first major approach to the genre in German, emphasizes that adventures and external events in general, which are the subject of epic poetry, play a lesser role in novels, which focus on character and its development. Blanckenburg admires Sterne (rather than Richardson) for his character portrayals, the inward turn of his novels, and his use of humour, but he warns against the excesses of whimsicality in Sterne’s imitators (1774, 527). He did not believe, for instance, that a ‘humorist’ could become the internal narrator in a German novel (1774, 191).To the massive interventions of the narrator in TS he devotes no attention at all, presumably because they interfere with character portrayal, but also, perhaps because he did not know Diderot’s Jacques le fataliste, which was available only to readers of Melchior Grimm’s Correspondance littéraire (Literary Correspondence) until its first formal publication in 1796. For Friedrich Schlegel, who started to develop his theory of the novel in the years immediately after the publication of Diderot’s novel, it was already evident that TS was not just a unique novel but also a prototype for a new narrative mode.Yet TS plays a somewhat controversial and ambiguous role in the line that Schlegel draws in his ‘Brief über den Roman’ (Letter on the novel) (1800) from Sterne via Diderot to Jean Paul.This may in part have to do with Schlegel’s own curious, not un-Shandian, mode of narration. The ‘Brief über den Roman’ is embedded in the Gespräche über die Poesie

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(Conversations on Poetry), together with other subsections, on the epochs of literature, mythology, and the different styles in Goethe’s early and later works. Each section is preceded and followed by commentaries on the content by characters in the loosely drawn frame.The ‘letter’ on the novel is no letter at all but Antonio’s address to his conversational partners. To complicate matters, Antonio claims to repeat here instructions that he had already given to Amalia (in a letter?), who is now also among his listeners. Finally, Antonio also mixes in and develops further Amalia’s own earlier views on Sterne. In short, the text has an unclear and shifting focalization, though Antonio is lecturing so hard that Camilla, one of his female listeners, expresses at the end of his presentation her admiration for Amalia’s patience to listen to such heavy-duty didacticism. More generally, Camilla praises the ‘goodness and indulgence of women’, who are a model of modesty because ‘they always remain patient, and, what’s more, serious, concerning the seriousness of men, and even have faith in their essential artistry’.1 Antonio reminds Amalia that she used to admire Sterne and even sent him some letters in his manner. But he does not make it clear whether Amalia herself was really aware of her enchantment with Sterne or whether this is now for the first time revealed by Antonio himself: Sterne’s humour gave you thus a certain impression. Though it was no ideal beauty, it was nevertheless a form, a witty form that thus captivated your fantasy. And an impression that remains so definite, that we can use and shape for light and serious purposes is not lost.And what can have a more basic value than something that stimulates or feeds the play of our inner education in some way. You feel it yourself that your pleasure in Sterne’s humour was pure … Ask yourself now whether your pleasure was not akin with what we often felt when contemplating those witty playful paintings we call arabesques.2

Thus Antonio finds in Sterne’s writing a ‘play motive’ that he characteristically calls ‘arabesque’, a term that has acquired considerable significance recently not only in Schlegel studies (see Karl Konrad Polheim) but in approaches to Romanticism and literary studies in general. Arabesques have no semantic content; their meaning lies in the play of form.

1

2

‘indem sie bei dem Ernst der Männer immer geduldig, und, was noch mehr sagen wolle, ernsthaft blieben, ja sogar einen gewissen Glauben an ihr Kunstwesen hätten’ (Schlegel 1958, 2: 339). ‘Sternes Humor hatte Ihnen [Amalia] also doch einen bestimmten Eindruck gegeben; wenngleich eben keine idealisch schöne, so war es doch eine Form, eine geistreiche Form, die Ihre Fantasie dadurch gewann, und ein Eindruck, der uns so bestimmt bleibt, den wir so zu Scherz und Ernst gebrauchen und gestalten können, ist nicht verloren; und was kann einen gründlichern Wert haben als dasjenige, was das Spiel unsrer innern Bildung auf irgend eine Weise reizt oder nährt. Sie fühlen es selbst, daß Ihr Ergötzen an Sternes Humor rein war … Fragen Sie sich nun selbst, ob Ihr Genuß nicht verwandt mit demjenigen war, den wir oft bei Betrachtung der witzigen Spielgemälde empfanden, die man Arabesken nennt’ (Schlegel 1958, 2: 330–31).

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Unfortunately, restless Antonio (shades of Tristram?) suddenly breaks off his commentary on Sterne’s craft of fiction just at this point, so that we never learn in what precise ways he regards Sterne’s writing as arabesque. Instead, he questions the term and recommends to Amalia Diderot’s Jacques le fataliste, describing it, with negative hints at Sterne’s sentimentality: I think you will like it and you are going to find here a richness of wit quite free of sentimental admixtures. It is designed with intelligence and carried out with a sure hand. We may call it, without exaggeration, a work of art. Of course, it is no high poetry, just an – arabesque. But for this very reason it is in my eyes ambitious, for I regard the arabesque as a quite concrete and essential form and expression of poetry.3

Sterne does not fare well here. Diderot’s Jacques may just barely be called a work of art, although it too is an arabesque, meaning here that it is ‘no high poetry’. And Sterne practises this questionable art form with apparently even less success. Antonio traces then the uncertain status of the arabesque form to the prosaic spirit of his age: it is a wild plant that barely survives in the desert of his unpoetic age, unable to grow and blossom into high art. Antonio concludes cryptically: ‘I mean that the humour of a Swift or a Sterne is the natural poetry of the higher classes of our age.’4 Presumably he means that Sterne’s witty and sharp humour is ‘natural’ for the higher classes who cultivate their wit in social gatherings, but heavy fare for the general public. But Antonio goes on, adding to his conclusion further unflattering commentaries on Sterne: I am far from putting them next to those great ones; but you will admit that those who have a sense for these, for Diderot, are already on their way to understand better the divine wit, the imagination, of an Ariosto, a Cervantes, a Shakespeare than those who have not raised themselves up even to this height. We should not expect too much from the people of our age in this respect: whatever grew up under such unhealthy conditions can, naturally, not be anything else but unhealthy. As long as the arabesque is no artwork but a product of nature, I regard this rather as an advantage, and I raise [Jean Paul] Richter above Sterne also because his fantasy is much more sickly, hence much quainter and more fantastic.You have not read him for a long time, and I think he will seem different to you now from then. Then compare him at every point with our German writer. [Jean Paul] really has more wit, at least

3

4

‘… Sie werden die Fülle des Witzes hier ganz rein finden von sentimentalischen Beimischungen. Es ist mit Verstand angelegt, und mit sichrer Hand ausgeführt. Ich darf es ohne Übertreibung ein Kunstwerk nennen. Freilich ist es keine hohe Dichtung, sondern nur eine – Arabeske.Aber eben darum hat es in meinen Augen keine geringen Ansprüche; denn ich halte die Arabeske für eine ganz bestimmte und wesentliche Form und Äußerungsart der Poesie’ (Schlegel 1958, 2: 331). ‘Der Humor eines Swift, eines Sterne, meine ich, sei die Naturpoesie der höhern Stände unsers Zeitalters’ (Schlegel 1958, 2: 331).

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for those who take him as witty: for he himself could easily be unfair to himself about this. And through this advantage even his sentimentality raises itself in appearance above the sphere of English sensibility.5

Does Antonio parody here Sterne’s parody, or is his judgement genuinely unsure? Are we allowed to take his voice here for that of Schlegel – as it is usually done? One thing only seems clear: Antonio believes that the prosaic Zeitgeist determines Sterne’s arabesque art form but Sterne is not the best among the arabesque artists. It remains unclear whether the judgement that Jean Paul’s imagination is more sickly – and hence much more strange and fantastic – could not be turned around in Sterne’s favour. The unstable image of Sterne in the Brief über den Roman further darkens in Friedrich Schlegel’s Vienna lectures on European literary history given in 1812. The key passage is, to be sure, a criticism of Richardson’s alleged realism, but Sterne, whom Schlegel introduces here as Richardson’s opposite, does not fare much better: There is something not fully resolvable, and outright mistaken [in the attempt] to relate poetry so immediately to reality and to represent it in prose [as is the case with Richardson] … Sterne created first that other art that no longer represents, or merely according to whim, and finally dissolves itself completely in a play of this mood with sentimentality and wit.6

The Vienna lectures were the last ones that Schlegel gave, indeed, they were his last substantial statement on literature. Putting these last remarks on Sterne next to the ones from Schlegel’s most productive and original years before and after the turn of the century, we get a rather slender and quite

5

6

‘Ich bin weit entfernt, sie neben jene Großen zu stellen; aber Sie werden mir zugeben, daß wer für diese, für den Diderot Sinn hat, schon besser auf dem Wege ist, den göttlichen Witz, die Fantasie eines Ariost, Cervantes, Shakespeare verstehen zu lernen, als ein andrer, der auch noch nicht einmal bis dahin sich erhoben hat.Wir dürfen nun einmal die Foderungen in diesem Stück an die Menschen der jetzigen Zeit nicht zu hoch spannen, und was in so kränklichen Verhältnissen aufgewachsen ist, kann selbst natürlicherweise nicht anders als kränklich sein. Dies halte ich aber, so lange die Arabeske kein Kunstwerk sondern nur ein Naturprodukt ist, eher für einen Vorzug, und stelle Richtern [Jean Paul] also auch darum über Sterne, weil seine Fantasie weit kränklicher, also weit wunderlicher und fantastischer ist. Lesen Sie nur überhaupt den Sterne einmal wieder. Es ist lange her, daß Sie ihn nicht gelesen haben, und ich denke er wird Ihnen etwas anders vorkommen wie damals. Vergleichen Sie dann immer unsern Deutschen mit ihm. Er hat wirklich mehr Witz, wenigstens für den, der ihn witzig nimmt: denn er selbst könnte sich darin leicht Unrecht tun. Und durch diesen Vorzug erhebt sich selbst seine Sentimentalität in der Erscheinung über die Sphäre der engländischen Empfindsamkeit’ (Schlegel 1958, 2: 331–32). [‘Es liegt etwas nicht recht vollkommen Auflösbares, und etwas geradehin Verfehltes in dem Versuch], die Poesie so unmittelbar an die Wirklichkeit anzuküpfen [wie bei Richardson], und in Prosa darstellen zu wollen … Jene andere Art, die nicht mehr darstellt, oder bloß nach Laune, und endlich ganz in ein Spiel dieser Laune, der Empfindung und des Witzes sich auflöst, hat Sterne erst erschaffen’ (Schlegel 1958, 6: 331f).

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critical body of texts. And yet, Sterne acquires a key role in Hans Eichner’s commentary to Schlegel’s key literary criticism in the critical edition of his works (vol. 2). Thus, in Eichner’s view, TS, Diderot’s Jacques le fataliste and the novels of Jean Paul are illustrations of Schlegel’s famous remark in the Athenäums-Fragment no. 116: the novel is ‘animated through the swings of humour’,7 and ‘witty constructions’ are found above all in the tradition that TS had initiated.8 Perhaps most important are Hans Eichner’s commentaries on Schlegel’s notion of a permanent Parekbase. Schlegel defined parabasis as a speech that was held in the middle of an Attic comedy ‘by the chorus and directed at the people on behalf of the author’.The definition agrees almost exactly with OED’s definition of ‘parabasis’: ‘In ancient Greek comedy, a part sung by the chorus, addressed to the audience in the poet’s name, and unconnected with the action of the drama’.9 However, OED records the first the use of the term in English as 1820, some twenty years after Schlegel’s use of it; interestingly, the chronologically second passage in the OED, from 1866, states parabasis was tried at least once by Beaumont and Fletcher ‘and in our time by Tieck’. Now Ludwig Tieck, a close friend of Friedrich Schlegel in the first German Romantic group, may be said to have put Schlegel’s theory into practice, by constantly destroying stage illusion. But Schlegel went further, not just because he saw in parabasis a ‘complete interruption and annihilation of the piece’,10 but by transferring the method from the stage to the novel: he wrote as early as 1797 that the parabasis must be permanent in a fantastic novel (Eichner Notebooks No. 461). In a later passage he even remarked that ‘irony is a permanent parabasis’.11 Although Schlegel himself never refers to Sterne when discussing the concept of parabasis, he probably did think of him in this connection. Eichner goes as far as remarking that TS is the only novel in world literature that uses it in a truly ‘permanent’ manner (Schlegel 1958, 2: lxvi). Parabasis, an intervention into the illusion of the fictional world, becomes permanent in Sterne’s TS, because Tristram, the narrator, disposes of a whole arsenal of interventions: he comments on his own book, his problems in writing it, he addresses the reader in a manner that is now harsh, now mild, and he repeatedly laughs about himself. Sterne’s parabasis is so permanent that we may indeed say that the parasitical passages of the parabasis so overwhelm the ‘basic’ text that we are allowed to regard it rather as ‘basic’. Schlegel describes such a steady self-parody in the Lyceum Fragment no. 108, though linking it to ‘Socratic irony’ and without reference to Sterne:

7 8

9

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11

‘durch die Schwingungen des Humors beseelt’ (Schlegel 1958, 2: LX). ‘Vor allem aber findet sich die witzige Konstruktion in den Romanen in der Tradition des Tristram Shandy’ (Schlegel 1958, 2: LXV). ‘eine Rede, die in der Mitte des Stückes vom Chor im Namen des Dichters an das Volk gehalten wurde’ (Schlegel 1958, 11: 88). ‘Ja es war eine gänzliche Unterbrechung und Aufhebung des Stückes’ (Schlegel 1958, 11: 88). ‘Ironie ist eine permanente Parekbase’ (Schlegel 1958, 18: 85).

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‘It is the freest of all licences, for it is by means of it that one rises above oneself.’12 Still more concretely, this time very likely with TS in mind, Schlegel speaks in the Lyceum Fragment no. 42 of a ‘transcendental buffoonery’: There are old and modern poems that waft the divine breath of irony throughout and everywhere. A truly transcendental buffoonery lives in them. Inside, the mood that oversees everything and raises itself above everything that is limited, even above its own art, virtue, or genius; outside, by performing in the mimetic manner of a plain good Italian buffo.13

Such an Italian buffo (like modern comedians) pretends to tell or perform stories, but his actual story consists of the repeated interruption of what should be narrated.And since this is precisely Tristram’s manner of telling his story, it may be suggested that Schlegel’s theory of irony and parabasis connects more deeply with Sterne than his direct remarks on him. Is Eichner justified then in claiming that Sterne’s notion of the ‘foregrounded narrator’, as practised in TS, unquestionably anticipates Schlegel’s concept of irony and poetics of the novel? Perhaps we should be more cautious. The foundations of Schlegel’s poetics of the novel were built around 1800; they find their classical expression in the programmatic Athenäums-Fragment no. 116. Analogies with Sterne’s art of the novel are indeed evident here. Schlegel’s ‘universal poetry’ cannot be exhausted by any theory, for its first law is that ‘the poet’s arbitrariness submits to no superior law’; this poetry mostly hovers between the representation and the representor, free from all real and ideal interests, on the wings of poetic reflection’.14 Read in isolation, these remarks sound like commentaries on TS. But the context in Athenäums-Fragment no. 116 also displays the differences. Schlegel’s ‘poetic state’ remains no free ‘hovering’, no permanent parabasis, because his universal poetry is ‘progressive’ (Progressive Universalpoesie): it can raise to ever higher powers this reflection, multiply it, as it were, in an endless series of mirrors. While Sterne’s mode of narrating leaves everything hovering, Schlegel subordinates hovering and poetic fancy to progress. Formulated in more general terms, both TS and Schlegel’s theory of the novel react to an epistemological crisis, the Kantian question of how we can

12

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‘Sie ist die freieste aller Lizenzen, denn durch sie setzt man sich über sich selbst weg’ (Schlegel 1958, 2: 160). ‘Es gibt alte und moderne Gedichte, die durchgängig im Ganzen und überall den göttlichen Hauch der Ironie atmen. Es lebt in ihnen eine wirklich transzendentale Buffonerie. Im Innern, die Stimmung, welche alles übersieht, und sich über alles Bedingte unendlich erhebt, auch über eigne Kunst,Tugend, oder Genialität: im Äußern, in der Ausführung die mimische Manier eines gewöhnlichen guten italiänischen Buffo’ (Schlegel 1958, 2: 152). ‘Und doch kann auch sie am meisten zwischen dem Dargestellten und dem Darstellenden, frei von allem realen und idealen Interesse auf den Flügeln der poetischen Reflexion in der Mitte schweben … [doch erkennt sie als ihr erstes Gesetzan] daß die Willkür des Dichters kein Gesetz über sich leide’ (Schlegel 1958, 2: 182–83).

