166-470: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman , also known as Tristram Shandy , is a novel by Laurence Sterne . It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next seven years (vols. 3 and 4, 1761; vols. 5 and 6, 1762; vols. 7 and 8, 1765; vol. 9, 1767). It purports to be a biography of the eponymous character. Its style is marked by digression, double entendre, and graphic devices. The first edition
332-405: A careless kind of a civil, nonsensical, good humoured Shandean book..." Strongly influenced by Cervantes' Don Quixote , Sterne's Tristram Shandy also gave rise to the term "cervantic" (which Sterne at the time spelled "cervantick"). In 1766, at the height of the debate about slavery, Ignatius Sancho wrote a letter to Sterne encouraging the writer to use his pen to lobby for the abolition of
498-650: A character seeking to express the freedom enjoyed "whilst a man is free". Balzac never explained his purpose behind the use of the symbol, and its significance to La Peau de chagrin is the subject of debate. A historic site in Geneva, Ohio , called Shandy Hall , is part of the Western Reserve Historical Society . The home was named after the house described in Tristram Shandy . In Anthony Trollope 's novel Barchester Towers ,
664-588: A climate that would alleviate his suffering. Sterne attached himself to a diplomatic party bound for Turin , as England and France were still adversaries in the Seven Years' War . Sterne was gratified by his reception in France, where reports of the genius of Tristram Shandy made him a celebrity. Aspects of this trip to France were incorporated into Sterne's second novel, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy . Early in 1767, Sterne met Eliza Draper ,
830-421: A complicated metafictional twist), and starring Steve Coogan , Rob Brydon , Keeley Hawes , Kelly Macdonald , Naomie Harris , and Gillian Anderson . The movie plays with metatextual levels, showing both scenes from the novel itself and fictionalised behind-the-scenes footage of the adaptation process, even employing some of the actors to play themselves. In February 2014, a theatrical adaptation by Callum Hale
996-562: A fact which, according to one scholar, "speaks volumes about the marginalization of the Anatomy in Anglophone early modern studies [of that period]." Burton earned a new generation of enthusiasts in the 20th and 21st centuries. As journalist Nick Lezard observed in 2000, though not often reprinted, "Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy survives among the cognoscenti ". Samuel Beckett drew influence from Burton's Anatomy , both in
1162-475: A friend "that, in the last Century, a Folio, Burton on Melancholy, went through six Editions in about twenty years. We have, I believe, more Readers now, but not such huge Books." Burton's influence during this period was chiefly as reservoir of quotes and anecdotes for less sophisticated authors to borrow from. One such borrower was Laurence Sterne , who shamelessly incorporated passages of Burton throughout his Tristram Shandy (1759), an act of plagiarism which
1328-409: A front view of that marvellous theatre, the soul; the arrangements of lights and the perspective have not failed in their effects, and while we imagined that we were gazing upon the infinite, our own hearts have been exalted with a sense of infinity and poetry." At the start of his novel La Peau de chagrin , Honoré de Balzac includes an image from Tristram Shandy : a curvy line drawn in the air by
1494-408: A gentleman rather than that of a serious scholar. The earliest biography of Burton appeared in 1662, as part of Fuller's Worthies of England ; this was followed by Anthony à Wood in his 1692 volume of Athenae Oxonienses . Into the 18th century, Burton experienced something of a lull in popularity. The Anatomy did still obtain a few distinguished readers in this period. Samuel Johnson , himself
1660-569: A graphic novel by cartoonist Martin Rowson . Michael Nyman has worked sporadically on Tristram Shandy as an opera since 1981 . At least five portions of the opera have been publicly performed and one, "Nose-List Song", was recorded in 1985 on the album The Kiss and Other Movements . The book was adapted on film in 2006 as A Cock and Bull Story , directed by Michael Winterbottom , written by Frank Cottrell Boyce (credited as Martin Hardy, in
1826-604: A little to Osler's direct influence". Following Osler's influence, Burtonian studies were primarily bibliographical in the early 20th century, with the exception of an influential essay by critic Morris Croll on the " Senecan style" in Burton's late Renaissance prose. By the middle of the 20th century, psychoanalytic critics of the Anatomy emerged, regarding Burton's masterpiece as a work of psychological autobiography. In The Psychiatry of Robert Burton (1944), for instance, critic Bergen Evans and psychiatrist George Mohr combed
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#17327763993331992-588: A lull in popularity through the 18th century. It was only the revelation of Laurence Sterne 's plagiarism that revived interest in Burton's work into the 19th century, especially among the Romantics . The Anatomy received more academic attention in the 20th and 21st centuries. Whatever his popularity, Burton has always attracted distinguished readers, including Samuel Johnson , Benjamin Franklin , John Keats , William Osler , and Samuel Beckett . Robert Burton
2158-437: A mathematician and as both an astrologer and an astronomer, and even had some reputation as a surveyor". Wood also notes that Burton's unsurpassed skill at including "verses from the poets or sentences from classical authors" in his everyday speech, "then all the fashion in the university", allowed him some popularity. However, Burton's "most significant occupations during his life were reading and writing", and his large library
2324-415: A melancholic, was an avid reader of Burton; Boswell 's Life of Johnson reports that Johnson remarked the Anatomy was "the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise". Though no American edition was published until 1836, Burton's work procured a few prominent readers in early America. One such reader was American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin , who marvelled to
2490-489: A noted antiquarian and topographer. Both his parents' families were members of the landed gentry , with the Burtons from an old, if undistinguished, pedigree. Robert may have inherited his medical interest; in the Anatomy , he writes of his mother's "excellent skill in chirurgery ". William states a member of their mother's family, Anthony Faunt, was said to have died from "the passion of melancholy", and speaks fondly
2656-606: A passage in Volume ;V, chapter 3, Petrie observes: "such passage...reveals that Sterne's copying was far from purely mechanical, and that his rearrangements go far beyond what would be necessary for merely stylistic ends". A major influence on Tristram Shandy is Rabelais ' Gargantua and Pantagruel . Rabelais was by far Sterne's favourite author, and in his correspondence he made clear that he considered himself Rabelais's successor in humorous writing. One passage Sterne incorporated pertains to "the length and goodness of
2822-591: A recluse, especially by those authors influenced by the Romantic view of Burton. Early 20th-century critic Floyd Dell imagined Burton "hedged within his cloister, his heart yearn[ing] after the romance of adventure". Later biographers have been keen to dispel this image, and emphasise that Burton had a life outside of his books. He was no doubt an active part in the non-academic daily life of Oxford, through his university-appointed roles in its church and market life, and Bamborough adds that in his day he "was known as
2988-477: A resurgence of a much older, Renaissance tradition of "Learned Wit" – owing a debt to such influences as the Scriblerian approach. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy has many stylistic parallels with Tristram Shandy , and the narrator is one of the minor characters from the earlier novel. Although the story is more straightforward, A Sentimental Journey is interpreted by critics as part of
3154-407: A satirical genre Kathryn Murphy describes as "in the tradition of Plautus and Terence ." Burton borrowed many elements from these Roman comedies: the tendency of characters to burst into song; the character of the clever slave; the love between a high-born man and low-born girl, who is later revealed to be of noble birth. Burton also borrows episodes from contemporary academic satires—dealing with
3320-512: A short Greek epigraph, which in English reads: "Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men." Before the novel properly begins, Sterne also offers a dedication to Lord William Pitt. He urges Pitt to retreat with the book from the cares of statecraft. The novel itself starts with the narration, by Tristram, of his own conception. It proceeds mostly by what Sterne calls "progressive digressions" so that we do not reach Tristram's birth before
3486-409: A short Latin epitaph below, said to have been composed by Burton. Writing near the close of the 17th century, John Aubrey records a rumour circulated among Oxford students, asserting that Burton took his own life. The students, according to the testimony of Wood, embellished the story to the point that Burton was supposed to have "sent up his soul to heaven thro' a slip about his neck" in order that
