Sentimental Journey L. Stern as a work of English sentimentalism

Early life and education

Laurence Sterne by Joseph Nollekens, 1766, National Portrait Gallery, London Sterne was born in Clonmel, County Tipperary on 24 November 1713.^[1] His father, Roger Sterne, was an ensign in a British regiment recently returned from Dunkirk.^[2] His great-grandfather Richard Sterne had been the Master of Jesus College, Cambridge as well as the Archbishop of York.^[3] 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 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 was spent moving from place to place as his father's was regularly reassigned to a new Despite being promoted Despite being promoted (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,

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 degree of Bachelor of Arts in January 1737 and returned in the summer of 1740 to be awarded his Master of Arts degree.

Early career

²Sterne was ordained as a deacon on 6 March 1737 and as a priest on 20 August 1738.^[14] 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 vicarship 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 was presented to the neighbouring living of Stillington by Rev. 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 was an ardent Whig and urged Sterne to begin a career of political journalism which resulted in some scandal for Sterne and, eventually, a terminal falling-out between the two men.

Jaques Sterne was a powerful clergyman but a mean-tempered man and a rabid politician. In 1741–42 Laurence Sterne wrote political articles supporting the administration of Sir Robert Walpole for a newspaper founded by his uncle but soon withdrew from politics in disgust. His uncle became his arch-enemy, thwarting his advancement whenever possible. Despite the friction with his uncle, Laurence's Whig sympathies remained with him throughout his life.^[23] Laurence lived in Sutton for twenty years, during which time he kept up an intimacy which had begun at Cambridge with John Hall-Stevenson, a witty and accomplished bon vivant, owner of Skelton Hall in the Cleveland district of Yorkshire. Writing

Shandy Hall, Sterne's home in Coxwold, North Yorkshire

In 1759, to support his dean in a church squabble, Sterne wrote A Political Romance (later called The History of a Good Warm Watch-Coat), a Swiftian satire of dignitaries of the spiritual courts. At the demands of embarrassed churchmen, the book was burnt. Thus, Sterne lost his chances for clerical advancement but discovered his real talents; until the completion of this first work, "he hardly knew that he could write at all, much less with humour so as to make his reader laugh".

Having discovered his talent, at the age of 46, he turned over his parishes to a curate, and dedicated himself to writing for the rest of his life. It was while living in the countryside, having failed 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 was seriously ill, and his daughter was also taken ill with a feverHe wrote as fast as he possibly could, composing the first 18 chapters between January and March 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 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

of Tristram Shandy, his love of attention (especially as related to financial success) remained undiminished. In one letter, he wrote "One half of the town abuse my book as bitterly, as the other half cry it up to the skies—the best is, they abuse it and buy it, and at such a rate, that we are going on with a second edition, as fast as possible." Indeed, Baron Fauconberg rewarded Sterne by appointing him as the perpetual curate of Coxwold, North Yorkshire in March 1760.

In 1766, at the height of the debate about slavery, the composer and former slave Ignatius Sancho wrote to Sterne^[33] encouraging him to use his pen to lobby for the abolition of the slave trade.^[34] 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 which he had visited.^[35] Sterne's widely publicised response to Sancho's letter became an integral part of 18th-century abolitionist literature.^[35]

Foreign travel

Further information: Great Britain in the Seven Years' War and

Sterne painted in watercolour by French artist Louis Carrogis Carmontelle, ca. 1762

Sterne continued to struggle with his illness, and departed England for France in 1762 in an effort to find a climate that would alleviate his suffering. Sterne was https://ru.wikipedia.org/

lucky to attach 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 had made him a celebrity. Aspects of this trip to France were incorporated into Sterne's second novel, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.

STERNE'S SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

³Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey (1768), an anti-travelogue

in the same sense that Tristram Shandy is an anti-novel, touches upon

two extremes - satire and/or pornography vs. sentimentalism - that

were dominant literary tastes of the epoch. This book, so notable for

its lack of travel content, appears as a logical continuation and expansion

of Tristram's voyage to France (sans guide) in Book VII of

Tristram Shandy.