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know for sure. But Sterne perceives the narrative consequences of the epistemological crisis with greater resignation than Friedrich Schlegel, who, as we have just seen, imagines that narrators can ‘lift’ themselves, as it were, by means of poetic reflection and whim. Schlegel thus endows poetic narration with a new, both ethical and epistemological foundation. In the case of Sterne we may speak of a radical ‘Copernican turn’ in narration. Natural science is not only incapable of laying claim to objective truth, it does not even succeed in achieving intersubjective consent. The individual subject is in TS thrown back upon itself. A universal poetry or a comprehensive historical narration no longer succeeds, cannot be narrated, because time and space no longer function as a priori forms of intuition (Anschauung). Their function is restricted to individual psychology. In Kant, the real clocks and the human biorhythms run synchronously. The incongruity between the different experiences of time produces noise in the channels of communication and thus problems for the narrator. Experiences can no longer be exchanged.The personal clocks of the figures in TS are not synchronized, and this is one among many reasons why the characters talk past each other. If we seek in German Romantic literature analogies for Sterne’s art of the novel, we must look not in Schlegel’s theory of the novel but rather in the writings of Heinrich von Kleist and some novellas of Ludwig Tieck. György Lukács Sterne’s reaction to the epistemological and narrative crisis in the Romantic epoch has obvious relevance also to that of the early twentieth century. How important for modernist narratives was that permanent parabasis that Schlegel (in Rainer Warning’s and Hans Eichner’s interpretation) attributed to TS? Surely fundamental, though only for one type of modernist novel. Mann, Gide, and others do indeed use narrators that playfully or seriously reflect on their narrative mode, but more typical for modernism are perhaps the ‘vanishing narrators’ that minimize their voices and their diegetic passages. Henry James’s The Awkward Age consists overwhelmingly of dialogue; in his The Ambassadors or in Kafka’s novels the narrator is congruent with the central character and uses it as a ‘reflector figure’. Free indirect discourse, itself a sign of an epistemological uncertainty, is a modernist technique to reduce the narrator’s role, rather than enhancing it in the manner of TS. Schlegel believed that the most adequate criticism of fiction is another piece of fiction. This may have been on the mind of György Lukács, then only 24 years old, when he wrote in the summer of 1909 what is, next to Shklovsky’s essay, perhaps the most congenial analysis of TS: ‘Beszélgetés Laurence Sterne-ró´l’ (Conversation on Laurence Sterne). It is congenial because the conversation in the text playfully converses with Sterne as well as Schlegel, and because the conversational form leaves all categorical assertions hovering.The form that Lukács chooses is unusually double-faced: the dialogue form employs a ‘vanishing’ modernist narrator, but only in the sense that the characters’ statements on Sterne and literature are not evaluated by the higher instance of a diegetic voice.A diegetic voice is very much

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present in the text, because the ‘stage director’ gives long and careful descriptions not only of the room of the conversation and the action that takes place in it, but also of the highly fluctuating moods of the characters. He even describes the impact that statements by the characters make on the others, refraining only from commenting on them himself. In contrast to Lukács’s later heavy and rather didactic style, this is a lively one-acter filled with romance and conflict. The three students in search of Tristram are Vince (Vincenz in German), Máté (Joachim in German), and their unnamed but admired and ‘remarkably beautiful’ middle-class female friend. She is reading Goethe when Vince enters her room with a few well-worn, leatherbound books from 1808 under his arm: an edition of Sterne. Playing obviously on Schlegel’s conversation, Lukács lets Vince initiate the girl into the mysteries of Sterne. Since Vince is both more sympathetic to Sterne and more romantically involved with his pupil than Schlegel’s Antonio was with his Amalia, the lecture starts with a passage from ASJ.To the chagrin of Vince, and very likely of the girl, Máté’s arrival tears apart the romantic web of the Sternian text before sentimentality can take over.The clear-headed Máté knows all too well that his unwanted intrusion has created an awkward situation, but he is unable to extricate himself from it because he too loves the girl. In the ensuing passionate and bitter argument, Sterne’s art is the immediate subject and the aesthetic principles the more general subject. At stake are questions of intellectual truth but even more the girl’s affections. Lukács’s text is a Sternian treat of wit and sentimentality: opinions and ideas are embedded here in a greenhouse of adolescent eroticism. As for the readers, they must follow the ball of argument as it passes between the two young men from one side of the intellectual game of tennis to the other.The girl is unfortunately placed in the role of the arbiter for she clearly favours Vince and makes bad calls whenever she intervenes. The fourth voice of the text belongs to the narrator-reporter, who gives lengthy descriptions of the setting and reads the nuances of mood and feeling in each participant; he also comments on the points made by the players and on the dynamics of the game. For the sake of clarity, we shall not try to follow the flight of debate but consolidate the arguments into two separate sections.Vince judges literature in the manner of Dilthey by ‘experience’ (Erlebnis). An intense literary transformation of lived life dissolves apparent incompatibilities and constructed systems: Sterne is richness, plenitude, life. If Cervantes’s Don Quixote and Sancho Panza represent two incompatible worlds, each of the Shandy brothers incorporates both of them. But human relations, which are ultimately deeper and more important in Sterne than individual characters, are not made easier by this overlap: the Shandy brothers do not really communicate with each other, ‘each of them is attentive to his own thoughts, and registers [merely] words from the mouth of the other, not thoughts and feelings’ (1977, 359; 1911, 281). Their puns are ‘crossroads where those searching for each other meet and pass each other, in pain and unrecognized’.Walter’s relation to his wife is similar; only Toby and Corporal Trim meet in their shared madness.

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Vince is aware that Máté, by focusing on form, will soon punch holes in his vitalistic rhetoric.Anticipating this, he tries to take the wind out of Máté’s sails by excusing Sterne’s famous excursions as a method of perspectivism: A human being moves in front of us and speaks a word or makes a gesture, or we only hear his name, and he disappears in that cloud of images, ideas, and moods that his appearance created around him. He disappears so that all of our thoughts can go around him from every side.15

TS’s whimsical shifts and changing stylistic directions are for Vince evidence of Sterne’s sovereign control in wasteful playing: Sterne plays with the weightiest concepts of humanity and fate, but his characters remain secure in their place whatever happens, like rocks amidst waves. Although Sterne’s characters possess merely figments of the imagination, castles in the air, phantasms and playful moments: but the standards by which we call these unreal strike us in comparison as empty schemes. Following the critic Alfred Kerr, Vince defends Sterne by attributing to him the ‘romantic irony’ of Schlegel’s earlier quoted Athenäums-fragment no. 116: the poet’s arbitrariness tolerates no superior law. This limitless subjectivity, this romantic and ironic play could be called Sterne’s world-view:‘Every writer and every text gives me only a mirror image of the world, in a mirror that is worthy of reflecting all the rays of the world.’16 Máté begins his attack by comparing Sterne to the girl’s other reading: one cannot love Goethe and Sterne simultaneously. The former must have regarded the latter a ‘dilettante’ for representing chaotic, raw emotions, even if he often praised Sterne. Sterne’s chaos is not life but anarchy, and anarchy is death that needs to be resisted in the name of life. His characters are not round and rich but one-dimensional, defined by their hobby-horses allegorically, as if by means of a straitjacket. Hence Máté interprets Sterne’s humour as a derivative of traditional humoural pathology, which defines characters in terms of their dominant internal humour. Part of the problem is that Tristram, the narrator, has his own dominant humour and cannot therefore follow the discourse of his characters or the shifts in their humour.Though Sterne knew that one cannot speak about Uncle Toby’s good-heartedness in the same style as about his crazy obsession, yet he was unable to differentiate his discourse. Máté’s severest critique of Sterne is that his humour is a sign of ‘impotence’, a cover for his weakness: nothing in the world could cover up all forms of inability more securely than the playful gesture of sovereignty. And I cannot but sense this gesture in Sterne, not

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‘Ein Mensch tritt hervor, spricht ein Wort, macht eine Geste, oder wir hören bloß seinen Namen und er verschwindet in der Wolke von Bildern, Einfällen, Stimmungen, die um seine Erscheinung herum entstanden ist. Er verschwindet, damit alle unsere Gedanken von jeder Seite her ihn umgehen können’ (1977, 363; 1911, 286 f.). ‘jeder Schriftsteller und jedes Werk gibt mir nur ein Spiegelbild der Welt in einem Spiegel, der würdig war, alle Strahlen der Welt zurückzuwerfen’ (1977, 369; 1911, 298).

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that of strength. I tell you why. Games have a right to exist only if they merely appear as games – for only then are they born of strength rather than inability.17

The unity of Toby’s character is at best in the readers’ mind; perhaps it existed in Sterne’s vision but he was unable to incorporate that vision in the novel’s text.And this lack of formal integration cannot be explained away by speaking of perspectivism: In life, one can, one even must, constantly change one’s perspective of things. Images can command us in a sovereign way from which angle we ought to look at them, but once we assumed that position their power is gone. It is no longer sovereignty but impotence if they demand that we look at this part from here and that one from there. And I perceive such impotence here and elsewhere in the writer.18

Sterne, unable to impose order and form on Toby’s many adventures or on widow Wadman, pretended that he never intended to do so. In a quest for truth, subjectivity can only be a means, never the goal. Citing Thackeray’s criticism of Sterne, Máté claims that in Sterne’s understanding every accidental and uninteresting expression of his being was equally interesting and important. Sterne’s works are ‘inorganic’ fragments because he never made a selection between valuable and worthless things: He did not compose his writings, because he was lacking the elementary precondition of every conception: choosing and making value judgments. Sterne’s writings surge forward in muddy turbulence; they are formless because he could have dragged them out endlessly.19

Nor does Schlegel’s concept of arabesque apply to Sterne’s writing. According to Máté, all characters and human relations in TS are cumbersome, constructed of heavy material, and devoid of grace; the weighty content relentlessly cancels the stylized lightness and arabesque form of the discourse (1977, 377; 1911, 311). Furthermore, chaos is never wealth. Sterne is weak, because he regards ‘everything in life as having the same value’ and

17

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19

‘es gibt nichts auf der Welt, was jede Unfähigkeit sicherer zudeckte, als die spielerische Geste der Souverenität. Und – ich kann mir nicht helfen – ich fühle etwas dergleichen aus der Geste Sternes heraus, etwas, was nicht Kraft ist. Jedes Spiel hat nur dann Daseinsberechtigung – weil es eben nur dann aus der Kraft und nicht aus der Unfähigkeit geboren ist – wenn es nur scheinbar Spiel ist’ (1977, 366; 1911, 293). ‘Im Leben kann man, man soll sogar seinen Gesichtspunkt zu den Dingen fortwährend ändern; das Bild gebietet uns souverän, woher wir es zu betrachten haben; doch wenn wir uns einmal auf diesen Platz gestellt haben, ist es aus mit seiner Macht.Wenn es nötig ist, diesen Teil von hier, jenen von dort zu betrachten, so ist das nicht die Folge einer Souveränität mehr, sondern einer Impotenz. Und eine Impotenz empfinde ich hier, wie auch oft anders bei diesem Dichter’ (1977, 367; 1911, 294). ‘Er komponierte seine Werke nicht, denn die elementarste Vorbedingung jeder Konzeption, das Wählen- und Werten-können ging ihm ab. Sternes in trüber Wahllosigkeit hinflutenden Schriften sind formlos, weil er sie bis ins Unendliche hätte fortsetzen können’ (1977, 373 f.; 1911, 305).

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hence he is incapable of selecting, feeling, and experiencing what is truly great: ‘spiritual episodism is all of Sterne’s life’.20 Through Sterne’s episodic narration we see the world as if through a ‘dirty window pane’, we dimly perceive the contours of the great things, but we only have an inkling of them, we do not accept or reject them (1977, 381; 1911, 318).True wealth is to be found only in the ability to evaluate. By now, Máté clearly has the upper hand in the argument. The girl attempts at one point to come to Vince’s help, but naming Wagner’s ‘unending melody’ as a source of form embarrasses him, because he secretly agrees with Máté’s response that there are no endless forms in art. He gallantly tries to save her and himself by claiming that all form is ultimately based on some strong feeling and experience, though he well knows that these do not inspire form. He loses the argument but wins the girl’s gratitude. As the girl falls silent, both men think they have failed:Vince realizes that Máté’s argument is more powerful, and Máté, concluding that nobody listens to him, departs. He won the argument but not the girl. Once gone,Vince and the girl try to return to Sterne, but Máté has spoiled their love for him. When Vince finally bends over to kiss her, the girl’s ‘transfigured’ face shows relief that ‘the whole lengthy debate was merely a highly unnecessary preparation for what finally happened’.21 Lukács spoils the irony of his denouement by once more making fun of the girl he has depicted throughout in a quasi-misogynist manner. He himself admitted in a letter to Leo Popper, with whom he stayed while writing the first version of the essay, that ‘there was a problem with the eroticism’ in the text (see Hévizi 1990). Biographically, this could perhaps be traced to his unhappy relationship with Irma Seidler, to whose memory Die Seele und die Formen (Soul and Forms) was dedicated soon after her suicide on 18 May, 1911. On the intellectual level, the debate on Sterne reflects a powerful tension in this phase of Lukács’s thought between a Nietzschean and aesthetic will to embrace life in all its contradictions (Vince) and a Spartan concern with form that claims to be aesthetic but is quite evidently of a moral order (Máté). Looking at the dialogue from the perspective of Lukács’s later intellectual trajectory, Máté became clearly the victor of the two souls that were fighting in Lukács and for Sterne. (In the essay this is not yet the case; hence one should not, as Warning does at one point, associate character statements with Lukács’s own opinion.) A moral, even ideological, concern with aesthetic form is evident in Lukács’s Marxism as well as in his work on literature and aesthetics (the same problem animates Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, which, written in 1912, uses ideas from Lukács). More important for this chapter is the question of how well Lukács understood Sterne and in what ways his interest in Sterne had shaped his theory of the novel. Let us note first that the conversation’s intellectual issue

20 21

‘Ein seelischer Episodismus ist das ganze Leben Sternes’ (1977, 380; 1911, 317). ‘das[s] endlich geschehen ist, wozu die ganze lange Debatte nur eine höchst überflüssige Vorbereitung war’ (1977, 384; 1911, 323).