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#17327763993333652-548: A short Latin verse celebrating the event to a commemorative Oxford volume; he made similar offering of twenty-one poems upon James's royal Oxford visit in 1605. On this visit, Burton took active part in the "praeparation for the Kinges cominge", including a play he composed for the occasion. This play, since lost, has been identified with Alba , a pastoral comedy with a mythological subject matter, probably written in Latin. The play
3818-498: A tender tale of the sorrows of a friendless poor negro-girl, and my eyes had scarce done smarting with it, when your letter of recommendation in behalf of so many of her brethren and sisters, came to me—but why her brethren?—or yours, Sancho! any more than mine? It is by the finest tints, and most insensible gradations, that nature descends from the fairest face about St James's, to the sootiest complexion in Africa: at which tint of these,
3984-554: A thousand of Burton's volumes. In Christ Church Library, Osler set up an elaborate display of these books surrounding a copy of the Brasenose Portrait of Burton. Osler delivered an address on the contents of Burton's library the following year. In 1964, Christ Church Library disassembled Osler's Burton collection, moving the books to the Archiva Superiora on the second floor. This collection comprises 1530 of
4150-437: A three-part treatise on depression and its treatment, the book consists of quotations from, paraphrases of and commentary on numerous authors, from many fields of learning, and ranging from classical times to his contemporaries, in a "tangled web of opinion and authority". According to Wood, Burton was apparently famed at Oxford employing this prose style in his speech, effortlessly recalling passages as he spoke. The Anatomy
4316-548: A toddler, Tristram suffered an accidental circumcision when Susannah let a window sash fall as he urinated out of the window because his chamberpot was missing. Sterne's presence inside the narrative changed the course of traditional novelistic interpretations as his narrative structure digresses through many jumbled and fragmentary events into a non-traditional, dual overlapping plot. These digressive methods reflect his inability to simply explain each event as it occurs, as he frequently interrupts these events with commentary about how
4482-423: A typical Oxford don, though not as vast as those of some other contemporary humanist scholars. He accumulated the collection over a forty-six year period, from 1594 to 1640. The profits from the Anatomy probably funded most of the library, larger than his modest academic and ecclesiastical income would have been able to cover. The majority of the library's contents was in Latin, but the number of English volumes
4648-521: A very successful publicity stunt. Yorick is also the protagonist of Sterne's second work of fiction, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy . Most of the action is concerned with domestic upsets or misunderstandings, which find humour in the opposing temperaments of Walter—splenetic, rational, and somewhat sarcastic—and Uncle Toby, who is gentle, uncomplicated, and a lover of his fellow man. In between such events, Tristram as narrator finds himself discoursing at length on sexual practices, insults,
4814-483: A witty and accomplished bon vivant , owner of Skelton Hall in the Cleveland district of Yorkshire. Sterne wrote a work of religious satire called A Political Romance in 1759. Many copies of his work were destroyed. According to a 1760 anonymous letter, Sterne "hardly knew that he could write at all, much less with humour so as to make his reader laugh". At the age of 46, Sterne dedicated himself to writing for
4980-515: A year later without seeing her again. In 1768, Sterne published his Sentimental Journey , which contains some extravagant references to her, and the relationship, though platonic, aroused considerable interest. He also wrote his Journal to Eliza , part of which he sent to her, and the rest of which came to light when it was presented to the British Museum in 1894. After Sterne's death, Eliza allowed ten of his letters to be published under
5146-430: Is "fatally driven", and so he was compelled to compose the work. Burton left no record of when he began his work on the Anatomy . O'Connell speculates the project grew piecemeal, with research begun in his twenties, and the work well on its way by his thirties. Burton explicitly states that the study of melancholy was a lifelong fascination of his, and regularly "deducted from the main channel of my studies". However long
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Misplaced Pages Continue
5312-403: Is "one of the indispensable books; for my money, it is the best of all." Australian singer/songwriter Nick Cave listed Burton's Anatomy as one of his favourite books. Though Burton's legacy lies almost exclusively in his authorship of the Anatomy , his Philosophaster has increasingly been examined alongside it. As Murphy observed, Philosophaster "has received more attention than most of
5478-461: Is a play, satirising on the 17th-century university, composed in Latin during Burton's time as an Oxford student. The plot of Philosophaster follows the university of Osuna in Andalusia , recently founded by one Desiderius, Duke of Osuna, in hope of attracting scholars. However, the university actually attracts a crowd of philosophasters —pseudo-philosophers, Jesuits , and prostitutes—who con
5644-418: Is digressive and confusing in its structure; Burton himself apologetically admitted to "bring[ing] forth this confused lump", excusing himself over a shortage of time. Over the five editions, he did little to amend this confusion, preferring to append more to the labyrinthine text. The book is the fruit of a lifetime's worth of learning, though Burton makes a point throughout the Anatomy to claim that erudition
5810-401: Is evidence enough of this prodigious bookishness. Burton's melancholy is the most widely acknowledged feature of his life and character. Wood reported that "he was by many accounted a severe student, a devourer of authors, a melancholy and humorous [i.e., moody] person", yet his peers found his company "very merry". He wrote the Anatomy in part to relieve this melancholy, but this enterprise
5976-792: Is it, that the ties of blood are to cease? and how many shades must we descend lower still in the scale, ere mercy is to vanish with them?—but 'tis no uncommon thing, my good Sancho, for one half of the world to use the other half of it like brutes, & then endeavor to make 'em so. In 2005, BBC Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation by Graham White in ten 15-minute episodes directed by Mary Peate, with Neil Dudgeon as Tristram, Julia Ford as Mother, David Troughton as Father, Adrian Scarborough as Toby, Paul Ritter as Trim, Tony Rohr as Dr Slop, Stephen Hogan as Obadiah, Helen Longworth as Susannah, Ndidi Del Fatti as Great-Grandmother, Stuart McLoughlin as Great-Grandfather/Pontificating Man and Hugh Dickson as Bishop Hall. Tristram Shandy has been adapted as
6142-399: Is now held at Brasenose College, with a copy at Christ Church. Whatever other activities he engaged in, composing the Anatomy was the most important pursuit and accomplishment of Burton's life. Burton, as he claims in the preface, was "as desirous to suppress my labours in this kind, as others have been to press and publish theirs", but admits that melancholy is the subject upon which he
6308-505: Is permeated by quotations from and paraphrases of many authorities, both classical and contemporary, the culmination of a lifetime of erudition. Burton died in 1640. Within the university, his death was (probably falsely) rumoured to have been a suicide. His large personal library was divided between the Bodleian and Christ Church. The Anatomy was perused and plagiarised by many authors during his lifetime and after his death, but entered
6474-455: Is present throughout Sterne's novel. The frequent references to Rocinante , the character of Uncle Toby (who resembles Don Quixote in many ways) and Sterne's own description of his characters' " Cervantic humour", along with the genre-defying structure of Tristram Shandy , which owes much to the second part of Cervantes' novel, all demonstrate the influence of Cervantes. The novel also makes use of John Locke 's theories of empiricism , or
6640-624: Is titled "Tristram Shandy". Laurence Sterne Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy , published sermons and memoirs, and indulged in local politics. He grew up in a military family, travelling mainly in Ireland but briefly in England. An uncle paid for Sterne to attend Hipperholme Grammar School in
6806-435: Is ultimately pointless, and that it is perhaps better to remain ignorant. Nonetheless, he was of the opinion that if one had knowledge, one better display it. And he was not able to resist his impulse "to have an Oare in every mans Boat", that is, to know something of every topic. Burton wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy largely to write himself out of being a lifelong sufferer from depression. As he described his condition in
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Misplaced Pages Continue
6972-509: Is under the care of the Laurence Sterne Trust since its acquisition in the 1960s. The gardens, which Sterne tended during his time there, are daily open to visitors. The novel's success has resulted in permanent additions to the English lexicon; within the text of Tristram Shandy Sterne describes the novel as "Shandean", coining a term which still carries the meaning that Sterne originally attached to it when he wrote, "I write