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is clearly TS; ASJ is relevant only for the romance. Let us note furthermore that much of what the opponents say had been said earlier by critics and lovers of Sterne, but nobody had rehearsed so dramatically and vividly the various pros and cons before. Above all, and beyond the individual arguments, nobody, in my opinion, has been able to end a Sternian battle of wit in such a perfect draw. The debate was irresolvable, in part because Lukács’s debaters, like the characters in TS, talk past each other. It is disappointing, though perfectly understandable in terms of Lukács’s own later development towards Máté’s world-view, that TS and Sterne never engaged Lukács’s serious attention again. In Die Theorie des Romans (The Theory of the Novel) – written during World War I, just a few years after the Sterne essay, but published in book form only in 1920 – humour still plays a central role, but the central figure becomes Cervantes. Sterne is mentioned twice in passing as his follower (1963, 50, 107). One readily hears the voice of Máté when Lukács declares that whereas Dante, Goethe, and Cervantes succeed in leaping from subjectivity into the role of an objective recorder,‘Sterne’s and Jean Paul’s splendidly loud voices offer merely subjective mirrorings of a merely subjective and therefore limited, narrow, and arbitrary fragment of the world’.22 This still pre-Marxist criticism strengthened only when Lukács adopted a Marxist aesthetics, for Sterne’s moody subjectivity could not satisfy the converted critic’s demand for portraying ‘typical’ characters within the realist mode of a Balzac. But this negativity of the post-1910 Lukács towards Sterne may have played a role in Mikhail Bakhtin’s consistent appreciation of him, since Bakhtin developed his theory of the novel in repeated reactions against the Hungarian theorist (see Neubauer 1996 and Tihanov 2000). As Neil Stewart notes in his article on Sterne’s reception in Russia, TS could be read within the novelistic notion of the carnivalesque that Bakhtin developed in connection with Rabelais. Unfortunately, the long historical section of Bakhtin’s ‘Discourse in the Novel’ repeatedly asserts, in an almost formulaic way, the importance that the line Sterne / Diderot / Hippel / Jean Paul has for the novel, but it offers no analysis of TS. This may not be an accident, for it is not easy to decide whether TS is, in Bakhtin’s terms, a ‘monological’ or ‘dialogical’ novel. Viktor Shklovsky If one wanted to put a date on the beginnings of the transformation which has overtaken literary theory in this [i.e. the twentieth] century [begins a standard introduction to the subject], one could do worse than settle on 1917, the year in which the young Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky published his pioneering essay ‘Art as Device’. (Eagleton 1983, vii)

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‘während Sternes und Jean Pauls herrlich laute Stimmen bloß subjektive Spiegelungen eines bloß subjektiven und darum begrenzten, engen und willkürlichen Weltbruchstücks bieten’ (1963, 50).

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If one is to agree with this view, a substantial part of the credit for having started off literary theory in a modern sense will have to go to Laurence Sterne as well. For it was TS that in 1921 inspired the spokesman of the Formalist school to write one of his most famous articles: ‘Tristram Shendi’ Sterna i teoriya romana (Sterne’s TS and the Theory of the Novel). Indeed, the involvement of Shklovsky with Sterne and his chef-d’œuvre seems to go beyond that of a fond critic with his favourite object of study: it is a complex and multi-faceted relationship, resembling a lifelong and sometimes troubled love affair. The fictional writings of Sterne and the critical writings of Shklovsky may be said to form a kind of symbiosis and while there is always a strong element of theoretical reflection implicit in the former, the latter with their stylistic originality and brilliant imagery often read like narrative prose.23 It is not easy to guess what came first. No one, of course, can say for sure whether Shklovsky deduced his theory of the novel and the concept of ‘defamiliarization’ from a reading of Sterne, or whether Sterne’s book came as a godsend to illustrate the critic’s preconceived theoretical schemes. Meanwhile, some other facts are readily enough available: first, the essay on TS represents, arguably, Shklovsky’s most convincing interpretation of any single text, and second, his reading of this novel – the key concepts it brought forth – have since become almost synonymous with Formalist narratology in general,24 sometimes indeed with Russian Formalism as a whole. Russian Formalism began in 1915/16, flourished in the 1920s and was suppressed by the Bolshevik regime in 1930 for its lack of political perspective. It gained influence in the West when Structuralism gradually gained acceptance in the 1960s,25 partly through the work of Roman Jakobson, cofounder and major exponent of Russian Formalism, then a member of the

23

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We will restrict ourselves here to the consideration of Shklovsky as a literary critic. As a novelist he is certainly also in no small measure indebted to Sterne (see Chapter 6, p.147). According to Aage Hansen-Löve (1978, 35), in its preoccupation with the tradition of ‘Shandyism’, ‘Formalist narrative theory contains as scientific object its own origin’ (Die formalistische Erzähltheorie enthält als wissenschaftliches Objekt ihre eigene Herkunft). Among the Formalists, Shklovsky is certainly the critic who devoted most attention to Sterne; the others, especially Eikhenbaum, referred to him often, but invariably did so in order to make some point about a different subject or writer. This is of course due to the fact that he was also the one most interested in prose fiction and narrative theory, but also reflects the Formalists’ custom to divide the canon of world literature up between themselves according to authors: Pushkin and Dostoevskii were Tynyanov’s, Gogol fell to Vinogradov, Tolstoi to Eikhenbaum, and Sterne (like almost all of the Westerners) was Shklovsky’s territory. Until then, remarkably little had been known about the movement in the West. It is revealing how Shklovsky’s interpretation of TS was first presented to Western readers by Kenneth E. Harper in 1954/55, in an article that briefly paraphrased the essay and offered a few tentative comments, but while doing so made no secret of the fact that it was based on hearsay – Harper himself had never seen a copy of Shklovsky’s text.

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Prague Linguistic Circle, and a leading proponent of structural linguistics during his American years.The movement started off in two separate groups, each associated with one of the two major Russian cities and cultural centres: the ‘Moscow Linguistic Circle’ and the St Petersburg-based ‘Opoyaz’ (an acronym for the Russian ‘Obshchestvo dlya Izucheniya Poeticheskogo Yazyka’ – ‘Society for the Study of Poetic Language’).The young men who founded these groups, originally students at the universities of Moscow and St Petersburg, later teachers at the Institute of Art History at Petrograd (Shklovsky, Eikhenbaum,Tynyanov, Jakobson), had grown impatient with the state of literary scholarship in Russia and strove for a solid methodology that would put it on a par with the natural sciences.The Formalists made use of the linguistic techniques of Ferdinand de Saussure and although their assumptions were to some extent based on Symbolist notions concerning the autonomy of the text and the discontinuity between literary and other uses of language, they sought to make their own critical discourse more objective and scientific. Closely allied to the Russian Futurists and opposed to sociological criticism, to normative poetics, and to Idealist philosophizing alike, they stressed the importance of form and technique over content. According to Shklovsky, literature was a collection of stylistic and formal ‘devices’ (‘priemy’) that forced the reader to view the world afresh by depicting things in unaccustomed ways. As a consequence, the role of the literary scholar changed substantially from that of an old-fashioned, aristocratic man of letters to that of a modern engineer: he was no longer called upon to provide historical, philosophical or biographical contexts, but rather to investigate the nature of ‘literariness’, itemizing devices and pointing out the verbal mechanisms by which a given text ‘functioned’: Normal perception goes smoothly, the way a plane-iron glides across a polished wooden surface … Customary words form customary sentences, sentences form periods and everything proceeds with irresistible momentum, like a stone rolling downhill.The task of the Formal method, or one of its tasks anyway, lies not in ‘explaining’ a work of art, but in slowing down the perception of it,26 in establishing the ‘formal set-up’ characteristic of the work.27

The concept of ostranenie, i.e. ‘making strange’ or ‘making difficult’, was Shklovsky’s chief contribution to Formalist theory and has been hailed as ‘not just a literary critical term that was to go down in history, but the

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Note the characteristic identification of the critical and the creative act: in Shklovsky’s sentence it is actually the critic who ‘slows down’ perception of the work of art, by pointing out the way it is constructed, not the artist, who constructed the impeding form.We will come back to this later. ‘Kak rubanok po polirovannomu derevu bezhit obychnoe vospriyatie … Privychnye slova splelis’ v privychnye frazy, frazy v periody, i vse katitsya neuderzhimo, kak kamen’ s gory. Zadachei formal’nogo metoda, vo vsyakom sluchae odnoi iz ego zadach, yavlyaetsya ne “ob ”yasnenie” proizvedeniya, a tormozhenie na nem vnimaniya, vosstanovlenie “ustanovki na formu”, tipichnoi dlya khudozhestvennogo proizvedeniya’ (Shklovsky 1923, 205).

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aesthetic and philosophical principle central to modern art and its theory’.28 It should be pointed out, however, that his original treatment of the term really comprises two distinct, albeit closely related notions, both discernible in the passage quoted above: for one thing, ostranenie is said to impede automatic perception according to linguistic and social conventions and to bring about a correction of the beholder’s cognition of the world around him (Bertold Brecht’s concept of defamiliarization in the drama, for example, stresses precisely this ‘ethical’ aspect). Second, in a kind of countermovement, by impeding perception, ostranenie draws attention to the impeding form itself.The latter and the devices that make it up become the actual object of aesthetic perception and, finally, the proper object of art (Striedter 1989, 23–24). Shklovsky did not actually deny the importance of the first, but as a literary critic he was interested exclusively in the second, the aesthetic function of ostranenie, which for him constituted no less than the very essence of literature. Despite the rebellious and irreverent tone of some of his early writings, Shklovsky by no means broke completely with the critical tradition. ‘Defamiliarization’, for instance, was not a totally unheard of theoretical category in 1917. In general, the Formalists’ startling theses were often eloquently pointed or radicalised formulations of concepts less spectacularly original than they seemed at first glance: indeed, Shklovsky’s essay ‘Art as Device’ (1969a, 30) explicitly refers the reader to Aristotle’s Poetics and his notion of xenikon – i.e. the requirement that poetic language appear ‘strange’ and ‘sublime’ (1458a). In a more general vein, ostranenie and the ‘devices’ that make it up may be said to coincide to some extent with the definition of irony of classical rhetoric. Rhetorical irony comprises the various kinds of indirect speech, the direct,‘transitive’ meaning of which is not identical with an implied subtext. Differences (especially with regard to motivation) notwithstanding – in both cases, playing with the reader’s expectation serves to ‘impede normal perception’ and thus create an artistic effect. While his Formalist brethren tended to focus their attention on genres that were quite obviously determined by rigid formal specifications, such as poetry or folktales, Shklovsky must have felt that the real proving ground for any literary theory proclaiming the superiority of form over content naturally had to be the novel, i.e. a genre that has always enjoyed notoriety for being chaotic and formless and that reached its full development, a position of dominance and a theoretical basis only after the rule of normative poetics was effectively over (Striedter 1989, 41). To put it another way: the novel has traditionally been suspected of being all ‘content’ and no ‘form’. Shklovsky, however, thought otherwise. In his opinion, general conceptions of what a novel was about – the syuzhet, as he called it29 – were rooted 28

29

‘… nicht nur ein neuer literaturwissenschaftlicher Terminus, der Geschichte machen sollte, sondern auch das zentrale ästhetische und philosophische Prinzip der modernen Kunst und ihrer Theorie’ (Hansen-Löve 1978, 19). We will render the term in Russian, so as not to confuse this specifically Formalist concept with what is normally called the sujet of a story, i.e. the plot. It should be said, however, that Shklovsky was not very consistent in this respect and himself sometimes used syuzhet in its traditional sense (see below).

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in one fundamental misunderstanding: ‘The term syuzhet is too often confused with the representation of events –, i.e. with what I would like to suggest be tentatively called the fable. The fable is really nothing more than material for the formation of the syuzhet.’30 Again, the Russian Formalist seems to have drawn on Aristotle, namely on the seventh chapter of the Poetics (1450b), where beauty in a work of art is described not as an ontological quality of its components but as a result of their interrelation, of the way the parts are organized, their size and order. Shklovsky applied this basic assumption to various classical novels in his articles: for him, a character like Don Quixote was neither a type (as Heine or Turgenev took him to be) nor a full-blooded individual, but the downright accidental result of an autotelic structure, a carrier-device serving the real syuzhet of Cervantes’ novel, namely the technique of stringing together heterogeneous materials. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were compositional ‘functions’ typical of the detective story, the syuzhet of which consisted in posing riddles and delaying the right answers as long as possible. And finally, TS, arguably the most wayward novel of all and certainly one with a remarkable potential to bewilder the reader, was by no means chaotic but ‘as regular as a painting by Picasso’ (1969b, 246),31 because it possessed and carried through a clearly identifiable syuzhet: ‘Sterne’, wrote Shklovsky in his famous essay, was an extreme revolutionary of form.The deliberate exposure of the device is characteristic of him.The artistic form is simply presented as such, devoid of all motivation … The construction of the novel itself is emphasised throughout. Awareness of the form is achieved by way of its violation and this constitutes the content of the novel.32

Shklovsky proceeds to prove this assertion by supplying a veritable catalogue of devices used in TS, such as interruptions, digressions, chronological eccentricities, dislocations of chapters, and the way Sterne has of reversing the order of cause and effect: If we were to represent the matter graphically, this is what it would look like: an event would be symbolized by a cone, with the vertex representing its cause. In an ordinary novel such a cone would rest on the fundamental line of the novel on this very vertex. In Sterne, however, it is the base of the cone that touches the main novella, – and immediately we find the air buzzing with allusions.33 30

31 32

33

‘Ponyatie syuzheta slishkom chasto smeshivayut s opisaniem sobytii – s tem, chto predlagayu uslovno nazvat’ fabuloi. Na samom dele fabula est’ lish’ material dlya syuzhetnogo oformleniya’ (1969b, 296). ‘Eto zakonomerno, kak kartina Pikasso.’ ‘Stern byl krainii revolyutsioner formy.Tipichnym dlya nego yavlyaetsya obnazhenie priema. Khudozhestvennaya forma daetsya vne vsyakoi motivirovki, prosto kak takovaya … Voobshche, u nego pedalirovano samo stroenie romana, u nego osoznanie formy putem narusheniya ee i sostavlyaet soderzhanie romana’ (1969b, 244, 250). ‘Esli predstavit’ sebe delo skhematicheski, to ono budet vyglyadet’ tak: konus budet simvolizirovat’ soboi sobytie, vershina ego budet simvolizirovat’ prichinnyi moment. V obychnom romane takoi konus primykaet k osnovnoi linii romana imenno svoei vershinoi. U Sterna zhe konus prilegaet k osnovnoi novelle svoim osnovaniem, – my srazu popadaem v roi namekov’ (1969b, 248).