7138-471: Is unlikely Burton ever truly wanted to leave the college he spoke so highly of as the "most flourishing College of Europe", one which "can brag with Jovius , almost, in that splendor of Vaticanish retirement, confined to the company of the distinguished". The 1602 reopening of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which by 1620 held over 16,000 volumes, gave some truth to Burton's proud comparison of
7304-633: Is worth 1,000 Pedants and commonplace-fellows like Dr. J." George Washington enjoyed the book. The young Karl Marx was a devotee of Tristram Shandy , and wrote a still-unpublished short humorous novel, Scorpion and Felix , that was obviously influenced by Sterne's work. Goethe praised Sterne in Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years , which in turn influenced Nietzsche . Writing in The Times in January 2021, critic Michael Henderson disparaged
7470-431: Is writing his history of life could never be included in his actual writing. Heinrich Heine (1796–1856) mentioned the book in his writings. "The author of Tristram Shandy reveals to us the profoundest depths of the human soul; he opens, as it were, a crevice of the soul; permits us to take one glance into its abysses, into its paradise and into its filthiest recesses; then quickly lets the curtain fall over it. We have had
7636-456: The Anatomy 's satirical themes. As O'Connell put it more succinctly, the play's "main satiric thrust, that pseudolearned charlatans find a ready haven in a university, is meant to find its general target in Oxford". This much is obvious in certain characters—such as Theanus, an elderly college administrator who has forgotten all his scholarship, but still earns an exorbitant salary tutoring
7802-554: The Anatomy as "the sweepings of the medieval dustbin" or some "enormous labyrinthine joke". Into the early 20th century, this romantic view transitioned into the more academic study of Burton's masterpiece. William Osler—widely regarded as the father of modern medicine —was a lifelong devotee of Burton and described the Anatomy as "the greatest medical treatise written by a layman". According to one scholar, "the revival of critical interest in The Anatomy of Melancholy owes not
7968-437: The Anatomy for references to mothers in an attempt to reconstruct Burton's own relationship with his mother. This psychoanalytic tendency has been criticised by more modern biographers of Burton, especially by R. L. Nochimson, who dedicated an article to amending the "amazing carelessness" with which Burton's literary and real personae have been confused. Stanley Fish 's 1972 monograph Self-Consuming Artifacts inaugurated
8134-593: The Anatomy to Lord Berkeley. Their relationship may have begun even earlier, in 1619, when Berkeley matriculated from Christ Church, and perhaps entered the tutelage of Burton. In any case, on 3 September 1624, Lord Berkeley granted Burton the advowson (i.e. the right to decide the next occupant) of the wealthy living of Seagrave. This right necessitated that the holder of the advowson pick a candidate other than himself, but three days later Burton assigned three of his family members to this position, so he could procure his own future appointment. On 15 June 1632, promptly after
8300-438: The Anatomy , producing two more editions in 1634 and 1638. Shortly before his death in 1640, Burton entrusted an annotated copy of the Anatomy to his publisher, which was published posthumously in 1651. In total, Burton made contributions to six editions. Two more reprints of the Anatomy were made before the end of the century. Burton drew up his will on 15 August 1639. Five months later, aged 62 and on 25 January 1640, he
8466-539: The Bishop of Oxford . It seems some friendship developed between the two; Burton praised Bancroft's construction at Cuddesdon in the Anatomy , implying he was a frequent visitor. At Christ Church, Burton proceeded to an MA on 9 June 1605, and a BD in May 1614. Simultaneously, Burton rose through the college ranks, attaining disciplus in 1599, philosophus secundi vicenarii in 1603, and philosophus primi vicenarii in 1607,
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#17327763993338632-577: The Chancellor there from 1630 to 1641, Laud was in perpetual squabbles with its body of scholars. Burton was an apparent supporter of James I's anti-Catholic measures, listed among those at Christ Church who took his Oath of Allegiance . The anti-Catholic portions of Philosophaster were revised shortly after James released the Oath, possibly to satirise the ensuing Catholic backlash. As Adam Kitzes put it, Burton "makes no bones about his allegiance to
8798-516: The Shrovetide festivities. The play was acted by the students alongside three local townsmen. Burton likely took a view towards pleasing the administration in this production. The play cast the son of John King , then Dean of Christ Church , in a leading role, and departed from Alba 's controversial mythological themes for the less contentious ones of an academic satire. Burton initially struggled to find any patrons for promotion out of
8964-894: The West Riding of Yorkshire , as Sterne's father was ordered to Jamaica, where he died of malaria some years later. He attended Jesus College, Cambridge on a sizarship , gaining bachelor's and master's degrees. While Vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest , Yorkshire, he married Elizabeth Lumley in 1741. His ecclesiastical satire A Political Romance infuriated the church and was burnt. With his new talent for writing, he published early volumes of his best-known novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman . Sterne travelled to France to find relief from persistent tuberculosis, documenting his travels in A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy , published weeks before his death. His posthumous Journal to Eliza addresses Eliza Draper , for whom he had romantic feelings. Sterne died in 1768 and
9130-433: The postmodern interpretation of Burton's Anatomy , which alternatingly saw it as a satirical indictment of humanistic encyclopedism, or a desperate suppression of Burton's anxiety over the immensity of his subject matter. However, in total, Burton's Anatomy only accrued a small handful of monographs in the second half of the 20th century. The most detailed study of this period was a French monograph by Jean Robert Simon ,
9296-477: The 1621 edition of the Anatomy , Burton wrote that his "hopes were still frustrate, and I left behind, as a Dolphin on shore, confined to my Colledge, as Diogenes to his tubbe". This exasperation seems to have been passing; by the Anatomy 's final edition, he had revised the passage in praise of his "monastick life [...] sequestered from those tumults & troubles of the world", unindebted for his lack of preferment. Bamborough has gone as far as to claim it
9462-450: The 1738 books and two manuscripts owned by Burton. The remaining 210 were distributed to either various acquaintances of Burton; gifted or traded to other libraries or bookshops; or by selling duplicates, some of which are unrecorded. Of the 140 books yet to be located, it is thought that around half of these are extant. Christ Church Library has referred to Burton's library as "one of the most important surviving English private libraries from
9628-491: The Bridge-foot in Oxford, and hearing the barge-men scold and storm and swear at one another, at which he would set his hands to his sides, and laugh most profusely." Gowland has suggested the Burton family had some Catholic sympathies, because of their close relation to Jesuit Arthur Faunt . Faunt's godson and Burton's brother, William, spoke admiringly of Faunt as "a man of great learning, gravity and wisdome"; William
9794-461: The Comedy had been ended". However Burton reacted to this royal pan, he was already at work on another play by 1606. This play, Philosophaster —which is fully extant across three manuscripts—was finished by 1615, by which time Burton was revising and correcting it. Burton speaks briefly of Philosophaster in the Anatomy , mentioning that it was performed at Christ Church on 16 February 1617, during
9960-489: The Duke and townspeople into believing their disguises, capitalising on their naivete in a series of farcical scenes. Amidst this chaos, two true philosophers, Polumathes and Philobiblos (their names literally meaning "Much-Learned" and "Lover of Books") appear and unmask the philosophasters. The resultant controversy among the townspeople nearly causes the Duke to close the university, but he is persuaded otherwise by Polumathes. In
10126-665: The Laurence Sterne Trust. The story of the reinterment of Sterne's skull in Coxwold is alluded to in Malcolm Bradbury 's novel To the Hermitage . The works of Laurence Sterne are few in comparison to other eighteenth-century authors of comparable stature. Sterne's early works were letters; he had two sermons published (in 1747 and 1750) and tried his hand at satire. He was involved in and wrote about local politics in 1742. His major publication prior to Tristram Shandy
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#173277639933310292-487: The age of 25; he enlisted uncommissioned, which was unusual for someone from a family of high social position. Despite being promoted to an officer, he was of the lowest commission and lacked financial resources. Roger Sterne married Agnes Hobert, the widow of a military captain. Agnes was "born in Flanders but...was in fact Anglo-Irish and lived for much of her life in Ireland". The first decade of Laurence Sterne's life
10458-526: The alleged obscenity of his prose, used Ferriar's findings to defame Sterne, and claimed that he was artistically dishonest, and almost unanimously accused him of mindless plagiarism. Scholar Graham Petrie closely analysed the alleged passages in 1970; he observed that while more recent commentators now agree that Sterne "rearranged what he took to make it more humorous, or more sentimental, or more rhythmical", none of them "seems to have wondered whether Sterne had any further, more purely artistic, purpose". Studying