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Presenting Sterne as a ‘revolutionary of form’ and focusing on TS, Shklovsky was demonstratively dismissive of the way his author had been received in Russia until then: ‘Nothing has been written on Sterne so far, except a few banalities.’34 For much of the nineteenth century, critics as well as readers had devoted most of their attention to ASJ, fervently discussing its moral qualities and shortcomings, while neglecting the Englishman’s other novel as being tasteless and bizarre. It was Shklovsky who rediscovered TS for Russian literature. Given his theoretical premises, it is not surprising that he was not interested in Yorick/Sterne, the man of feeling, nor worried about the authenticity of his sentimentality. He does, however, address the issue, if only to throw his own conception of ‘content’ into sharp relief: A few remarks on sentimentalism in general may be interesting at this point. Sentimentalism cannot be the content of art, if only because art does not have any separate content.The representation of things from a ‘sentimental point of view’ is a special method of representation, similar to, for example, their representation from the point of view of a horse (Tolstoy, ‘Kholstomer’) or a giant (Swift). Art is essentially non-emotional … Blood in art is not bloody, it rhymes with ‘good’,35 it serves as material for either the composition of sounds or the composition of images. Therefore, art is pitiless, or rather: beyond pity, except for those cases where the feeling of pity is used as material in an arrangement. But even then, when discussing it, it is necessary to regard it from the point of view of the composition, in exactly the same way as, if you want to understand how a machine works, you must see the leather driving-belt as a part of that machine, rather than consider it from the point of view of a vegetarian.36

Shklovsky’s interpretation of Sterne’s novel culminated in ‘one of the most famous statements of twentieth-century narrative theory’ (West 2001, 283), namely that TS was ‘the most typical novel in world literature’37 because it

34

35

36

37

‘Pro Sterna ne napisanno eshche nichego ili, esli i napisano, to tol’ko neskol’ko banal’nostei’ (1969b, 244). It is actually the words for ‘blood’ and ‘love’ – ‘krov’’ and ‘lyubov’’ – that rhyme in Russian. ‘Interesno zdes’ pogovorit’ o sentimental’nosti voobshche. Sentimental’nost’ ne mozhet byt’ soderzhaniem isskustva, khotya by potomu uzhe, chto v isskustve net otdel’nogo soderzhaniya. Izobrazhenie veshchei s “sentimental’noi tochki zreniya” est’ osobyi metod izobrazheniya, takoi zhe, naprimer, kak izobrazheniya ikh s tochki zreniya loshadi (Tolstoi – Kholstomer) ili velikana (Svift)’. Po sushchestvu svoemu isskustvo vneemotsional’no. … Krov’ v isskustve ne krovava, ona rifmuetsya s “lyubov’”, ona ili materiya dlya zvukovogo postroeniya ili material dlya obraznogo postroeniya. Poetomu isskustvo bezzhalostno ili vnezhalostno, krome tekh sluchaev, kogda chuvstvo sostradaniya vzyato kak material dlya postroeniya. No i tut, govorya o nem, nuzhno rassmatrivat’ ego s tochki zreniya kompozitsii, tochno tak zhe kak nuzhno, esli vy zhelaete ponyat’ mashinu, smotret’ na privodnoi remen’ kak na detal’ mashiny, a ne rassmatrivat’ ego s tochki zreniya vegetar’yantsa’ (1969b: 272–74). ‘“Tristram Shendi” samyi tipichnyi roman vsemirnoi literatury’ (1969b, 298).

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openly displayed the characteristics of the genre, stringing together all sorts of materials and applying devices for their own sake without even seriously pretending to tell a story. TS, we may say, simply did what all novels do, only it did so unashamedly, in broad daylight, which made it the quintessential novel, the most authentic, and thus the most ‘typical’. This deliberately provocative statement has since met with a great deal of criticism. Even such a confirmed supporter of the Formalist school as Victor Erlich called it ‘a strong assertion’, claiming that it was false and betrayed ‘the modern bias of the Formalist in favour of non-objective art, his tendency to mistake the extreme for the representative’ (Erlich 1981, 166).While such a tendency cannot be denied, Shklovsky’s pointed assertion is by no means as shockingly eccentric or arbitrary, nor indeed as radically original, as his critics have generally made out. Again, he is less far removed from the European critical tradition than his iconoclastic demeanour or, for that matter, the geographic location of his home country would seem to indicate. The structural exhibitionism ascribed by him to TS and its somewhat sweepingly declared relevance for the novel genre as such, recalls, of course, Friedrich Schlegel’s similarly wide-ranging conception of irony, and the relevance of the German Romantic heritage for Shklovsky is nowhere more apparent than in his articles on Sterne. The striking affinity of Shklovsky’s critical writings to their object may in fact be seen as the realization of a major Romantic ideal, namely correspondence between ironic selfawareness within the work of art on the one hand and the critical act on the other: the Romantic work of art is constituted by irony, an irony that impedes the reader’s perception and destroys his illusion of reality; critical analysis ‘destroys’ its object while recreating it by means of interpretation. Shklovsky, when writing about TS, not only gleefully reproduces graphical elements from this book on the pages of his own text, but also, in a kind of performative, imitatory understanding, makes a point of ‘laying bare’ his own ‘devices’:‘How to conclude my article?’, he asks at the end of one piece on Pushkin and Sterne, ‘If this were a novel, one could end with a marriage. With articles, it is more difficult.’38 In fact, declaring TS ‘the most typical novel in world literature’ neatly captures the paradoxically constructive importance of irony for the novel form, the composition of which, as Georg Lukács had put it just a few years before in his Die Theorie des Romans (The Theory of the Novel), was ‘a paradoxical fusion of heterogeneous and discrete components into an organic, permanently unstable whole’.39 Although neither Shklovsky nor any of the other leading Formalists took explicit notice of Lukács, certain parallels and common themes suggest that Russian Formalism cannot be separated from the general European discourse on the novel. Considered in this context, much of what Shklovsky had to say on TS – leaving aside for the moment his radical disregard of all but formal categories – appears

38

39

‘Chem konchit’ stat’yu? Esli by byl roman, to ego mozhno bylo by zakonchit’ brakom. So stat’yami trudnee’ (1923, 220). ‘… ein paradoxes Verschmelzen heterogener und diskreter Bestandteile zu einer immer wieder gekündigten Organik’ (1963, 83).

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indeed to be quite consistent with the critical tradition. As he developed his theory of narrative prose further, Shklovsky – while making no substantial changes – slightly shifted the emphasis of his interpretation of Sterne’s novel. Four years after its first publication as a separate pamphlet (1921) he included the essay in an anthology of his works (1925), but under a somewhat different title: it was now called ‘Parodiinyi roman. Tristram Shendi Sterna’ (The parody novel: Sterne’s TS). The concept of parody had in the meanwhile significantly gained in importance for Russian Formalism and was being thoroughly investigated not only by Shklovsky, but also by his colleague Yuri Tynyanov. This was due to its relevance to the Formalist concept of literary evolution. In his 1921 article, Shklovsky had mentioned that ‘Sterne worked against the background of the adventure novel with its extraordinarily rigid forms and formal convention to conclude with a marriage or a wedding. The forms of the Sternean novel represent distortions and violations of traditional forms’,40 but otherwise, as we have seen, dwelt more on the fact that TS faithfully realized the genre’s conventions (if that genre were properly understood). A later article – ‘Evgeny Onegin. (Pushkin i Stern)’ (Evgeny Onegin [Pushkin and Sterne]), written in 1923,41 – presented TS and Alexander Pushkin’s verse-novel side by side as examples of how certain works of art drive literary history on by parodying ossified patterns that have exhausted their potential to irritate the reader’s perception. Parody novels, as Shklovsky calls them, dismantle unproductive forms by exposing the conventional devices behind them, and thus restore literature’s artistic vitality. It is an interesting question why Evgeny Onegin was rendered in the form of a Sternean parody novel. The appearance of TS had been effected by the petrifaction of the devices of the old adventure novel. All these devices had become completely inexpressive.The only way to breathe new life into them was parody. As Prof. Eikhenbaum has pointed out, Evgeny Onegin was written on the eve of the appearance of a new prose. The forms of poetry were growing stale. Pushkin was dreaming of the prose novel. He was bored with rhymes. Evgeny Onegin resembles an eccentric who shows up at a variety

40

41

‘Stern rabotal na fone avantyurnogo romana, s ego chrezvychaino krepkimi formami i formal’nym pravilom konchat’ svad’boi ili zhenit’boi. Formy sternovskogo romana – eto sdvig i narushenie obychnykh form’ (1969b, 266). This piece is significantly less well known than the first essay on TS; it is not generally included in anthologies of Formalist criticism, nor has it been translated. And it must be admitted that the 1923 text, written at a time when Shklovsky was living abroad, in Berlin, is indeed much weaker than many of his more famous works, negligently written and full of inaccuracies. Even the term syuzhet, so provocatively elaborated in 1921, is carelessly used in its traditional sense on two occasions (1923, 211, 214), causing the reader familiar with the earlier article no little confusion.

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theatre near the end of the performance and openly demonstrates the tricks behind all the numbers that have gone before.42

The apparent contradiction between this view of the parody novel as a kind of spoilsport transgressor violating generally accepted rules on the one hand and the asserted typicality of TS on the other is readily explained by the Formalists’ specific interpretation of genre: to them, a genre was not simply a firm canon, the laws of which were or were not purely realized. It was ‘a constantly shifting, evolving system of references, in which the profoundest offences against currently valid models or rules go at least as far in shaping the genre as do reinforcements’ (Striedter 1989, 41). Or, as Shklovsky put it: ‘A work of art, in order to please us, does not need to conform to our aesthetic norms, rather, it is the way in which they are violated that is important’.43 This, of course, was especially true of the novel, a literary form eternally and by definition at odds with normative poetics. In terms of the genre’s historical evolution, Don Quixote and TS ‘are as much parodies or anti-novels as they are self-confirmations, self-regenerations, and reference points’ (Striedter, 1989, 41). Therefore Tristram, Sterne’s hapless hero, may indeed be called the most typical of his kin as well as the singer of a ‘counter-song’ (i.e. a parody). Considering the vital function that Shklovsky ascribed to parody in the understanding of artistic evolution, it may seem especially critical that he tends to interpret the concept itself somewhat one-sidedly. True to his polemical temper and aggressively materialist convictions, he is generally inclined to present literary history in terms of a ‘rejection of the past’, ‘shattering’, ‘struggle’, ‘overcoming’, and ‘transformation’, while parody is seen exclusively as the mocking of forms that are past their prime and therefore deserve to be ‘thrown off the steamship that is the present’ (as Mayakovsky said of Pushkin). Such a view does not account for the continuing appeal of TS, Don Quixote, and Evgeny Onegin, which attracted different generations of readers long after they were first conceived, in fundamentally different historical situations. It neglects the thoroughly constructive function of deconstructions effected by parody. These issues were elaborated more clearly by Yuri Tynyanov only shortly afterwards (Striedter 1989, 41–42). In general, it is by no means easy to assess adequately Shklovsky’s reading of TS, and the theory that he developed by means of it. As indicated above, 42

43

‘Interesen vopros, pochemu imenno Evgenii Onegin dan v forme parodiinogo sternianskogo romana. Poyavlenie Tristrama Shendi ob“yasnyalos” okameneniem priemov starogo avantyurnogo romana. Vse priemy sdelalis’ sovershenno neoshchutitel’nymi. Edinstvennyi sposob ozhivit’ ikh byla parodiya. Evgenii Onegin napisan, kak na eto ukazal prof. Eikhenbaum, nakanune poyavleniya novoi prozy. Formy poezii uzhe kholodeli. Pushkin mechtal o prozaicheskom romane. Rifma naskuchila emu. Evgenii Onegin kak ekstsentrik, yavlyayushchiisya v var’ete v kontse predstavleniya i demonstriruyushchii razgadku vsekh priemov prezhnikh nomerov’ (1923, 219). ‘Dlya togo, chto proizvedenie nam nravilos’, vovse ne nuzhno, chtoby ono sovpalo s nashimi esteticheskimi normami, no vazhen kharakter ikh razrusheniya’ (1923, 202).

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his theses and the apodictic manner in which he formulated them have been severely criticized even by former allies (and, of course, by himself!):44 René Wellek (1991, 328–29) maliciously remarked that Shklovsky’s ‘usual arrogant way’ notwithstanding, much of what he had to say on the subject of TS was ‘fairly obvious and cannot be missed by anyone who has studied Sterne’s book’; Roman Jakobson, in the introduction to Tzvetan Todorov’s French anthology of Formalist writings (1965, 11), denounced the very concept of ‘defamiliarization’ as a ‘platitude galvaudée’, the importance of which for Formalism as a whole should not be overrated. More recently, Russell West, soberly checking the adequacy of Shklovsky’s reading of TS in the light of modern reader-response criticism, concluded that Sterne had eluded the Russian’s ‘theoretical straitjacket’ (2001, 287) in advance by assigning an active role to his reader and thus destabilizing static binary oppositions such as fable v. syuzhet. Furthermore, one could argue that the development of literary theory in the twentieth century, Structuralism in particular, owed much more in detail to the meticulously elaborated models of Tynyanov or Eikhenbaum than to Shklovsky, who would often make some sweeping suggestion only to turn his attention elsewhere and leave the spadework to others. There is more than a grain of truth in these assessments. However, as Victor Erlich has pointed out, the Formalist school emerged at a time when only those willing and able to make a loud noise could make themselves heard (Erlich 1981, 60).As with Mayakovsky and the Futurists or indeed any of the Russian avant-garde groups around 1920, aggressive self-promotion and a propensity for épater le bourgeois were absolutely essential to truly revolutionary deportment. Also, the Formalists conceived of their theses in principle not as hard-and-fast rules, but as statements that might be – and were explicitly meant to be – modified in an ongoing dialogue (Striedter 1989, 17–18). It was therefore of paramount importance to state an argument clearly, even at the risk of occasionally overstating it. If Shklovsky formulated certain points in a more radical fashion than did his colleagues, thus compromising at times his scholarly soundness and from the start rendering himself more liable to criticism, his were also the most provocative, the most bitterly disputed, and consequently the most productive Formalist writings.Viktor Shklovsky, we may say, is the most typical Russian Formalist.

44

When Formalism was finally suppressed in 1930, Shklovsky tried to adapt the officially accepted doctrine of Socialist realism and continued to write voluminously. Sterne and TS retained their fascination for him until his death in 1984, but, it must be said, more sober and ‘correct’ as these writings may be in a technical sense, there is something melancholy about the ex-Formalist utilizing his gift for original visualizations in order to recant his former views (1959, 318): ‘Coming back to Sterne, I realize that if one regards his writings as pure form, as a game, then one misses the gist. One will find oneself in the situation of a man who tries to jump on a horse and falls off the other side’ (‘Eshche raz, vozvrashchayas’ k Sternu, ya vizhu, chto esli otsenit’ ego kak pisatelya chistoi formy, kak igru, to poteryaesh’ ego. Budesh’ v polozhenii cheloveka, kotoryi, pytayas’ sest’ na loshad’, cherez nee pereprygnul’).

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Chapter 8 Barac,Antun (1954a) Hrvatska knjiˇzevnost od preporoda do stvaranja Jugoslavije. Knjiga I. Knjiˇzevnost ilirizma, Zagreb: JAZU. Barac, Antun (1954b) Jugoslavenska knjiˇzevnost, Zagreb: Matica hrvatska. Ciraki, Franjo (1871) ‘Madame Staël i George Sand’, Vienac, 48. 3 (2 December 1871): 769–75. Ciraki, Franjo (1899) Reˇcenice, pabirci po liepoj knjizˇevnosti, Pozˇega: L. Klein. Ciraki, Franjo (1905) Jankovo ljetovanje. Moderna idila u ˇsest kanta, Pozˇega: L. Klein. Cˇ edomil, Jaksˇa (1888) Narodni list, 28 (11 April). Detoni-Dujmi´c, Dunja (1984) ‘Ogled o hrvatskim sternovcima’, Knjizˇevna smotra, 54–55: 55–62. Donat, Branimir (1961) ‘Zˇivi oblici jedne proze’, Knjizˇevnik, 26: 203–20. Donat, Branimir (1967) ‘Opaske o hrvatskog prozi (IV) Prilog analitici hrvatskoj sternijanstva’, Kolo (May): 399–405.

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Chapter 9 Arany, János (1864) ‘Sterne élete’, Koszorú, 597. Békés, Pál (1991) Érzékeny útazások Közép-Európán át, Budapest: Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó. Döbrentei, Gábor (1817) ‘Szterne Ló´rincz élete’, Erdélyi Muzéum [Cluj]: 183–91. [Edvi Illés, Pál] (1824) ‘Szeret´´ ozésre tanogató levél,Aglegények számára’, Kedvesked´´o: 26–29. Fest, Sándor (2000) Skóciai Szent Margittól a walesi bárdokig: magyar-angol történeti és irodalmi kapcsolatok, eds Lóránt Czigány and János H. Korompay, Budapest: Universitas. Gálos, Rezsó´ (1938) ‘Verseghy és a Tristram Shandy’, Irodalomtörténeti Közlemények [Budapest]: 372–75.

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Chapter 10 Aldi, Giuliana (trans.) (1958) La vita e le opinioni di Tristram Shandy, gentiluomo, Milano: Rizzoli. Anon. (trans.) (1792a) Viaggio sentimentale del signor Sterne sotto il nome di Yorick, Venice: Antonio Zatta. Anon. (trans.) (1792b) Lettere di Yorick ad Elisa e di Elisa a Yorick, Venice: Andre Foglierini. Anon. (trans.) (1812) Viaggio sentimentale di Yorick lungo la Francia e I’Italia, Milan: De Stefanis.

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Chapter 11 Assis, Machado de (1985) Memórias Póstumas de Braz Cubas [1881], Porto: Lello & Irmão. Baptista, Abel Barros (1998) Autobibliografias: Solicitação do Livro na Ficção e na Ficção de Machado de Assis, Lisbon: Relógio de Água. Cardoso, Luís (trans.) (1902) Viagem Sentimental and Cartas de Yorick a Eliza, Lisbon: Parceria António Maria Pereira. Dinis, Júlio (1991) Uma Família Inglesa [1868], Lisbon: Editora Ulisseia. Garrett, Almeida (1977) Viagens na Minha Terra [1846], Lisbon: Porto Editora. Lousada, Isabel (1999) ‘Para o Estabelecimento de uma Bibliografia Britânica em Português (1554–1900)’, 2 vols., Lisbon: Universidade Nova de Lisboa, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Macedo, José Agostinho (1993) Os Burros [1827], Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores. Martins, Anna Maria (trans.) (1963) Uma Viagem Sentimental através da França e Itália, Preface and notes by Jorge de Sena, São Paulo: Cultrix. Nina, Cláudia, ‘Sterne in Portuguese’, in The Shandean, 10 (1998): 115–18. Paes, José Paulo (trans.) (1984) A Vida e as Opiniões do Cavaleiro Tristram Shandy, Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira. Paes, José Paulo (trans.) (1998) A Vida e as Opiniões do Cavaleiro Tristram Shandy, 2nd rev. edition, São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. Portela, Manuel (1996),‘O Livro dentro do Livro em Tristram Shandy’, Actas do XVI Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Estudos Anglo-Amercianos, Vila Real: Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, 127–41. Portela, Manuel (1997) ‘O Livro dos Livros’, in A Vida e Opiniões de Tristram Shandy, Lisbon: Antígona, 1: 7–52. Portela, Manuel (trans.) (1997–98) A Vida e Opiniões de Tristram Shandy, 2 vols, Lisbon: Antígona. Portela, Manuel (trans.) (1999) Uma Viagem Sentimental por França e Itália pelo Sr. Yorick, Lisbon: Antígona. Portela, Manuel (trans.) (2000) Diário para Eliza and A Political Romance and ‘A Rabelaisian Fragment’, Lisbon: Antígona. Portela, Manuel (2001) ‘Typographic Translation:The Portuguese Edition of Tristram Shandy’, Joe Bray, Miriam Handley and Anne Henry (eds), Ma(r)king the Text:The Presentation of Meaning on the Literary Page, Aldershot: Ashgate, 291–308. Portela, Manuel (2002) ‘Every Translator Post Shandy Tristram Est’, The European English Messenger, 11.1: 62–64. Portela, Manuel (2003) O Comércio da Literatura. Lisbon: Antígona, 327–66. Ramos, Manuel da Silva & Alface (1996) As Noites Brancas do Papa Negro [1982], Lisbon: Fenda.

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Additional bibliographical material: Sterne in Romania Anixt, A. (1961) ‘Laurence Sterne’, in Istoria literaturii engleze, trans. from Russian by Leon Levi¸tchi and Ioan Aurel Preda [Ion Preda], Bucharest: Editura ¸stiin¸tifica˘, pp. 179–83. Anon. (1913) ‘Bicentenarul lui Laurence Sterne’, Viitorul,VI.2087: 2. Anon. (1926) ‘Precursorii futurismului’, Adevarul literar ¸si artistic, 22 August,VII.298: 6. Anon. (1936) ‘Laurence Sterne’, Dimineata, 23 November, 32. 10748: 7. Anon. (1937) ‘Ceva despre Laurence Sterne’, Reporter, 22 August,V.27: 4. Anon. (trans.) (1939) ‘Sterne, Laurence “Viata si opiniunile lui Tristram Shandy”’, Jurnalul literar, I.27, 2 July, pp. 1, 4. Beza, Marcu (1923) ‘Romantismul englez. Introducere’, Cuget românesc, II.3: 227–32. Brînzeu, Pia (1995) ‘The Disempowered Author’, in The Protean Novelists:The British Novel from Defoe to Scott, Timis¸oara: Tipografia Universita˘t‚ii din Timis¸oara, pp. 72–85. Curtui, Aurel (1991) ‘Laurence Sterne’, in Aurel Curtui, Ioan Cret‚iu, Corneliu Nicolescu A History of English Literature, Cluj-Napoca: Babes-Bolyai University Press, pp. 288–93. Cotrau, Liviu (1986) ‘Tristram Shandy and the Logic of the Parargon’, in Galea, Ileana and Virgil Stanciu (eds) Studies in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century English Novel, Cluj-Napoca: Babes-Bolyai University Press, pp. 80–102. Danciu, Magda (1993) ‘Dialog cu Randall Stevenson’, Familia, November: 13. Eliade, Mircea (1934a) ‘Despre un aspect al eternita˘t‚ii’, Oceanografie, Bucharest: Editura ‘Cultura nationala’, pp. 40–44. Eliade, Mircea (1934b) ‘Despre scris ¸si scriitori’, Oceanografie, Bucharest: Editura ‘Cultura nationala’, pp. 90–103. Eliade, Mircea (1991a) ‘Despre un aspect al eternita˘t‚ii’, Oceanografie, Bucharest: Humanitas, pp. 31–33. Eliade, Mircea (1991b) ‘Despre scris ¸si scriitori’, Oceanografie, Bucharest: Humanitas, pp. 72–75. Levit‚chi, Leon D., Sever Trifu and Veronica Focs¸a˘neanu (1998) ‘Laurence Sterne’, in Istoria literaturii engleze ¸si americane, vol. II, Bucharest: AllEducational Publishing House, pp. 97–102. Matei-Chesnoiu, Monica (2001) ‘Laurence Sterne’, in A Survey Course in British Literature.The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Bucharest: Credis, pp. 160–61. Michelsen, Peter (1965) ‘Laurence Sterne und der Deutsche Roman des 18–ten Jahrunderts’, Euphorion, 59.1–2: 207–21. Mihai Miroiu (trans.) (1986) O calatorie sentimentala. Jurnalul pentru Eliza, Bucharest: Univers. Mihai Miroiu and Mihai Spariosu (trans.) (1969) Viata si opiniunile lui Tristram Shandy, Bucharest: Editura pentru literatura universala. Mircean, Ovidiu (2000) ‘Fictiune fara fictiune sau viata fara de nastere in Tristram Shandy’, Echinox [Cluj-Napoca], XXXI. 1–2–3: 16–17. Munteanu, Romul (1981) ‘Dislocarea narat‚iunii clasice în proza lui Laurence Sterne’, Cultura europeana˘ în epoca luminilor, Bucharest: Minerva, vol. 2, pp. 305–09. Olteanu, Tudor (1974) ‘Fascinat‚ia reîntregirii. Epopea. Paradisul pierdut’, Morfologia romanului european în secolul al XVIII–lea, Bucharest: Univers, pp. 486–513.

Bibliography

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Preda, Ioan Aurel (1994) ‘The Comedy of Novel Writing in Tristram Shandy’, Studies in Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Literature, Bucharest: Editura Universita˘t‚ii Bucures¸ti, pp. 40–55. Preda, Ioan Aurel (2000) ‘[Sterne]’ in Shakespeare, Romanul englez, ed., trans., Foreword, notes Andi Ba˘ lu, Bucharest: Albatros, pp. 314–27. Preda, Ioan Aurel (1970) ‘Laurence Sterne’, in Ana Cartianu and Ioan Aurel Preda (coordinators) Dict‚ionar al literaturii engleze, Bucures¸ti: Editura Stiint‚ifica˘, pp. 337–39. Portocal, Radu (2002) ‘Dinamica dezmembra˘rii’, Litere, arte, idei, Supliment de cultura˘ al ‘Cotidianul’, 14 January, year 7, no. 9, p. 1. Spariosu, Mihai (1972) ‘Prelucrarea ¸si folosirea traducerii literare’, Analele Universitatii Bucuresti: Literatura universala˘ comparata [Bucharest], 21.1: 129–39. Spariosu, Mihai (1972) ‘Analogia antica˘ ¸si analogia simbolica’, Analele Universitatii Bucuresti: Literatura universala˘ comparata [Bucharest], 21.2: 63–77. Steg˘arescu, Dinu (1943) ‘Abatele Laurence Sterne’, Viat‚a [Bucharest], 27 August, III.848:2. Volceanov, George (2000) ‘Laurence Sterne’, in A Survey of English Literature from Beowulf to Jane Austen, Bucharest: Editura Fundat‚iei “România de mâine”, pp. 138–42.

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Index

Aarhus (Denmark) 123 Abelaira, Augusto 230 Addison, Joseph 60, 98–99, 108, 117, 168, 234, 242 Afzelius, Nils 119 Agramer Tagblatt, see Journals and newspapers Akal, see Publishing houses Alexander, David 247–49 Aleksandrowicz-Ulrich, Alina 161 Alface [João Alfacinha da Silva] 230–31 Algemeene Konst– en Letterbode, see Journals and newspapers Algulin, Ingemar 108 Alphen, Hieronymus van 87 Amory, Thomas 86 Amsterdam (Netherlands) 86, 92–93, 115 Andersen,Vilhelm 99, 122 Année littéraire, see Journals and newspapers Apolo, see Publishing houses Apukhtin, Gavriil 135 Apuleius 45 Arbasino, Alberto 217–18 Ariosto 200, 261–62 Aristotle 173–74 Arndt, Bogdan Fedorovich 128 Arnhem (Netherlands) 92–93 Arntzen, Helmut 83 Arrabal, Fernando 245 Arsharuni, A. 148 Asher, David 80 Ask, Jørgen 124 Assis, Machado de 224, 228–30 Atarov, Nikolai 152 Atarova, Kseniya 152 Aubier, see Publishing houses L’Avenç, see Publishing houses Averkiev, D. 144, 146 Aznar, Ana María 239 Azorín [Martínez Ruiz, José] 243 Bachaumont [François Le Coigneux] Backman, E. 116 Baggesen, Jens 96, 104–06, 123

37

Baker, Thomas Stockham 68 Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 150, 270 Baldwin, Charles Sears 40–41 Ballanche, Pierre–Simon 34–35 Ballantyne, see Publishing houses Balsamo, Luigi 209 Balzac, Honoré de 41, 46, 48–49, 52, 58, 159 Bandry, Anne 42, 44 Baptista, Abel–Barros 229 Barac, Antun 172 Barambones, Josu 242 Barbey d’Aurevilly, Jules 58 Barbou, see Publishing houses Barcelona (Spain) 236–37 Baroja, Pío 243 Barton, Francis Brown 33, 40, 48, 60, 63–64 Bartoszy n´ ski, Kazimierz 154, 161, 163–64 Basel (Switzerland) 167 Basiljevic´ [Bassegli], Toma 168 Bassano (Italy) 248–49 Bassi, Luigi 203 Bastholm, Christian 112 Bastien, see Publishing houses Batsányi, János 181 Bauch, Klaus-Peter 72 Baudelaire, Charles 209 Baudry, see Publishing houses Bauer, Friedrich 74, 77, 81 Beaumarchais, Pierre, Augustin Caron 48 Beaumont, Francis 263 Beauties of Sterne, see Sterne, Laurence Beccaria, Cesare 194 Beck, Hamilton H.H. 74 Becker, Wilhelm Gottlieb 252–54 Becket, Thomas, see Publishing houses Beckett, Samuel 123, 230 Behmer, Carl August 74, 81 Behn, Carl Conrad 109 Békés, Pál, 191 Bellamy, Jacobus 85, 88 Bellman, Patrizia Nerozzi 219

320

Index

Bellow, Saul 162 Benet, Juan 244 Benjamin, Walter 82 Benn, Maurice 77 Benwell, J.H. 247 Berg, Willem van den 90 Bergen (Norway) 106 Bergnes de las Casas, Antoni 243 Bergson, Henri 209 Berkh,Vasily 139 Berki, Miklós 187, 190 Berlin, Isaiah 75 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 52 Béroalde de Verville 39 Bertall [Charles Albert d’Arnould] 57, 159 Berthier, Alfred 37, 40, 64 Bertoni, Clotilde 196 Bertrand, Mary 247 Besnier, Patrick 34 Bestuzhev, Nikolai 140–41, 149 Beverwyck, Johan van {Bevoriskius] 85 Bewick, Thomas 44 Bidwell, Anna 162 Bidwell, George 162 Biedma, Gil de 245 Biedermeier 70, 79 Bierbaum, Otto Julius 82 Bini, Carlo 202–03, 205, 208, 220 Birch, Hans Jørgen 97, 99–101, 110, 120 Björck, Staffan 120–21 Björkman, Margareta 109, 113, 120 Black & Armstrong, see Publishing houses Blackall, Eric A. 75 Blair, Hugh 90, 242 Blanckenburg, Friedrich von 75, 259 Blémont, Emile 59 Bloede, Gertrud, see Sterne, Stuart Blondel, Madeleine 33 Bloom, Harold 128, 245 Blum, Joachim Christian 86 Boccaccio, Giovanni 198 Bode, Johann Joachim Christoph 2, 71–73, 79, 82, 98–100, 115, 128, 134, 187 Boehm, Erika 74 Boileau, Nicholas Despreaux 155 Boito, Camillo 206 Boix, Ignacio, see Publishing houses Bokvennen, see Publishing houses Bolingbroke, Henry St John, 1st Viscount 247 Booklist, see Journals and newspapers Booth, Wayne C. 37, 82 Borgens Forlag, see Publishing houses Borges, Jorge Luis 245–46 Borovikovsky,Vladimir 129 Borsini, Lorenzo 203 Bosch, René Philippe 94

Boston (United States) 186 Botti, Francesco Paolo 213 Boulton, Matthew 248 Bowden, Ann 79 Boyd, James 76 Brakman, Willem 95 Brandi-Dohrn, Beatrix 74 Brandon, Isaac 33 Brecht, Bertold 273 Breda (Netherlands) 92 Bremen (Germany) 167–68 Brentano, Clemens 75 Brescia (Italy) 202 Brno (Czech Republic) 183 Brockhaus, see Publishing houses Brodsky, Josef 239 Brooke, Henry 101 Brühl, Gräfin Christina von 252–56 Bruguera, see Publishing houses Brunius, Bernardus 85–87, 89–91, 93–94 Brusilov, Nikolai 137 Brussig, Thomas 83 Bry, see Publishing houses Bryce Echenique, Alfredo 246 Bryer, Ann 248 Büchner, Georg 77 Budapest (Hungary) 169, 187–88, 191 Buisman, Frédérique Louise Wilhelmina Marie de Savornin Lohman 88, 90, 94 Bukdahl, Lars 126 Bunbury, Henry William 247 Bunyan, John 222 Burgess, Anthony 239 Burke, Edmund 255 Burton, Robert 123, 208, 246 Busi, Aldo 218 Busken Huet, Conrad 92–93 Butler, Samuel 48 Byron, George Gordon Noel 44, 139, 140, 163, 223, 242 Bystydzien´ ska, Gra˙zyna 164 Cabrera Infante, Guillermo 246 Caffè, Il, see Journals and newspapers Calais (France) 160, 197 Calpe, see Publishing houses Cátedra, see Publishing houses Calvino, Italo 4, 214–16, 218 Calzada, Bernardo María de 234–35, 242 Cambridge (Britain) 190 Campo, Jesús del 237 Carcano, Giulio 202 Cardona, Francisco Luis (Francesc Lluís) 237–38 Cardoso, Luís 231 Carter, Angela 125 Carter, George 247 Carvalho, Mário de 230 Casas Vales, Arturo 242