10624-409: The archetypal, quintessential novel, "the most typical novel of world literature." However, the leading critical opinions of Tristram Shandy tend to be markedly polarised in their evaluations of its significance. Since the 1950s, following the lead of D. W. Jefferson, there are those who argue that, whatever its legacy of influence may be, Tristram Shandy in its original context actually represents
10790-654: The author. Burton did not resolutely stick to this pseudonymity; the first edition betrayed it as he signed the "Conclusion to the Reader" with his real name, and though this was removed in later editions, the portrait of Burton added from the third edition onwards hardly preserved his anonymity. Burton did not rest on his laurels after the first printing, continually editing and improving the work throughout his life. The first edition of Burton's Anatomy was, with marginalia, over 350,000 words long; by his final edition this count came to over 500,000. The additions were largest for
10956-408: The bookish image given by his Anatomy , Burton had some knowledge of the day-to-day affairs of Oxford. Perhaps more befitting his image, on 27 August 1624, Burton became the librarian of Christ Church Library . The office was a recent creation—the first librarian was appointed in 1599, and library had been founded only a half-century earlier—but a recent donation by an Otho Nicholson had ensured it
11122-594: The brain of Sterne; and if I could, I would gladly lead you to the same affection for my father as you have for Tristram's. (The text of Tristram Shandy uses the phrase "my father" at the head of a paragraph fifty-one times.) Christopher Morley, editor of The Saturday Review of Literature , wrote a preface to the Limited Editions Club issue of Sterne's classic. That preface appears in Morley's book Streamlines published by Doubleday, Doran, in 1932, and
11288-514: The building or rebuilding of the church's south porch in 1621, where his arms were placed on the gable. In 1624, Lady Frances Cecil, dowager Countess of Exeter presented Burton to the Lincolnshire benefice of Walesby . Burton was perhaps the tutor of Frances' son, Robert Smith. Burton chose not to reside in Walesby, though he probably visited it at some point. He took little interest in
11454-443: The case with a gentleman who spends one year to write the story of one day of his life, if he were able to write for an infinite length of time. The paradox depends upon the fact that "the number of days in all time is no greater than the number of years". Karl Popper , in contrast, came to the conclusion that Tristram Shandy—by writing his history of life—would never be able to finish this story, because his last act of writing: that he
11620-486: The collection of "widely scattered case histories" of melancholia for his Anatomy , and treating the mentally ill with a "tender sympathy" uncharacteristic of subsequent psychiatrists. American writer Alexander Theroux has named Burton as one of his influences, and sometimes imitates his style. English novelist Philip Pullman praised the work in a 2005 article for The Telegraph as a "glorious and intoxicating and endlessly refreshing reward for reading". For Pullman, it
11786-419: The comic climax, the fraudsters are branded and exiled, two characters marry, and the play concludes with a "hymn in praise of philosophy [...] to the tune of Bonny Nell ". As Connie McQuillen has put it, the distinguishing quality Philosophaster is the "patchwork of borrowings" with which it was written. Stylistically, Philosophaster is declared on the title page to be a Comoedia Nova (or New Comedy )
11952-770: The composer and former slave Ignatius Sancho wrote to Sterne, encouraging him to use his pen to lobby for the abolition of the slave trade. In July 1766, Sterne received Sancho's letter shortly after he had finished writing a conversation between his fictional characters Corporal Trim and his brother Tom in Tristram Shandy , wherein Tom described the oppression of a black servant in a sausage shop in Lisbon that he had visited. Sterne's widely publicised response to Sancho's letter became an integral part of 18th-century abolitionist literature. Sterne continued to struggle with his illness and departed England for France in 1762 in an effort to find
12118-570: The contribution of D. W. Jefferson. Some of Sterne's contemporaries did not hold the novel in high esteem, but its bawdy humour was popular with London society. Through time, it has come to be seen as one of the greatest comic novels in English. Arthur Schopenhauer called Tristram Shandy one of "the four immortal romances" and Ludwig Wittgenstein considered it "one of my favourite books". Samuel Johnson in 1776 commented, "Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last." Schopenhauer privately rebutted Samuel Johnson, saying: "The man Sterne
12284-441: The daily affairs of the parish—all the parish records were signed by his curate, Thomas Benson—but did win for it nine acres of land which had been taken by Frances's predecessor. Burton resigned from this post in 1631. In the 1632 edition of the Anatomy , appended below a mention of his Walesby appointment, Burton tersely added: "Lately resigned for some special reasons". After his resignation, Lady Frances temporarily turned over
12450-419: The date of his death would fit his exact astrological calculations. This rumour is dubious, and has been largely rejected by biographers as far back as Wood. Angus Gowland, in his 2006 study of Burton, is among the few who take the allegation seriously, though he admits it is "no more than a melancholy rumour". The story about the astrological calculation was told of astrologers before Burton, Burton rejected
12616-401: The dexterity and the good taste with which he has incorporated in his work so many passages, written with very different views by their respective authors. Ferriar believed that Sterne was ridiculing Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy , mocking its solemn tone and endeavours to prove indisputable facts by weighty quotations. Victorian critics of the 19th century, who were hostile to Sterne for
12782-567: The doctrines of religion to military discipline, from inland navigation to the morality of dancing schools. Much of the singularity of Tristram Shandy ' s characters is drawn from Burton. Burton indulges himself in a Utopian sketch of a perfect government in his introductory address to the reader, and this forms the basis of the notions of Tristram Shandy on the subject. And Sterne parodies Burton's use of weighty quotations. The first four chapters of Tristram Shandy are founded on some passages in Burton. In Chapter 3, Volume 5, Sterne parodies
12948-426: The duty to appoint Burton's successor to her friend, the first Earl of Middlesex , suggesting that Burton resigned over Middlesex's pressure to appoint his own favourite. In 1632, shortly after this resignation from Walesby, Burton was presented to a much more valuable office by his patron, Lord Berkeley : the rectorship of Seagrave . Berkeley had been a patron of Burton since at least 1621, when Burton dedicated
13114-548: The endorsements of suicide by classical authors in the Anatomy , and if the rumours were taken to have had any substance at the time of his death, Burton would not have been buried in the cathedral. Gowland counters this evidence, citing the charity shown by Burton in the Anatomy for those tempted by suicide, and conjecturing a conspiracy of the "notoriously close-knit College" to keep Burton's suicide secret. Though Burton wrote elsewhere, Bamborough regards Burton's one truly great work as The Anatomy of Melancholy . Ostensibly
13280-623: The extent of his profits, the size of his estate and library at death suggests they were considerable. Burton printed the Anatomy under the pseudonym of "Democritus Junior", alluding to the Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, Democritus , sometimes known as the Laughing Philosopher . The use of an established classical figure in a pseudonym was common practice in Burton's time, used to ensure the reader held no negative preconceptions about
13446-436: The extent that Tristram's own birth is not even reached until Volume III. Consequently, apart from Tristram as narrator, the most familiar and important characters in the book are his father Walter, his mother, his Uncle Toby, Toby's servant Trim, and a supporting cast of popular minor characters, including the chambermaid Susannah, Doctor Slop and the parson Yorick, who later became Sterne's favourite nom de plume and
13612-525: The family's arrival in Derry", Roger took Sterne to his wealthy brother, Richard, so that Laurence could attend Hipperholme Grammar School near Halifax . Laurence never saw his father again as Roger was ordered to Jamaica where he died of malaria in 1731. Laurence was admitted to a sizarship at Jesus College, in July 1733 at the age of 20. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in January 1737 and returned in
13778-533: The family's maternal relation to Arthur Faunt , a Jesuit controversialist and uncle to William and Robert. Burton probably attended two grammar schools, the King Edward VI Grammar School , Nuneaton and Bishop Vesey's Grammar School , Sutton Coldfield . Burton wrote in the Anatomy that students "think no slavery in the world (as once I did myself) like to that of a Grammar Scholar", which some writers have taken as suggestion that he