Index Cash, Arthur J. 6 Cassellas, Jordi 241 Castex, Pierre Georges 48 Castiglia, G.B. 206 Castro,Vincenzo di 206 Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia 4, 128–30, 249 Cavalcanti, Guido 199 Cazamian, Louis 64 ˇ Cedomil, Jak˘sa 173 Cent Pages, see Publishing houses Cervantes, Saavedra Miguel de 34, 48, 123, 150, 208, 217–18, 226, 238, 246, 261–62, 266, 270, 274 Ch. D (reviewer), see Mercure de France Champfleury [ Jules Husson] 50 Changuion, see Publishing houses Chapelle [Claude Emmanuel Lhuillier] 37 Chaplin, Charlie 215 Charpentier, see Publishing houses Charron, Pierre 47 Chartier, Rogier 33, 54, 57–58 Chasselat, Charles Abraham 33 Chateaubriand,Vicomte François–René 44, 222 Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich 278 Chelsea (Britain) 250 Chichagov, Peter 135 Christensen, Inger 121 Christian VII, King of Denmark 96–97 Chwalewik, Witold 162 Ciampolini, Luigi 203 Cino, Messer 199 Ciraki, Franjo 173, 177 Citati, Pietro 217 Claussen, Morten 107, 121, 123 Claves, see Journals and newspapers Clayton, Timothy 248 Cleve, Friedrich August 109 Coimbra (Portugal) 222, 228, 233 Combe, William 5, 89, 112, 118 Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de 182, 234 Congreve, William 222 Conetti, Lidia 219 Conrad, Joseph 161, 239, 242 Cooper, James Fenimore 44 Copenhagen (Denmark) 97–98, 102, 106, 120, 122 Corriere della Sera, il, see Journals and newspapers Cortázar, Julio 245–46 Corti, see Publishing houses Cosway, Richard 163 Coxwold (Britain) 7 Cracow (Poland) 155 Crassous, Paulin 32–34, 36, 55 Crébillon, fils [Crébillon, Claude-Prosper Jolyot de] 54

321

Croce, Benedetto 213 Croft, Sir Herbert 48 Croft, John 6 Cromwell, Oliver 130 Cross, Anthony 134 Cross, Wilbur 6, 62, 66, 121 Cruikshank, George 162, 190 Curti, Jean-Antoine 196 Curtis, Jean-Louis 65–66 Curtis, L.P. 66 Czarsko Zelo (Russia) 249 Czartoryska, Princess Izabela 156 Czartoryski, Prince Adam Kazimierz 156 Czernny, Johann 74 d’Holbach, see Holbach Dadaism 48 Dagbladet, see Journals and newspapers Dahl, Johan 111 Damin, [‘citoyen’] Dante, Alighieri 3, 34, 198–200, 202, 270 Darmstadt (Germany) 252 Dashes, use of, see Typography/punctuation Dauthereau, see Publishing houses Davin, Félix 49 Day, W.G. 74, 128, 247, 250 De Bonnay, Charles François 33–34 De la Baume, Antoine-Gilbert Griffet 34, 36, 42, 48, 57 De Maistre, Xavier 4, 37–41, 47, 50, 52, 63–66, 137, 224, 228 De Mauro, Tullio 198 De Quincey, Thomas 237 De Reul, Paul 64 De Sanglen (De Saint-Glin),Yakov 140 De Staël, Germaine 35–36, 63 Debrecen (Hungary) 187 Defauconprêt, A.J.B. 53–54, 58–59 Defoe, Daniel 32, 70, 99, 153, 162, 222, 242 Delacroix, Eugène 41 Delangle, see Publishing houses Delarue, see Publishing houses Delattre 248 Denis, Michael 181 Dentu, J.C., see Publishing houses Dentu, N., see Publishing houses Derby Porcelain Works 250 Descargues, Madeleine 66 Détis, Elisabeth 66 Detoni-Dujmic´, Dunja 171–72 Detskaya literatura, see Journals and newspapers Diario, see Journals and newspapers Dickens, Charles 79, 94, 161, 223 Diderot, Denis 2, 4, 46–47, 50, 58, 64, 118, 153, 216, 222, 224, 234, 259, 261, 263, 270

322

Index

Didimo Chierico, see Foscolo, Ugo Didot, Firmin, see Publishing houses Didot, Pierre, see Publishing houses Digeon, Aurélien 65–66 Dighton, Robert 247 Dinesen, Isak [Karen Blixen] 239 Dinis, Júlio 226–28 Diogenes, see Publishing houses Dmochowski, Franciszek Ksawery 155 Döbrentei, Gábor 181, 185–86 Dodsley, see Publishing houses Doernenburg, Emil 79 Domogatsky, Peter 138 Donat, Branimir 172 Donker Curtius, Boudewijn 88 Dossi, Carlo 206–08, 213 Dostoevsky, Fedor 5, 127, 142, 144, 145, 150, 271 Douse, Diego Alejandro 237 Douwes Dekker, Eduard 93–94 Doyle, Roddy 125 Drach, Albert 82 Draper, Elizabeth (Eliza) 46, 112–14, 119, 121, 153, 163 Draˇskovic´, Janko 168, 170 Dresden (Germany) 191, 252 Druzhinin, Nikolai 144 Dublin (Ireland) 249 Dubrovnik (Croatia) 168 Dubuisson, see Publishing houses Duda, Dean 170, 173 Dufour, see Publishing houses Dukat,Vladoje 171–72, 176–77 Dumas, Alexandre 51, 222 Dunkirk (France) 85 Dupas, Jean-Claude 66 Eagleton, Terry 82, 270 Echevarría, Ignacio 240 Ediciones del Centro, see Publishing houses Egerton, Judy 247 Eichner, Hans 263–65 Eikhenbaum, Boris 146, 271–72, 277, 279 Einaudi, see Publishing houses Eisenhauer, Gregor 83 Ekmanson, Johan Samuel 100, 108–13, 117–18 Eliot, T.S. 65 Elistratova, Anna 150 Empfindsamkeit, see also Sentiment 3, 70–75, 187 Engel, Henrik, D. K. 83 Enlightenment 69, 163 Enquist, Per Olov 96 Erlich,Victor 178, 276, 279 Erofeev,Venedikt 150–51 Espasa, see Publishing houses

Espasa–Calpe, see Publishing houses Euripides 201 Europa: Chronik der gebildeten Welt, see Journals and newspapers European Magazine, see Journals and newspapers Eustace, John 5 Everyman 65 Ewald, Johannes 104, 123 Fabian, Bernhard 69, 75, 76, 84 Fagnani Arese, Antonietta 198 Fedin, Konstantin 147 Feith, Rhijnvis 85, 89 Felici, Lucio 219 Fernández de Moratín, Leandro 243 Fernando VII 242 Ferrater, Joan 245 Ferri di San Costante, Giovanni 203 Ferriar, John 35, 55–56, 62, 208 Fest, Sándor 180–81, 184, 187 Fielding, Henry 32, 34, 56, 60–61, 70, 74, 92, 99, 148–49, 192, 208, 217, 222, 241–42 Filipovi´c, Rudolf 170–71, 173 Fillaudeau, Bertrand 63 Findeisen, Helmut 74 Finer, Emily 152 Fitzgerald, Percy 6, 55, 59, 61–62, 186–87 Flaker, Aleksandar 173, 178 Flammarion, see Publishing houses Flaubert, Gustave 228 Fletcher, John 263 Florence (Italy) 176, 198–200 Florian, Jean Pierre Claris de 118 Fluchère, Henri 6, 65–66 Folio Society, see Publishing houses Fontane, Theodor 79 Formiggini, Angelo Fortunato 208–09, 213 Forster, E.M. 65 Foscolo, Ugo 3–4, 193, 196–203, 218–19, 241 Fournier, Narcisse 57 France, Anatole 40 Frankovsky, Adrian 149, 153 Freire López, Ana María 234 Frénais, Joseph-Pierre 2, 32–35, 40, 44, 48, 54, 57, 59, 65, 85, 138, 157, 184, 196, 199 Freud, Sigmund 82, 209 Fritschius, Christian Friedrich 86–87 Frock, Clare 74 Froe, Arie de 94 Froment and Berquet, see Publishing houses Fubini, Mario 201 Fuentes, Carlos 246

Index Funke, G.L., see Publishing houses Fusini, Nadia 215 Galinkovsky,Yakov 135, 137 Gallimard, see Publishing houses Gálos, Rezs o´´ 182 García Malo, Ignacio 242 Gardner, Daniel 247 Garibaldi, Giuseppe 205 Garland, Henry 68 Garland, Mary 68 Garnier, see Publishing houses Garrett, Almeida 222, 224–26, 230 Garrick, David 135 Garzanti, see Publishing Houses Gaugain, Thomas 247 Gauthier, see Publishing houses Gautier, Théophile 50 52 Gazette littéraire de l’Europe, see Journals and newspapers Geel, Jacob 85, 89–91, 94 Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott 89, 100 Genette, Gérard 66 Genlis, Madame de [Stéphanie–Felicité Ducrest de Saint-Aubin] 234 Gentleman’s Magazine,The, see Journals and newspapers Gerard, W.B. 248 Gerstenberg, Heinrich Wilhelm von 74 Gessner, Salomon 184 Gide, André 63–64, 265 Giménez Frontin, José Luis 238, 244 Gids, De, see Journals and newspapers Girard, René 74 Glaesener, Henri 40 Gleim, Johann Wilhelm Ludwig 250 Glinczanka, Agnieszka 157, 161–64 Göchhausen, Ernst August Anton von 250–51 Goens, Rijklof Michael van 86 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 2, 4, 7, 70, 72–73, 75–77, 81, 112, 184, 187, 191, 197, 209–10, 252, 266–67, 270 Gogol, Nikolai 4, 127, 142, 146–47, 271 Goldsmith, Oliver 32, 34, 48, 54, 60, 70, 92, 101, 109, 117, 222 Goncourt brothers (Edmond and Jules) 64 González Blanco, Edmundo 237 González, José Manuel 244 Gordimer, Nadine 161 Gordon, Catherine 248 Gordon, W. 116 Görgens, Lutz Hermann 77 Goring, Paul 64 Gorjy, Jean-Claude 33, 89 Gosse, Pieter Frederik 88 Gosselin, see Publishing houses

323

Göttingen (Germany) 168 Gothenburg (Sweden) 108, 116–17 Goytisolo, Juan 244 Gradiˇsnik, Janez 8 Granberg, Per Adolf 117–18 Grand Larousse du dix-neuvième siècle 39 Grand Magazine,The, see Journals and newspapers Graphical elements, see Typography/punctuation Grass, Günter 83 Gray, Thomas 222, 242 Gregorini, Gerasimus Constantino de 79 Greppi, Emanuele 194 Griboedov, Alexander 139 Griffith, Richard 7, 58, 114 Grillparzer, Franz 78 Grimm, Jacob 72 Grimm, Melchior 259 Grimm, Wilhelm 72 Grob, Elisabeth 75 Grossman, William L. 224 Guber, P. 146 Guerneri, Gianluca 219 Guerrazzi, Domenico 203 Guillaume, see Publishing houses Gustav III, King of Sweden 108 Gyldendals Forlag, see Publishing houses Haarlem (Netherlands) 93 Hachette, see Publishing houses Hakbijl, Lodewijk 91–92 Hall, John, Jr. 116 Hall Stevenson, John (Eugenius) 193 Hall, M.C. van 86 Hallamore, Gertrude Joyce 69 Haller, Albrecht von 180–81 Hamann, Johann Georg 75 Hamburg (Germany) 87 Hamburgischer Correspondent, see Journals and newspapers Hanover (Germany) 254 Hansen-Löve, Aage A. 271, 273 Hardy, Thomas 239, 241 Hargreaves, Raymond 81 Harper, Kenneth E. 271 Harrevelt, E. van, see Publishing houses Harries, Elizabeth Wanning 74 Hartl, Franjo 177 Hartley, Lodwick 6, 94 Hartvig, Gabriella 181, 186 Harvery, Gabriel 222 Harvey, James 222 Hasselt, W.J.C. van 90 Hász-Fehér, Katalin 184 Határ, Gyoz ´´ o´´ 4, 187–90 Havard, see Publishing houses Hayes, Joseph C. 74 Hazewinkel, Cornelis 94

324

Index

Heaney, Seamus 122, 241 Hebbel, Friedrich 78, 251 Hédouin, Alfred 57–59, 61 Hédouin, Edmond 57 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 80–81 Heine, Heinrich 51, 64, 69, 71, 77–78, 80, 84, 172, 224, 274 Heinrich, Franz 81 Hejll, Richard 120–22 Hennig, John 72 Herder, Johann Gottfried 70, 72, 75, 184, 252 Hergeˇsic´, Ivo 177 Hernando, see Publishing houses Herrman, Bjørn Alex 125 Herzen, Alexander 129 Hesse, Hermann 82 Hiard, see Publishing houses Hinüber, Jobst Anton von 254, 256 Hippel, Theodor Gottlieb von 4, 68–69, 74, 76, 80, 270 Hirn,Yrjö 121 Hirschfeld, Christian Cay Lorenz 256 Hoefer 62 Hoffmann, E. T. A. 50–51, 76–77 Hogarth, William 162, 208247 Højholt, Per 126 Hollington, Michael 83 Hölter, Achim 73 Hörner, Wolfgang 72, 84 Houssiaux, see Publishing houses Howes, Alan B. 6, 69, 73, 83 Huber, Ludwig Ferdinand 74 Hübscher, Arthur 80 Hufvudstadsbladet, see Journals and newspapers Hugo,Victor 40–41, 49, 222 Hume, David 117 Humour 3, 35, 86, 94, 208, 210 Hungarian Spectator,The, see Journals and newspapers Hunt, John Dixon 94 Hunter, Rosemarie 75 Hurleston, Richard 247 Illés, Pál Edvi 186 Imitation 88–89, 104 Immermann, Karl Leberecht 77 Indicatore livornese, see Journals and newspapers Innocenti, Loretta 219 Ipsevich-Bocca, G. 213, 218 Iser, Wolfgang 84 Ivanov,Vsevolod 147 Izmailov,Vladimir 136–37 Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich 75, 250 Jacobi, Johann Georg 73, 250–52, 256 Jacobsen,Yngve Sandhei 107

Jacque, Charles 53 Jaffe, Janice Annen 245 Jakobson, Roman 271–72, 279 James, Henry 241, 265 Janin, Jules 32, 41, 48, 52–55, 58–59 Jankovic´, Dragomir M. 8, 177 Jännecke, Ulrich 72 Jansson, Tove 124 Jarry, Alfred 48 Jasinski, René 48 Jauslin, Kurt 83 Jean Paul Richter 4, 66, 68, 72, 74–75, 78, 89–90, 139, 172, 186, 192, 207, 243, 259, 261–63, 270 Jeandillou, Jean-François 45 Jefferson, Douglas William 246 Jena (Germany) 171 Jensen, Johan Fjord 98 Jeune, Simon 41 Jezierski, Franciszek Salezy 4, 154–56 Johannot, Tony 2, 44, 53, 158, 236 Johansson, Majken 120–22 Johnson, Samuel 6, 69, 242 Jongejan, Elisabeth 94 Jongstra, Atte 95 Jordana, C.A. 241 Jornal de Lettras, see Journals and newspapers Jouaust, see Publishing houses Journal de politique et de literature, see Journals and newspapers Journal encyclopédique, see Journals and newspapers Journals and newspapers Agramer Tagblatt 176 Algemeene Konst- en Letterbode 90 Booklist 246 Caffè, Il 194, 206 Claves 240 Corriere della sera, Il 218 Dagbladet 125 Detskaya literatura 152 Diario 16, 240 Europa: Chronik der gebildeten Welt 186 European Magazine,The 110, 248 Gazette littéraire de l’Europe Gentleman’s Magazine,The 247 Gids, De 90 Grand Magazine,The 247 Hamburgischer Correspondent 250 Hufvudstadsbladet 124 Hungarian Spectator,The 187 Indicatore livornese 204 Jornal de Letras 230 Journal de politique et de literature Journal encyclopédique Kedvesked´´o 186 Kiøbenhavnske Efterretninger 97–98, 101, 103 Koszorú 186–87

Index Magyar Shakespeare-Tár 187 Mercure de France 35, 138 Monthly Review,The 118 Moskovskii Zhurnal 132 Nieuwe Gids, De 93 Nieuwe Nederlandsche Spectator 88 Ouderwetse Nederlandsche Patriot 88 Pueblo 244 Raster 94 Recensent, ook der Recensenten 90 Repubblica, la 218 Revista Universal Lisbonense 224 Revue des Deux Mondes 61 Ronda, La 213 Sankt Petersburgskii Vestnik 128 Severnyi Vestnik 138 Shandean,The 7, 67, 100 Sobesednik Lyubitelei Russkogo Slova 129 Tidens Kvinder 122 Uránia 180, 182 Vaderlandsche Bibliotheek 89 Vaderlandsche Letter-oefeningen 87–89 Voce, La 213 World,The 248 Jouve, Pierre-Jean 64 Jouvet, Guy 67 Joyce, James 65, 95, 121–25, 152, 154, 213–15, 230–31, 246 Julow,Viktor 190 Jung, Carl Gustav 82 Jurkovic´, Janko 171–72, 177 Juva, Kersti 8 Kafka, Franz 123, 265 Kaisarov, Mikhail 136, 138 Kalliphatide, Ephe 8 Kampen, Nicolaas Godfried van 92 Kandt, Richard 82 Kant, Immanuel 75, 264–65 Karamzin, Nikolai 130–34, 136–37, 144 Karin, Nikolai 135 Kassner, Rudolf 82 Katritzky, A. J. Dietlinde 75 Katte, Maria von 72 Kauffmann, Angelica 248–49 Kaverin,Venyamin 147 Kawerau, Waldemar 73 Kazinczy, Ferenc 4, 182–87, 190–91 Kedvesked´´ o, see Journals and newspapers Kellendonk, Frans 94–95 Keller, Gottfried 78 Kemény, Ferenc 190 Kennedy, Thomas 116 Kenyeres, Zoltán 191 Keresztury, Dezs o´´ 186 Kerr, Alfred 75, 267 Kéry, László 190 Keymer, Tom 123 Kharms, Daniel 147–48

325

King, Stephen 153 Kiøbenhavnske Efterretninger, see Journals and newspapers Kirby, Paul 219 Kireev, Ruslan 152–53 Kist, Willem 88 Klara, Gabriele 251 Kleist, Heinrich von 265 Klingemann, Ernst August Friedrich 75–76 Klinger, Friedrich Maximilian 74 Kl/okocki, Stanisl/aw Kostka 156–58, 160, 163 Kloos, Willem 93 Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlob 184 Knigge, Adolf Freiherr von 73 Koeppen, Wolfgang 82 Kollár, Jan 172 Kol//l ˛ataj, Hugo 155 Kolmakov, Aleksei 135 Kolompos (Hungary) 182 Kolomposi Szarvas, Gergely, see Verseghy Kombol, Mihovil 168 Köpken, Hofrath von 255 Koprivnica (Croatia) 170 Korajac,Vilim 171–72 Korzeniowski, Erazm 157 Kostic´,Veselin 168 Kosturkov,Yordan 8 Koszorú, see Journals and newspapers Kotzebue, August Friedrich Ferdinand von 73 Kozhevnikov,V. 145 Krakusin, Margarita 246 Kristiansand (Norway) 107 Krk, see Publishing houses Krklec, Gustav 177 Kruseman, A.C., see Publishing houses Kruuse, Jens 120, 122–23 Kufstein (Austria) 180 Kuh, Emil 251 Kundera, Milan 2 Kuosaite-Jaszinskiene, Elena 8 Kyrieleis, Richard 74 La Fontaine, Jean 234 La Harpe, Jean-François 138 Lach-Szyrma, Krystyn 160 Laisney,Vincent 49 Landor, Mikhail 130 Large, Duncan 77, 81 Larra, Mariano José de 243 Laune, see also Humour 86, 186 Launette, see Publishing houses Lausanne (Switzerland) 37, 235 Lautel, Alain 32 Lauvent, A. 237 Le Noir, Rose 248 Leavis, F. R. 6

326

Index

Lebègue, see Publishing houses Ledentu, see Publishing houses Ledoux, see Publishing houses Lee, Abigail E. 244 Leibni[t]z, Gottfried Wilhelm 88 Leiden (Netherlands) 85 Leipzig (Germany) 167 Leloir, Maurice 59 Lemerre, see Publishing houses Leningrad (Soviet Union), see also St Petersburg 148–49 Lennox, Charlotte 234 Lenz, Jakob Michael Reinhold 74 Leopold II 181 Lermontov, Mikhail 137, 139 Leskov, Nikolai 144, 146 Leslie, Charles Robert 250 Lespinasse, Julie de 33, 54 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 70, 72, 76, 110, 134, 184 Letona, López de 237039 Letourneur, Pierre Levi, Carlo 213–15, 218 Lezama Lima, José 245 Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph 75 Liege (=Luik; Belgium) 85 Limoges (France) 57 Linati, Carlo 213 Lindo, Mark Prager 85, 92–94 Lisbon (Portugal) 222, 232 Littré 55 Locke, John 125, 142 Lodde, Barthold Johan 99 Lombardo, Agostino 215 London (Britain) 167, 189–90, 195, 203 Longo, Joseph 73, 81, 251–52 Lopes, Óskar 232 Lorenzo cult 6, 92, 250–58 Lotman, Juri 164 Lousada, Isabel 223–24 Loveridge, Mark 75 Lucini, Gian Pietro 213 Ludbreg (Croatia) 169 Lukács, Georg [or György] 78, 192, 265–66, 269, 276 Lund (Sweden) 108–09, 113, 116 Lundblad, Jonas 113, 115 Lunts, Leo 147 Lussky, Alfred Edwin 75 Lutter, Tibor 188 Lyzhin, N. 144 Macchia, Giovanni 204 McCullers, Carson 161 MacDermott, Doirean 239 Macedo, José Agostinho de 222 Mackenzie, Henry 53 McKitterick, David 247 Macpherson, James, see also Ossian

242

Madrid (Spain) 235–37 Madsen, Peter 121 Magdeburg (Germany) 255 Magnus, J. C. 120 Magyar Helikon, see Publishing houses Magyar Shakespeare-Tár, see Journals and newspapers Majut, Rudolf 77 Mallafré, Joaquim 241–42 Malmö (Sweden) 116 Mandeville, Bernard 161 Manesse, see Publishing houses Manet, Edouard 62 Manganelli, Giorgio 203–04, 216–18 Mann, Thomas 69, 82, 153, 265, 269 Mannheim (Germany) 167 Mansfield, Katherine 65 Manzoni, Alessandro 204 Mardersteig, Giovanni 213 Margaret, Josep J. 241 Marías, Javier 239–40, 244–45 Marie, Aristide 53 Marienwerder (Germany) 254, 256 Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de 54 Marmontel, Jean-François 138, 184 Marold 59 Marpon, see Publishing houses Martelli, Giuseppe 215 Martinovics, Ignác 181 Martins, Anna Maria 232 Martynov, Ivan 131 Marx, Karl 80 Maslov,Viktor 142, 146 Massengale, James 108–09 Matoˇs, Antun Gustav 173–78 Matthison, Friedrich von 255 Mauron, Charles 65–66 Mayakovsky,Vladimir Vladimirovich 278–79 Mayoux, Jean-Jacques 66 Mazzacurati, Giancarlo 193, 203, 205–06, 213, 218 Mazzini, Giuseppe 204 Meijer, Annemieke 89, 94 Melchiori, Giorgio 215 Mellinet, François-Aimé 33 Melville, Lewis 6 Mendelssohn, Moses 75–76 Mendoza y Francia, Arias Gonzalo de 235–36 Menéndez Pelayo, Marcelino 243 Meo, Antonio 213 Mercure de France, see Journals and newspapers Messeri, Anna L. 196 Metastasio, Pietro 215 Metz (France) 32 Meyer, Conrad Ferdinand 78

Index Meyer, Herman 84 Michaud, Joseph and Louis-Gabriel 34, 36–37 Michel, Francisque 34, 36 Michel–Lévy Frères, see Publishing houses Michelsen, Peter 69, 72–74 Mickiewicz, Adam 4, 160 Mierlo, Wim van 117 Milan (Italy) 194–96, 203, 219 Miles, Keith 83 Mil/osz, Czesl/aw 160 Milton, John 55 Miroiu, Mihai 8, 181–82, 221, 242 Misbach 33 Mitchell, P. M. 98 Moberg, Peter 116–17 Modena (Italy) 208–09 Møller, Bente Ahlers 103, 123–26 Møller, M. 102, 123–24 Momigliano, Attilio 202 Mondadori, see Publishing houses Monkman, Kenneth 7, 247 Monsiau, Nicolas André 33 Montagu, Mary Wortley 222 Montaigne, Michel de 47–48, 157 Montandon, Alain 69, 74, 76 Montégut, Emile 61 Montesinos, José F. 242 Monthly Review, see Journals and newspapers Montigel, Ulrike 74 Moore, Thomas 140 Morales Godoy, María Luz 237 Moreau-Christophe 34, 59 Moritz, Karl Philipp 73 Mortimer, John Hamilton 247 Moscow (Russia) 131 Moser, J. 248 Moskovskii Zhurnal, see Journals and newspapers Moya, Alejandro 242 Multatuli, see Douwes Dekker Mundivisión, see Publishing houses Munnikhuisen, Anthony Ernst, see Publishing houses Mura, Gianni 218 Muravev, Nikolai 136 Murdoch, Iris 161 Musil, Robert 82 Musset, Alfred de 41 Nabokov,Vladimir 239 Nabukadnezar, King 158 Næss, Harald S. 107 Naples (Italy) 193, 203 Napoleon 36, 197 Nationalism/politics 103, 130, 140, 149–50, 155–56, 159, 169, 171, 178, 180–81, 188, 191, 199, 222, 224–25, 235, 241

327

Natur och Kultur, see Publishing houses Nayler, Benjamin Suggitt, see Publishing houses Negreiros, José de Almada 230 Nelson, Ardis L. 246 Nelson, Hilda 48 Nemˇcic´, Antun 167–73, 176–78 Nerval, Gérard de 4, 41, 50–52, 54, 64, 208 Neubauer, John 74, 270 Neuhaus,Volker 83 Neumann, Ludwig Bertrand 181 New, Melvyn 66, 81 Newnes, George, see publishers Newton, Richard 247 Nicolai, Christian Friedrich 73, 251 Nicolini, Giuseppe 202 Niemcewicz, Julian Ursyn 155 Nietzsche, Friedrich 72, 80–81, 269 Nieuwe Gids, De, see Journals and newspapers Nieuwe Nederlandsche Spectator, see Journals and newspapers Nieuwenhuyzen, Martinus 88 Nieuwland, Pieter 85, 89 Nievo, Ippolito 204–08 Nina, Cláudia 232 Nixon, John 247 Noakowski, W. 156, 159–60 Nodier, Charles 4, 41–51, 53–54, 58, 60, 65–66, 208 Norberg, Samuel 117 Nordhjem, Bent 121 Northcote, James 247 Novalis 192 Novati, Francesco 195 Oates, J. C. T. 6–7, 66, 252 Ockerse, Willem Anton 85, 88 Officina Bodoni, see Publishing houses Ogée, Frédéric 66 Ogrizovic´, Milan 173–74 Ogut, Ozlem 74 Olive, Pedro María de 242 Originality / original /originalité 91 Orwell, George 124 Osborne, John 162 Oslo (Norway) 125 Ossian 163, 185 Östling, Tom 124 Ouderwetse Nederlandsche Patriot, see Journals and newspapers Oulipo (Ouvroir de la Littérature Potentielle) 4 66 Outeiriño, Manuel 242 Oviedo (Spain) 237 Padua (Italy) 169, 203 Paes, José Paulo 232

328

Index

Pagnoni, F. 206 Palau y Dulcet, Antonio 235 Pananti , Filippo 203 Pan´ stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, see Publishing houses Papetti,Viola 219 Parenago, Mikhail 139 Paris (France) 167–68, 184, 196250 Partridge, Eric 35, 41, 48, 53 Paso, Fernando del 246 Patch, Thomas 247 Pedagogy 7, 66–67, 91, 93, 116–17, 152, 219, 223, 243 Pegenaute Rodríguez, Luis 234–35, 246 Pelletier [Lepeletier, Louis Michel, comte de Fargeau] Pellico, Silvio 203 Perec, Georges 4, 66 Pérez Bayer, Francisco 243 Periodical reviews/Critical reviews Perponcher, Willem Emmery de 85, 89 Pessoa, Fernando 230 Peter III, emperor, husband of Catherine II 129 Petrarca 198, 200 Pfister, Manfred 84 Phillips, Catherine 249 Picasso, Pablo 274 Pierce, David 7 Piksanov, Nikolai 146 Pimenta, Alberto 230 Pinger,William Robert Richard 69, 73, 76 Pirandello, Luigi 4, 193, 208–13, 218 Pisa (Italy) 197 Pla, Josep 241 Planeta, see Publishing houses Plagiarism 91 Plomteux, C., see Publishing houses Polet, Sybren 95 Polletti, Carla 219 Polheim, Karl Konrad 260 Poniatowski, Stanislaw-August 154 Pope, Alexander 108, 181, 221 Popper, Leo 269 Pörksen, Uwe 76 Portela, Manuel 231–32 Porto (Portugal) 222, 227 Potocki, Stanisl/aw Kostka 163 Pott, Hans-Georg 74 Powys, Theodor Francis 65 Pozharsky, S. 150 Prague (Czech Republic) 191 Praunsperger, Aleksa [Ivan Sterne] 171 Prawer, Siegbert 80 Prezzolini, Guiseppe 213 Price, Lawrence Marsden 68, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 79, 82 Priestley, Joseph 222 Proust, Marcel 149, 152, 154

Pseudo-Sterne 7, 89, 91, 108, 117 Pueblo, see Journals and newspapers Publishing Houses Akal 238 Apolo 237 Aubier 65 L’Avenç 241 Ballantyne 55 Barbou 57 Bastien 33 Baudry 34, 36 Becket, Thomas 93 Black & Armstrong 91 Boix, Ignacio 236 Bokvennen 123, 125 Borgens Forlag 123 Brockhaus 80 Bruguera 237–38 Bry 57 Calpe 237 Cátedra 238 Cent Pages 66 Changuion, D.J. 85 Charpentier 55, 57 Corti 66 Dauthereau 34 Delangle 41 Delarue 57 Dentu, J.C. 34, 59 Dentu, N. 34 Desenne 33 Didot, Firmin 33 Didot, Pierre 33 Diogenes 71 Dodsley 5, 67, 102 Dubuisson 57, 59 Dufour 33, 115–16 Ediciones del Centro 238 Einaudi 193, 213, 215 Espasa 236 Espasa-Calpe 237 Flammarion 57 Folio Society 123 Froment and Berquet 34 Funke, G.L. 93 Gallimard 67 Garnier 60, 85 Garzanti 193 Gauthier 59 Gosselin 40, 54 Guillaume 59 Gyldendals Forlag 100 Hachette 57 Haffmans Verlag 71 Harrevelt, E van 85 Havard 57 Henrion 53 Hernando 237 Hiard 34