13944-564: The first staging of Jonson's play, in 1610. In interpreting the Philosophaster , many authors have understood it solely in relation to the Anatomy , as an academic satire on the excesses of university life, especially that of Oxford. Angus Gowland, describing the University of Osuna as a "thinly disguised Oxford", asserts that "the purpose of the play was to ridicule contemporary scholarship and provoke reform", in anticipation of
14110-488: The genre of consolatio , mixing and reworking passages from three "widely separated sections" of Burton's Anatomy , including a parody of Burton's "grave and sober account" of Cicero 's grief for the death of his daughter Tullia . His text is filled with allusions and references to the leading thinkers and writers of the 17th and 18th centuries. Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift were major influences on Sterne and Tristram Shandy . Satires of Pope and Swift formed much of
14276-519: The humour of Tristram Shandy , but Swift's sermons and Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding also contributed ideas and frameworks Sterne explored throughout the novel. Other major influences are Cervantes and Montaigne 's Essays , as well as the significant inter-textual debt to The Anatomy of Melancholy , Swift's Battle of the Books , and the Scriblerian collaborative work The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus . The shade of Cervantes
14442-429: The imprecision and arbitrariness of words and usage), and consequently spends much time discussing the very words he uses in his own narrative—with "digressions, gestures, piling up of apparent trivia in the effort to get at the truth". There is a significant body of critical opinion that argues that Tristram Shandy is better understood as an example of an obsolescent literary tradition of "Learned Wit", partly following
14608-442: The influence of one's name and noses, as well as explorations of obstetrics , siege warfare and philosophy, as he struggles to marshal his material and finish the story of his life. Though Tristram is always present as narrator and commentator, the book contains little of his life, only the story of a trip through France and accounts of the four comical mishaps which shaped the course of his life from an early age. Firstly, while he
14774-466: The king and the Church of England". Burton also claimed part of his reasoning in not proceeding to a DD (Doctor of Divinity) was his reluctance to participate in the endless argument surrounding religion, for which he "saw no such great neede". According to Bamborough, "to describe Burton as 'bookish' can only be called ridiculous understatement". Burton owned 1738 books in total, tenfold the library of
14940-409: The last of which qualified him as a tutor. Sometime after he obtained his MA, Bamborough considers it likely Burton was attempting to leave the university. The college statutes required Burton to take a BD after his MA, but Burton chose not to proceed to DD. While at Oxford, Burton indulged his literary interests alongside these academic ones. In 1603, on the accession of James I , Burton contributed
15106-434: The libraries of Oxford, speaking highly of his alma mater throughout the Anatomy . Burton's most famous work and greatest achievement was The Anatomy of Melancholy . First published in 1621, it was reprinted with additions from Burton no fewer than five times. A digressive and labyrinthine work, Burton wrote as much to alleviate his own melancholy as to help others. The final edition totalled more than 500,000 words. The book
15272-483: The misogynistic depiction of women in his early fiction, and the Latin quotations (via Burton) found throughout in his work. The eminent literary critic Northrop Frye was an admirer of the Anatomy ; he characterized it as "an enormous survey of human life" which "ranks with Chaucer and Dickens , except the characters are books rather than people". Psychiatrist and historian of ideas Jacques Barzun held up Burton as "the first systematic psychiatrist", praising him for
15438-468: The most appealing of Burton's Latin works", he notes that the "liveliness in its representation of university life" redeems the "weak plotting and flat characterization." The 19th-century critic of Elizabethan drama Arthur Henry Bullen wrote of it that the philosophasters "are portrayed with considerable humour and skill, and the lyrical portions of the play are written with a light hand". Bamborough summed it up as "not without genuine merit, particularly in
15604-442: The name in conveying it to the curate, and the child was christened Tristram. According to his father's theory, his name, being a conflation of "Trismegistus" (after the esoteric mystic Hermes Trismegistus ) and " Tristan " (whose connotation bore the influence through folk etymology of Latin tristis , "sorrowful"), doomed him to a life of woe and cursed him with the inability to comprehend the causes of his misfortune. Finally, as
15770-510: The narrative. Many of the innovations that Sterne introduced, adaptations in form that were an exploration of what constitutes the novel, were highly influential to Modernist writers like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf , and more contemporary writers such as Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace . Italo Calvino referred to Tristram Shandy as the "undoubted progenitor of all avant-garde novels of our century". The Russian Formalist writer Viktor Shklovsky regarded Tristram Shandy as
15936-476: The narrator speculates that the scheming clergyman, Mr Slope, is descended from Dr Slop in Tristram Shandy (the extra letter having been added for the sake of appearances). Slope is also called "Obadiah", a reference to another character in Sterne's novel. Russian writer Alexander Zhitinsky made multiple references to Tristram Shandy in his novel The Flying House, or Conversations with Milord (the "milord" of
16102-427: The new meaning intended in Tristram Shandy . Tristram Shandy was highly praised for its originality, and nobody noticed these borrowings until years after Sterne's death. The first to note them was physician, poet and Portico Library Chair John Ferriar , who did not see them negatively and commented: If [the reader's] opinion of Sterne's learning and originality be lessened by the perusal, he must, at least, admire
16268-485: The nose". Sterne had written an earlier piece called A Rabelaisian Fragment that indicates his familiarity with the work of the French monk and doctor. Sterne was no friend of gravitas, a quality which excited his disgust. Tristram Shandy gives a ludicrous turn to solemn passages from respected authors that it incorporates, as well as to the consolatio literary genre. Among the subjects of such ridicule were some of
16434-656: The novel as a precursor to the " hysterical realism " of authors such as Rushdie and Thomas Pynchon . Novelist Javier Marías cites Tristram Shandy as the book that changed his life when he translated it into Spanish at 25, claiming that from it he "learned almost everything about novel writing, and that a novel may contain anything and still be a novel." The success of Sterne's novel got him an appointment by Lord Fauconberg as curate of St Michael's Church in Coxwold , Yorkshire, which included living at Sterne's model for Shandy Hall . The medieval structure still stands today, and
16600-575: The novel was favourable enough to justify the loan. The publication of Tristram Shandy made Sterne famous in London and on the continent. He was delighted by the attention, famously saying, "I wrote not [to] be fed but to be famous ." He spent part of each year in London, being fêted as new volumes appeared. Even after the publication of volumes three and four of Tristram Shandy , his love of attention (especially as related to financial success) remained undiminished. In one letter, he wrote, "One half of
16766-401: The novel, stating that it "honks like John Coltrane , and is not nearly so funny." Tristram Shandy has also been seen by formalists and other literary critics as a forerunner of many narrative devices and styles used by modernist and postmodernist authors such as James Joyce , Virginia Woolf , Carlos Fuentes , Milan Kundera and Salman Rushdie . The critic James Wood identified
16932-399: The only years of Burton's maturity in which he seems to have purchased no new books. When he entered Christ Church in 1599, Wood reports Burton was assigned as tutor John Bancroft , "for form sake, tho' he wanted not a tutor"; though Bancroft was only three years his senior, he was six or seven years ahead of Burton in his studies, and was well-connected within the church, later becoming
17098-534: The opinions contained in Robert Burton 's The Anatomy of Melancholy , a book that mentions sermons as the most respectable type of writing, and one that was favoured by the learned. Burton's attitude was to try to prove indisputable facts by weighty quotations. His book consists mostly of a collection of the opinions of a multitude of writers (he modestly refrains from adding his own) divided into quaint and old-fashioned categories. It discusses everything, from
17264-485: The oppression of a black servant in a sausage shop in Lisbon, which he had visited. This "tender tale" was published in Chapter 65 (Vol. IV) of Tristram Shandy . Sterne's widely publicised 27 July 1766 response to Sancho's letter became an integral part of 18th-century abolitionist literature. There is a strange coincidence, Sancho, in the little events (as well as in the great ones) of this world: for I had been writing