Index Hogarth Press 65 Houssiaux 49 Hurst 33 Inapress 153 Jouaust 57 Krk 237 Kruseman, A.C. 93 Launette 59 Lebègue 34 Ledentu 34 Ledoux 33 Lemerre 58, 59 Letnii Sad 153 Limbus Press 153 Magyar Helikon 190 Manesse 71 Marpon 57 Michel-Lévy Frères 57 Mondadori 193, 219 Mundivisión 237 Munnikhuisen, Anthony Ernst 86, 94 Natalis 153 Natur och Kultur 121 Nayler, Benjamin Suggit 89–92 Pan´ stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy 161 Planeta 239 Plomteux, C. 85 Progress 152 Rabén & Sjögren 124 Reclam 79 Remondini 249 Rey, M. 85 Rion 34 Salmon 33, 34 Sammer 2, 71, 180–81, 186 Sellerio 219 W.H.Smith 57 Strahan, William 93 Tauchnitz 2, 79 Tegg, Thomas 93 Tenré 33 Teorema 237 Thiele, D.A. 93 Trattner, János Tamás 184–85 Triers, S. 120 Tristram 67 Új Magyar Könyvkiadó 188 Verlag des Bibliographischen Instituts 79 Zora 177 Pul/awy (Poland) 160 Pulce, Graziella 204, 217–18 Pushkin, Alexander 3, 127–28, 137, 139, 142, 146, 271, 276–77 Pusic´, Eugen 177 Queirós, Eça de 221, 224, 228 Queneau, Raymond 66 Quin, Henry 249

329

Raabe, Wilhelm 69, 79 Rabelais, François 39, 45, 47–48, 50, 55, 65, 75, 86, 123, 125, 150, 157, 190, 217, 226, 246, 270 Rabèn & Sjögren, see Publishing houses Rabizzani, Giovanni 196, 202, 208–09, 213, 219 Racine, Jean 234 Radcliffe, Ann 47, 222 Radeburg (Germany) 252 Radishchev, Alexander 4, 129–30, 134, 149 Ragusa (Croatia) 168 Raimond, Michel 64 Raimondi, Ezio 204 Rajberti, Giovanni 203 Ramos, Manuel da Silva 230–31 Ransmeier, John C. 78 Raspe, R.E. 249 Raster, see Journals and newspapers Rastic´ (Resti], Dˇzono 168 Raynal, L’Abbé Guillaume-ThomasFrançois 51, 57, 118–19, 135, 185, 191 Recensent, ook der Recensenten, see Journals and newspapers Reclam, see Publishing houses Rellstab, Ludwig 72 Remondini, see Publishing houses Renard, Jules 64 Reni, Guido 158 Rennes (France) 199 Renzo, Cremante 209 Repubblica, la, see Journals and newspapers Revista Universal Lisbonense, see Journals and newspapers Revue des deux mondes, see Journals and newspapers Rey, M., see Publishing houses Reyes, Alfonso 237 Reynolds, Sir Joshua 86, 162–63, 247 Ribeiro, Maria Manuela Tavares 223 Richardson, Samuel 32, 34, 47, 60–61, 70, 88–89, 99, 101, 109, 173, 222, 242, 259, 262 Richer, Jean 44, 49 Richter, Jean Paul, see Jean Paul Richter Rickards, Samuel 247 Riga (Russia) 128 Rincón, M. Modesto 237 Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) 228 Rion, see Publishing houses Ríos, Angel Fernández de los 237, 245 Ríos, Julián 230 Rododera, Mercè 241 Rodrigues, António Gonçalves 224 Rohde, Michael 254 Rome (Italy) 248 Romney, George 247 Róna, Éva 188

330

Index

Riley, Anthony W. 82 Robertson, Ritchie 77, 80 Ronda, La, see Journals and newspapers Ross, Ian Campbell 5–6 Rotterdam (Netherlands) 91 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 33, 34, 63, 88, 118, 137, 143, 147, 156 Rowson, Martin 67 Royal Academy, London Rozanov,Vasily 145 Rudolf, Ottomar 74 Rueda, Pedro Manuel de 235 Rundahl, Johan 118–19 Ruppert, Hans 72 Ruskin, John 237 Ryland, William Wynne 248 Rymsdyck, Andreas van 247 Safranski, Rüdiger 80 St Petersburg (Russia), see also Leningrad 128, 131, 137, 153, 249 Salinger, Jerome D. 162, 239 Salmon, see Publishing houses Salvatori, Ada 208 Sambor (Poland) 155 Sammer, see Publishing houses Samson, Edmé, et Cie 250 Sañado Antrán, P. 237 Sancho, Ignatius 101 Sangsue, Daniel 37, 39–42, 45, 49–52, 64 Sankt Petersburgskii Vestnik, see Journals and newspapers Santovetti, Olivia 219 Saraiva, António José 232 Sauder, Gerhard 72, 74 Saussure, Ferdinand de 272 Scarron, Paul 57 Schaukal, Richard von 82 Scher, Steven Paul 76–77 Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von 74, 191, 252 Schlegel, Friedrich 1–2, 74–75, 78, 259, 261–68, 139 Schmidt, Arno 83–84 Schmitz, Ettore, see Svevo, Italo Schmitz, Werner 74 Schopenhauer, Arthur 80 Schulz, Frank 83 Schummel, Johann Gottlieb 73, 76 Schneider, Ferdinand Josef 74 Schröder, Maria–B. 72 Schubert, Franz 72 Scott, Sir Walter 6, 34, 36, 44, 48, 54–57, 62, 91–92, 163, 204, 222, 242 Seager, Dennis L. 245 Seidler, Irma 269 Seidlin, Oskar 82 Seifersdorfer Valley (Germany) 252–56 Sellerio, see Publishing houses

Sena, Jorge de 232 Sentiment/sentimentality/sentimentalism 3, 35, 85, 88–89, 94, 101, 104, 110, 158, 160, 185, 191–92, 204 Sermons of Mr Yorick, see Sterne, Laurence Seume, Johann Gottfried 172 Severnyi Vestnik, see Journals and newspapers Shakespeare, William 34, 66, 70–71, 74, 78, 88, 92, 117, 124–25, 174, 181, 209–10, 223, 241, 261–62 Shakhovskoi, Alexander 137 Shalikov, Peter 136 Shandean,The, see Journals and newspapers Sharp, Samuel 86 Sheldrake, J. 247 Shishkov, Alexander 137 Shklovsky,Viktor 1, 145–47, 153, 177–78, 215, 265, 270–79 Simond, Charles 60, 64 Sinko, Zofia 157, 163 Sjöbeck, Håkan Fredrik 113–17 Skarbek, Fryderyk 161 Skoumal, Aloys 8 Slamnig, Ivan 172 Sl/owacki, Juliusz 4, 160 Smith, John Raphael 247 Smith, W.H., see Publishing houses Smollett, Tobias 32, 60–61, 70, 86, 99, 161, 192, 242 ´ Sniadecki, Jan 155 Sobesednik Lyubitelei Russkogo Slova, see Journals and newspapers Sohm, Peter 118 Solano Blanco, Luis 237 Somoza, José 243 Sørensen, Peer 121, 123 Soupel, Serge 33, 34, 54, 57–59, 66–67 Spielberg (Austria) 182 Spini, G. 202 Sremac, Stevan 176 St. Maurice (France) Stalin 148, 161 Stanzel, Franz K. 84 Stapfer, Paul 62–63 Starink, Gertrude 94 Starink, Jan 94 Stavanger (Norway) 102 Steele, Richard 108, 242 Stendhal [Henri Beyle] 40, 48–50 Stenkvist, Jan 122 Sterne, Ivan see Praunsperger, Aleksa Sterne, Laurence Life 33–34, 55, 57, 59, 61–62, 85, 87, 121, 181 ASJ passim Beauties of Sterne 7, 33, 91, 117, 135, 137, 186, 203 BJ 7, 66, 219, 232, 234, 240 EY /YE 7, 33, 54–55, 57, 72, 109,

Index 112–18, 135, 139, 149, 153, 180–81, 183, 185–86, 190–91 193, 196, 231 Koran 7, 33, 58, 72, 114–15, 117, 138–39, 153 Letters 5, 33, 62, 91–92, 109, 117–19, 139, 149, 153, 193–94 PR 7, 66, 67, 193, 215–16, 232, 234, 240 Sermons of Mr.Yorick 79, 97–98, 117–18, 135–36, 149, 219, 247 TS passim Works 7, 33, 35–36, 58, 115, 167 Yorick’s Sentimental Journey Continued 33, 54, 100, 104, 115, 219 Sterne, Lydia 6, 118 Sterne, Stuart (ps. Gertrud Bloede) 145 Stevens, Wallace 239 Stevenson, Robert Louis 152, 239 Stewart, Neil 251, 270 Stifter, Adalbert 78 Stockholm (Sweden) 108–10, 112, 118, 121, 124 Stothard, Thomas 247 Storm, Theodor 78, 192 Storitsyn, Peter 149 Strafforello, Gustavo 206 Strahan, William, see Publishing houses Striedter, Jurij 273, 278–79 Stubbs, George 247 Sturm und Drang 68–71, 74 Suntach, Antonio 249 Svevo, Italo 212–13 Swederus, Magnus 109 Swift, Jonathan 36, 48, 50, 60, 70, 99, 108, 117, 125, 157, 187, 222, 242, 246, 261, 275 Szabó, László Szentjóbi 182 Szauder, Mária 180 Széchenyi, István 180 Szentkuthy, Miklós 190 Tadié, Alexis 66 Taine, Hippolyte 32, 58, 61, 63–64, 66 Tarchetti, Iginio 206 Tarnai, Andor 182 Tarnowska, Krystyna 162, 164 Tasset, René 57 Tassie, James 249 Tasso, Torquato 200 Tauchnitz, see Publishing houses Tegg, Thomas, see Publishing houses Templeton, Lady Elizabeth 248 Tennyson, Alfred Lord 34 Tenré, see Publishing houses Teorema, see Publishing houses Testa, Francesca 219 Textbooks/schoolbooks, see Pedagogy Texte, Joseph 63

331

Thackeray, William Makepiece 6, 58, 61, 64, 92, 144, 148, 187, 268 Thayer, Harvey Waterman 69–71, 74–75, 77, 82, 250–52 Thieme, D.A., see Publishing houses Thomson, David 6 Thomson, James 242 Thorbecke, J.R. 90 Thümmel, Moritz August von 68–69, 74 Tidens Kvinder, see Journals and newspapers Tieck, Ludwig 75, 263, 265 Tihanov, Galin 270 Toda, Fernando 238–39 Todd, William B 79 Tode, Johan Clemens 99 Todorov, Tzvetan 279 Tolstoi, Leo 5, 127–28, 137, 142–43, 146, 149, 271, 275 Töpffer, Rodolphe 41, 52, 54, 243 Toschi, Luca 203 Tosi, Alessandra 137 Tourneur, Cyril 65 Translation (history of) Trattner, see Publishing houses Traugott, 66 Tribschen (Switzerland) 81 Triers, S., see Publishing houses Trieste (Italy) 170, 212–13 Trigueros, Cándido María 243 Triolet, Elsa 147 Tristram Shandy, see Sterne, Laurence Tristram, see Publishing houses Tronskaya, Maria 150 Tullio Altan, Francesco 218 Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich 274 Turin (Italy) 40 Twain, Mark 162 Tynyanov,Yury 146, 271–72, 277–79 Typography/punctuation 34, 40, 44, 49, 55, 58–60, 66, 86–87, 91, 93–94, 106–07, 124, 151–51, 160, 162, 226, 229, 238 Tysdahl, Bjørn 125 Ujevic´, Mate 177 Updike, John 239 Új Magyar Könyvkiadó, see Publishing houses Uránia, see Journals and newspapers Utrecht (Netherlands) 7, 85–86, 92 Vacano, Stefan 78 Vaderlandsche Bibliotheek, see Journals and newspapers Vaderlandsche Letter–oefeningen, see Journals and newspapers Vaget, Hans Rudolf 82 Vallès, Jules 64 Vallvé, Manuel 240–41

332

Index

Van Loo, Jean–Baptiste 153 Varese, Carlo 203 Veltman, Alexander 141–42 Venice (Italy) 194, 196, 198, 205 Verger Fransoy, Pep 240 Verhoeff, Pieter 94 Verlag des Bibliographischen Instituts, see Publishing houses Verri, Alessandro 194–95 Verri, Pietro 194–95 Verseghy, Ferenc 4, 180, 182–83 Vertsman, Israel 149 Vianello, Angelo Gaetano 196 Vidan, Ivo 173 Vienna (Austria) 167, 170, 180, 186 Viera y Clavijo, José 243 Vietta, Egon 82 Vinaver, Stanislav 8, 177 Vinsky, Gregory 139 Vivarelli,Vivetta 81 Vivian, John 72, 75 Voce, La, see Journals and newspapers Vodnik, Branko 171 Volkman, D.J. 86 Volpin, Nadezhda 149 Voltaire, François–Marie Arouet 34, 36, 48, 56, 58, 65, 128, 138, 157, 222, 234 Voogd, Peter de 7, 94, 115, 247 Vratovic´,Vladimir 168 Vraz, Stanko 170 Vriend des Vaderlands, see Journals and newspapers

Wellek, René 279 Wergeland, Henrik 106–07, 123 Wergeland, Nicolai 106–07, 123 Werner, Hans 121 West, Russell 275, 279 Westphal, Margarethe 74 Wezel, Johann Karl 73 Wheatley, Francis 247 Wheen, Francis 80 Wieland, Christoph Martin 68, 71–72, 74, 86, 252 Wihan, Josef 72 Wilno (Vilnius) University 4 Wirtemberska, Princess Maria 156, 161 Wisl/ocki, Bogumil/ 79, 156, 158–60 Wolf, Hugo 81 Woolf,Virginia 65, 125, 162, 241–42 Work, James Aiken 124 World,The, see Journal and newspapers Wright, Andrew 239 Wright, Joseph, of Derby 247 Württemberg, Princess Mary von, see Maria Wirtemberska Wyatt, James 249

Wagner, Cosima 81 Wagner, Richard 81–82, 269 Wailly, Léon de 55–58, 65 Walckenaer, Charles–Athanase 36 Walker, Frank 81 Wallenberg, Jacob 119 Walter, Michael 84 Wandrup, Fredrik 125 Warburton, Thomas 124–25 Warning, Rainer 84, 265, 269 Waterland, Daniel 190 Watt, Ian 239 Wedgwood, Josiah 248–49 Wehmeijer, W.F. 93 Weimar (Germany) 191 Weisse, Christian Felix 101

Zabl/ocki, Franciszek 155–56 Zadar (Croatia) 173 Zagreb (Croatia) 166, 176–78 Zan, Tomasz 160 Zetlitz, Christian Magnus 102–03 Zetterberg, Anders 110, 117 Zhukovsky,Vasily 139 Ziegler, Louise von 252 Zola, Emile 228 Zollman, Peter 189 Zora, see Publishing houses Zorin, Andrei 152–53 Zoshchenko, Mikhail 147 Zückert, Johann Friedrich 71–72, 98–99 Zurich (Switzerland) 71, 97 Zwaneveld, Agnes 86, 90, 94

Xavier, Berenice

232

Yakovlev, Pavel 137 Ynduráin, Francisco 237–38 Yolland, Sir Arthur 187 York (Britain) 7 Young, Edward 181, 221, 242