17430-594: The other surviving examples of university drama." Since its first, mid-19th-century publication in Latin, it has been published three more times, twice with original translations into English. In 1930, it was even performed at the University of California . The play has received a mixed reception from modern scholars. Literary critic Martin Spevack dismissed it as "an obvious and elementary string of transparent sketches". O'Connell has, however, described it as "perhaps
17596-416: The perennial feuds between town and gown , the distinction between "true" and "false" scholars, the ridicule of pedants—and characters from humanist satirists, chiefly Erasmus and Giovanni Pontano . The play's depiction of alchemy bears some passing resemblance to Ben Jonson 's play The Alchemist , but Burton takes strains to point out in the introduction to a manuscript that his play was written before
17762-471: The period before the Civil War". The first, second, and third editions, [Burton] tells us, "were suddenly gone, eagerly read." Five editions appeared in his lifetime and three more within a generation of his death. If one may judge by the frequency of publication, The Anatomy of Melancholy was almost three times as popular as Shakespeare's plays. Bergen Evans and George Mohr Burton's Anatomy
17928-461: The poor in Seagrave, Nuneaton, and Higham ; the library at Brasenose; and various friends and colleagues, including John Bancroft. Burton was buried in the north aisle of Christ Church Cathedral , Oxford, on 27 January. William erected a monument to Robert Burton in the cathedral: a coloured effigy of Robert, flanked by an astrological representation of his nativity and geometric instruments, with
18094-432: The preface "Democritus Junior to the Reader", "a kind of imposthume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of and could imagine no fitter evacuation than this ... I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy. There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness, no better cure than business". In his view, melancholy was "a disease so frequent ... in our miserable times, as few there are that feele not
18260-404: The previous incumbent was buried, the relatives presented him to the office. Burton did not cultivate much of a reputation as a preacher while at Seagrave, choosing not to publish any of his sermons, but discharged the pastoral and charitable roles of the rectory dutifully and punctually. Burton probably visited Lindley often while at Seagrave, as the villages were only 20 miles apart. The office
18426-623: The reader should understand and follow each event. He relies heavily on his reader's close involvement to the text and their interpretations of the non-traditional plot. Tristram's presence inside of the narrative as the narrator engages the imagination, and his use of visual strategies, such as the marbled and blank pages, reflects the importance of the reader's participation in the novel. Sterne incorporated into Tristram Shandy many passages taken almost word for word from Robert Burton 's The Anatomy of Melancholy , Francis Bacon 's Of Death , Rabelais and many more, and rearranged them to serve
18592-448: The recently founded Bodleian Library, perhaps why Burton felt the need to purchase them. Though religious works composed the largest category in his library (about one quarter), the remaining three quarters were made up by an eclectic collection of literary, historical, medical, and geographical volumes, testifying to Burton's broad scholarship. Burton was an avid annotator of books, with marginal notes in around one-fifth of his books, from
18758-408: The rest of his life. It was while living in the countryside, failing in his attempts to supplement his income as a farmer and struggling with tuberculosis, that Sterne began work on his best-known novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman , the first volumes of which were published in 1759. Sterne was at work on his celebrated comic novel during the year that his mother died, his wife
18924-564: The same artistic project to which Tristram Shandy belongs. Two volumes of Sterne's Sermons were published during his lifetime; more copies of his Sermons were sold in his lifetime than copies of Tristram Shandy . The sermons, however, are conventional in substance. Several volumes of letters were published after his death, as was Journal to Eliza . These collections of letters, more sentimental than humorous, tell of Sterne's relationship with Eliza Draper. Robert Burton (scholar) Robert Burton (8 February 1577 – 25 January 1640)
19090-587: The scholarship at Oxford to that of Jovius's Vatican. Burton did not spend all his time in this "Vaticanish retirement" as a scholar. He held various minor offices in Oxford. On three occasions–in 1615, 1617, and 1618–Burton was chosen to be the clerk of the Market, one of two MA students tasked with regulating the various goods of Oxford's markets. Now a sinecure , the office was an important institution in Burton's time. This occupation has been cited by two biographers, O'Connell and Nochimson, to suggest, contrary to
19256-502: The second and third editions; the original quarto volume had to be expanded to a folio for the second edition (1624) to accommodate the expansions. For the third edition (1628), an allegorical frontispiece was added, engraved by Christian Le Blon, with a portrait of Burton atop his moniker "Democritus Junior". After these two additions, Burton vowed: " Ne quid nimis [do not do too much]. I will not hereafter add, alter, or retract; I have done." However, once again, Burton returned to
19422-403: The slave trade. "That subject, handled in your striking manner, would ease the yoke (perhaps) of many—but if only one—Gracious God!—what a feast to a benevolent heart!" he wrote. In July 1766 Sancho's letter was received by Sterne shortly after he had just finished writing a conversation between his fictional characters Corporal Trim and his brother Tom in Tristram Shandy , in which Tom described
19588-503: The smart of it", and he said he compiled his book "to prescribe means how to prevent and cure so universall a malady, an Epidemicall disease, that so often, so much crucifies the body and mind". For Burton, "melancholy" describes a range of mental abnormalities, from obsession to delusion to what we would now call clinical depression . Burton at once gives a multitude of remedies for melancholy, and warns they are all ultimately useless, in characteristic self-contradiction. Philosophaster
19754-401: The sons of the gentry—whom the audience were expected to be familiar with within academia. However, critic Kathryn Murphy has pointed out that Philosophaster contains a significant, and often underappreciated, undercurrent of anti-Catholicism. Burton's philosophasters are joined by the representatives of Roman Catholicism, including scholastics and Jesuits, in their mockery of philosophy and
19920-539: The summer of 1740 to be awarded his Master of Arts . Sterne was ordained as a deacon on 6 March 1737 and as a priest on 20 August 1738. His religion is said to have been the "centrist Anglicanism of his time", known as " latitudinarianism ". A few days after his ordination as a priest, Sterne was awarded the vicarage living of Sutton-on-the-Forest in Yorkshire. Sterne married Elizabeth Lumley on 30 March 1741, despite both being ill with consumption . In 1743, he
20086-430: The tangential to the bluntly hostile. Burton's library was divided between the Bodleian and Christ Church libraries after his death. In the early 20th century, Oxford Regius Professor of Medicine William Osler , an enthusiast for Burton, found Burton's bequests "scattered indiscriminately" throughout the two libraries, and, from 1907 to 1908, set about having them gathered together in one collection, rediscovering over
20252-474: The third volume. The novel is rich in characters and humour, and the influences of Rabelais and Miguel de Cervantes are present throughout. The novel ends after 9 volumes, published over a decade, but without anything that might be considered a traditional conclusion. Sterne inserts sermons, essays and legal documents into the pages of his novel; and he explores the limits of typography and print design by including marbled pages and an entirely black page within
20418-406: The time between his matriculation and his transfer, almost nothing is known of Burton. According to Anthony à Wood , Burton "made considerable progress in logic and philosophy" at Brasenose, though the college left an impression sufficiently weak that Burton himself made no mention of Brasenose in his corpus. Most Oxford students would have completed their education at nineteen, but by 1602, Burton
20584-412: The title Letters from Yorick to Eliza and succeeded in suppressing her letters to him, though some blatant forgeries were produced in a volume of Eliza's Letters to Yorick . Less than a month after Sentimental Journey was published, Sterne died in his lodgings at 41 Old Bond Street on 18 March 1768, at the age of 54. He was buried in the churchyard of St George's, Hanover Square on 22 March. It
20750-467: The title being Sterne). In Surprised by Joy , C. S. Lewis refers to Tristram Shandy in the context of trying to describe his interactions with his own father: My father—but these words, at the head of a paragraph, will carry the reader's mind inevitably to Tristram Shandy. On second thoughts I am content that they should. It is only in a Shandean spirit that my matter can be approached. I have to describe something as odd and whimsical as ever entered
20916-512: The town abuse my book as bitterly, as the other half cry it up to the skies — the best is, they abuse it and buy it, and at such a rate, that we are going on with a second edition, as fast as possible." Baron Fauconberg rewarded Sterne by appointing him as the perpetual curate of Coxwold in the North Riding of Yorkshire in March 1760. In 1766, at the height of the debate about slavery,
21082-443: The university from contemporary Puritan attacks. For the dramatists such as John Ford , Burton's treatise "was virtually an authoritative psychiatric textbook", used as a reference work for their depictions of melancholy. Richard Holdsworth , when Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge (1637–43), recommended it as a comprehensive digest to "serve for [the] delight and ornament" of young gentlemen, bestowing that learning expected of
21248-458: The university, but after some time, he managed to obtain an ecclesiastical office in the living of St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford , located in the western suburb of Oxford. He was nominated to this by the dean and chapter of Christ Church on 29 November 1616. He was licensed to preach on 3 December 1618. Burton held this vicarage at St Thomas's, until his death; he was responsible for
21414-577: The university. Murphy has suggested these themes reflect the pervading cultural influence of the Gunpowder Plot in Burton's lifetime, which took place a year before the play was set. Known to few, unknown to fewer, here lies Democritus Junior, to whom Melancholy gave both life and death. —Burton's epitaph in Christ Church Cathedral, said to have been composed by himself. Burton has often been portrayed as something of
21580-442: The university. Though he never fully succeeded, he managed to obtain the living of St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford through the university, and external patronage for the benefice of Walesby and the rectorship of Seagrave . As a fellow of Oxford, he served in many minor administrative roles and as the librarian of Christ Church Library from 1624 until his death. Over time he came to accept his "sequestered" existence in
21746-425: The use of the narrative technique of stream of consciousness is usually associated with modernist novelists, Tristram Shandy has been suggested as a precursor. As its title suggests, the book is ostensibly Tristram's narration of his life story. But it is one of the central jokes of the novel that he cannot explain anything simply, that he must make explanatory diversions to add context and colour to his tale, to
21912-422: The way we assemble what we know of ourselves and our world from the "association of ideas" that come to us from our five senses. Sterne is by turns respectful and satirical of Locke's theories, using the association of ideas to construct characters' " hobby-horses ", or whimsical obsessions, that both order and disorder their lives in different ways. Sterne borrows from and argues against Locke's language theories (on
22078-547: The wife of an official of the East India Company , while she was staying on her own in London. He was quickly captivated by Eliza's charm, vivacity, and intelligence, and she did little to discourage his attentions. They met frequently and exchanged miniature portraits. Sterne's admiration turned into an obsession, which he took no trouble to conceal. To his great distress, Eliza had to return to India three months after their first meeting, and he died from consumption
22244-584: The work as an erudite curiosity. Lamb illustrated Burton in his "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading" (1833) as "that fantastic great old man", creating the image of Burton as an eccentric and erudite academic which has since stuck, for whatever truth it possessed. The Anatomy was among John Keats 's favourite books, and was used as a major source for the plot of his poem " Lamia " (1820). Burton's prose style wasn't universally appreciated, appearing pedantic and pretentious to some 19th-century critics. The Victorian poet and literary critic T. E. Brown disparaged
22410-527: The work began to appear in all the major European languages almost immediately upon its publication, and Sterne influenced European writers as diverse as Denis Diderot and the German Romanticists . His work also had noticeable influence over Brazilian author Machado de Assis , who made use of the digressive technique in the novel The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas . English writer and literary critic Samuel Johnson 's verdict in 1776
22576-563: The work took, he had certainly concluded it by 5 December 1620, aged 43, when he signed the "Conclusion to the Reader". The book was printed in 1621 and, despite Burton's indication in the Anatomy of troubles finding a publisher, it quickly sold well. Wood wrote that the publisher, Henry Cripps, made such a "great profit" off the book that he "got an estate by it". Burton's subject was well chosen; similar treatises by Timothie Bright and Thomas Wright had gone through several editions soon after their publication. Though Burton never divulged
22742-835: The work. Some authors, "who have lost their time and are put to a push for invention" poached his numerous classical quotations. In the 18th century, George Steevens retrospectively noted it as "a book once the favourite of the learned and witty, and a source of surreptitious learning". Certainly, scholars copied and emulated the Anatomy to their own ends: William Vaughan repurposed Burton's critique of court patronage towards an anti-Catholic end in The Golden Fleece (1626); Nathanael Carpenter imitated Burton's intimate articulation of his own melancholy and defence of scholarship for his Geography delineated forth (1625); and Richard Whitlock , in his Zootomia (1654), plagiarised Burton's defence of scholarship wholesale in defending
22908-449: Was a profitable one, tripling the incumbent's wages to 10s a term. The duties, however, were sparse—limited to enforcing the loose regulations of the institution, and opening and closing it at the appropriate times—probably allowing Burton more than enough time to accumulate the erudition exhibited in the Anatomy . Burton held this position until his death. In 1635, painter Gilbert Jackson produced an oil portrait of Burton; this painting
23074-483: Was a vigorous supporter of Laudian reforms in his home county, siding with High Church Anglicanism, which was sometimes seen as Catholic-sympathising and at St Thomas's, Burton was apparently one of the last 17th-century Church of England priests to use unleavened wafers in the Communion, an outmoded Laudian practice. However, as an Oxford scholar, Burton could have taken a personal dislike to Archbishop Laud ; as
23240-466: Was adapted by Martin Pearlman in 2018 as a comic chamber opera, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy . Well known in philosophy and mathematics, the so-called paradox of Tristram Shandy was introduced by Bertrand Russell in his book The Principles of Mathematics to evidentiate the inner contradictions that arise from the assumption that infinite sets can have the same cardinality—as would be
23406-513: Was an ensign in a British regiment recently returned from Dunkirk . His great-grandfather Richard Sterne had been the Master of Jesus College, Cambridge , as well as the Archbishop of York . Roger Sterne was the youngest son of Richard Sterne's youngest son, and consequently, Roger Sterne inherited little of Richard Sterne's wealth. Roger Sterne left his family and enlisted in the army at
23572-485: Was an English author and fellow of Oxford University , known for his encyclopedic The Anatomy of Melancholy . Born in 1577 to a comfortably well-off family of the landed gentry , Burton attended two grammar schools and matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford in 1593, age 15. Burton's education at Oxford was unusually lengthy, possibly drawn out by an affliction of melancholy , and saw an early transfer to Christ Church . Burton received an MA and BD, and by 1607
23738-596: Was an ardent Whig , and urged Sterne to begin a career of political journalism , which resulted in some scandal for Sterne and a terminal falling-out between the two men. This falling out occurred after Laurence ended his political career in 1742. He had previously written anonymous propaganda for the York Gazetteer from 1741 to 1742. Sterne lived in Sutton for 20 years, during which time he kept up an intimacy that had begun at Cambridge with John Hall-Stevenson ,
23904-457: Was an extremely popular work in Burton's lifetime, and throughout the 17th century, going through eight editions from 1621 to 1676. As early as 1662, Thomas Fuller was awed that "any book of philology in our land hath in so short a time passed so many editions". Its readers interpreted and employed it to varied, personal ends. Wood wrote that the Anatomy , as "a Book so full of variety of reading", prompted hack authors to borrow shamelessly from
24070-509: Was an unhappy schoolboy. More modern biographers, such as R. L. Nochimson and Michael O'Connell, have regarded it as Burton merely presenting what was a popular sentiment, rather than hinting at any personal dislike or source of childhood melancholy. In July 1593, aged 15, Burton matriculated into Brasenose College , Oxford , where his elder brother was already attending. Burton did not receive his Bachelor's until 30 June 1602, and only after he migrated to Christ Church College in 1599. For
24236-528: Was born on 8 February 1577, to Ralph Burton (1547–1619) and his wife, Dorothy ( née Faunt ; 1560–1629), in Lindley , Leicestershire . Burton believed himself to have been conceived on 9 PM on 25 May 1576, a fact he often used in his astrological calculations. He was the second of four sons and fourth of ten children; his elder brother, William , is the only other member of the family for whom we know more than minor biographical details, as he later became
24402-464: Was buried in the yard of St George's, Hanover Square . His body was said to have been stolen after burial and sold to anatomists at Cambridge University , but was recognised and reinterred. His ostensible skull was found in the churchyard and transferred to Coxwold in 1969 by the Laurence Sterne Trust. Sterne was born in Clonmel , County Tipperary , on 24 November 1713. His father, Roger Sterne,
24568-410: Was dead. The will divided his inherited estates up amongst his elder brother, William, and William's heirs. Outside of his family, his largest bequests went, unsurprisingly, to the Bodleian and Christ Church libraries, with gifts of £100 each, and Burton's large library split between the institutions. He also laid out several smaller monetary donations: those to his servants; the servants at Christ Church;
24734-524: Was erected in 1893, correcting some factual errors on the memorial stone. When the churchyard of St. George's was redeveloped in 1969, amongst 11,500 skulls disinterred, several were identified with drastic cuts from anatomising or a post-mortem examination. One was identified to be of a size that matched a bust of Sterne made by Nollekens. The skull was held up to be his, albeit with "a certain area of doubt". Along with nearby skeletal bones, these remains were transferred to Coxwold churchyard in 1969 by
24900-452: Was important to a man making his way in life. In a difficult birth, Tristram's nose was crushed by Dr. Slop's forceps. Thirdly, another of his father's theories was that a person's name exerted enormous influence over that person's nature and fortunes, with the worst possible name being Tristram. In view of the previous accidents, Tristram's father decreed that the boy would receive an especially auspicious name, Trismegistus . Susannah mangled
25066-428: Was not revealed for nearly thirty years, until the publication of John Ferriar 's Illustrations of Sterne (1798). After Ferriar made this influence known, Burton and his work experienced a revival of interest. A new edition, the first in over a century, was published in 1800; more than forty were published throughout the 19th century. The Romantics , especially Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge , admired
25232-405: Was not wholly successful. Bishop Kennett , writing somewhat later in the 18th century, recorded that Burton could flit between "interval[s] of vapours", in which he was lively and social, and periods of isolation in his college chambers where his peers worried he was suicidal. Kennett hands down that later in his life Burton could arouse himself from these periods of depression only by "going down to
25398-459: Was performed before James I on 27 August 1605. According to a witness of the events, Philip Stringer, Burton's play was poorly received by James and his court. The queen consort and her ladies took offence at several "almost naked" male actors, probably portraying satyrs , and the king was so displeased by the production that the chancellors of both Oxford and Cambridge had to plead for him to stay, as otherwise he "would have gone before half
25564-923: Was presented at the Tabard Theatre in Chiswick . Tristram Shandy has been translated into many languages, including German (repeatedly, beginning in 1769), Dutch (repeatedly, by Munnikhuisen, 1779; Lindo, 1852 and Jan & Gertrude Starink, 1990), French (repeatedly, beginning in 1785; by Guy Jouvet, 2004), Russian (repeatedly, beginning 1804–1807; by Adrian Antonovich Frankovsky, 1949), Hungarian (by Győző Határ , 1956), Italian (by Antonio Meo, 1958), Czech (by Aloys Skoumal, 1963), Slovene (by Janez Gradišnik , 1968), Spanish (by José Antonio López de Letona, 1975; Ana María Aznar, 1976 and Javier Marías , 1978), Portuguese (by José Paulo Paes , 1984), Catalan (by Joaquim Mallafré, 1993), Norwegian (by Bjørn Herrman, 1995–96), Finnish (by Kersti Juva , 1998). Tristram Shandy
25730-463: Was presented to the neighbouring living of Stillington by Reverend Richard Levett , Prebendary of Stillington, who was patron of the living. Subsequently, Sterne did duty both there and at Sutton. He was also a prebendary of York Minster . Sterne's life at this time was closely tied with his uncle, Jaques Sterne, the Archdeacon of Cleveland and Precentor of York Minster. Sterne's uncle
25896-585: Was printed by Ann Ward on Coney Street , York . Sterne had read widely, which is reflected in Tristram Shandy . Many of his similes, for instance, are reminiscent of the works of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century, and the novel as a whole, with its focus on the problems of language, has constant regard for John Locke 's theories in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding . Arthur Schopenhauer called Tristram Shandy one of "the four immortal romances". While
26062-508: Was qualified as a tutor. As early as 1603, Burton indulged in some early literary creations at Oxford, including Latin poems, a now-lost play performed before and panned by King James I himself, and his only surviving play: an academic satire called Philosophaster . This work, though less well regarded than Burton's masterpiece, has "received more attention than most of the other surviving examples of university drama". Sometime after obtaining his MA in 1605, Burton made some attempts to leave
26228-483: Was rumoured that Sterne's body was stolen shortly after it was interred and sold to anatomists at Cambridge University. Circumstantially, it was said that his body was recognised by Charles Collignon , who knew him and discreetly reinterred him back in St George's, in an unknown plot. A year later a group of Freemasons erected a memorial stone with a rhyming epitaph near to his original burial place. A second stone
26394-405: Was seriously ill, and his daughter was also taken ill with a fever. He wrote as fast as he possibly could, composing the first 18 chapters between January and March of 1759. Due to his poor financial position, Sterne was forced to borrow money for the printing of his novel, suggesting that Sterne was confident in the prospective commercial success of his work and that the local critical reception of
26560-679: Was spent from place to place, as his father was regularly reassigned to a new (usually Irish) garrison. "Other than a three-year stint in a Dublin townhouse, the Sternes never lived anywhere for more than a year between Laurence's birth and his departure for boarding school in England a few months shy of his eleventh birthday. Besides Clonmel and Dublin, the Sternes also lived in Wicklow Town; Annamoe , County Wicklow; Drogheda , County Louth; Castlepollard , County Westmeath; Carrickfergus , County Antrim; and Derry City." In 1724, "shortly before
26726-412: Was still only an homunculus , Tristram's implantation within his mother's uterus was disturbed. At the very moment of procreation, his mother asked his father if he had remembered to wind the clock. The distraction and annoyance led to the disruption of the proper balance of humours necessary to conceive a well-favoured child. Secondly, one of his father's pet theories was that a large and attractive nose
26892-482: Was that "Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last." This is strikingly different from the views of continental European critics of the day, who praised Sterne and Tristram Shandy as innovative and superior. Voltaire called it "clearly superior to Rabelais ", and later Goethe praised Sterne as "the most beautiful spirit that ever lived". Swedish translator Johan Rundahl described Sterne as an arch-sentimentalist . The title page to volume one includes
27058-456: Was the most valuable Burton ever held; in 1650, the rectory was valued at £100. Other than that afforded to him by the Countess of Exeter and Lord Berkeley, Burton received little preferment. Because of this, even as he received appointments outside the university, Burton remained an Oxford student for the rest of his life. Burton seems to have been, at first, unhappy with this situation; in
27224-690: Was the satire A Political Romance (1759), aimed at conflicts of interest within York Minster . A posthumously published piece on the art of preaching, A Fragment in the Manner of Rabelais , appears to have been written in 1759. Rabelais was by far Sterne's favourite author, and in his correspondence, he made clear that he considered himself as Rabelais' successor in humour writing, distancing himself from Jonathan Swift . Sterne's novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman sold widely in England and throughout Europe. Translations of
27390-401: Was twenty-six. Some biographers, such as Michael O'Connell and J. B. Bamborough , have cited this as evidence Burton suffered some lengthy illness while a student, possibly melancholy. Record has been found of one "Robart Burton of 20 yeres", a patient of London doctor and astrologist Simon Forman , who was treated for melancholy over a period of five months in 1597. Indeed, 1596 and 1597 are
27556-595: Was untypically large. Burton seems to have been uncomfortable reading outside these two primary languages; he owned only a handful of titles in Italian, German, Spanish, and Hebrew , and none in Greek , the last despite his humanist reputation and the recurring Grecian references in the Anatomy . Again despite this reputation, the majority of Burton's library was contemporary. He owned hundreds of cheap pamphlets, satires, and popular plays: all works which had been excluded from
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