Before considering the "journey" itself, however, a word about

Sentimentalism. The words "sensibility" and "sentimental" were

actually French borrowings into English and their meaning "altered

as the conditions they described changed." 1 "Sensibility" was first

used to denote the feeling of sympathy, sweet sadness found in "the

sympathetic contemplation of sorrow."2 Edmund Burke broadened

the term to include "that capacity for enjoying art which depended

upon feeling;" 3 in other words the notion that a sensitive person can

enjoy art without aesthetic training. "By 1760 the term 'sensibility'

meant both the general capacity for feeling and, more commonly,

the specific emotions, sympathy and compassion .. " The adjective

'sentimental' was borrowed to define an attitude in which emotions

prevailed. " 4

Sterne, a sentimentalist par excellence, reflects in his attitude towards

emotion, ideas already expounded by the optimist Shaftesbury

(1671-1713) at the beginning of the century. "Shaftesbury felt nature

as an ideal spirit, revealing itself in matter and forms but not confined

STERNE'S SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

within the objects it inspired." 5 He believed that nature could best be

apprehended through a super-rational experience called "enthusiasm,"

and that by opening oneself up harmoniously to receive the stimuli of

nature, one could become part of the spirit behind it. Emotion was an

important means toward experiencing enthusiasm.

In A Sentimental Journey Sterne shows undaunted enthusiasm in

his emotional responses to the stimuli provided by the external world.

He emphasizes his own thinking and feeling process to such a degree

as to subvert the conventional conception of a travelogue. This work,

furthermore, is generally thought to be a reply to a more conventional

account of the Grand Tour: namely Tobias Smollett's splenetic and

pedestrian Travels through France and Italy. In fact Sterne often

referred to Smollett as "Smelfungus" in his writings.

Sterne's approach to his material is largely didactic; his tone

alternates between sermonizing and badinage. He proposes to study

Nature (i.e., human nature) as well as to educate his readers by

showing them how to commune with the world in a joyous and cosmopolitan

manner. By treating his central character or alter ego with

gentle irony, he is preaching gentle tolerance towards the foibles of

others.

A Sentimental Journey, although inspired by the author's trip to

France, is a fictional work that has practically none of the journalistic

elements found in even the most literary of travel works. The narrator,

the quixotic Yorick, already familiar to readers of the Sermons and

Tristram Shandy, embodies contrasting attitudes, highmindedness vs.

prurience, for example, which the author considered to be inherent

in human nature. The lachrymose Yorick who begs "the world not

to smile but to pity me" coexists with Yorick the raconteur of lascivious

anecdotes. According to G. Stout 6 the author suggests the

duality of his vision by the two-handled title: The qualifier "sentimental"

suggests the subjectivity of a narrative that will emphasize

pathos, feeling, and philanthropy; while "Yorick" calls to mind

Hamlet's "man of infinite jest," as well as Hamlet's ironic, critical

view of himself and the outside world.

The narrative takes the form of a monologue constantly punctuated

by snatches of dialogue between Yorick and other characters. Sometimes

the text becomes a dialogue between two sides of Yorick's

Literature of sentimentalism. stern creativity

The second half of the 18th century in England is a time of changes in the economic, philosophical, social and cultural life of the country. Significant changes are also taking place in English literature. Sentimentalism became the main literary trend of this period.

However, it appears much earlier. Within the framework of the philosophy and literature of the Enlightenment, the first sentimentalist tendencies appeared in the mid-30s, in the works of the greatest English poets of that time: James Thomson, ⁴Edward Young, Thomas Gray. Later, elements of sentimentalism found their

But this trend reaches its highest flowering in the work of one of the most prominent writers of the 18th century - Lawrence Stern. In England, sentimentalism has its own characteristics. The social prerequisites for it were, first of all, the impoverishment of the masses and disillusionment with the bourgeois progress of society. The peculiarities of English sentimentalism are also due to the moderate nature of the struggle of the enlighteners with the old aristocratic culture. The literature of sentimentalism is deeply democratic. In the works of sentimentalist writers, interest in the little man, sympathy for his troubles, awakens.

As already indicated above (see Chapter 1), Hume's agnosticism and Smith's categoricality are two sides of the philosophical trend that laid the foundations of the ethics and aesthetics of sentimentalism.

The rejection of the rationalism of the enlighteners and the appeal to feeling as a source of human improvement determine the paths of the development of the aesthetics of English sentimentalism. In the writings of Aikenside, Hutcheson, Kemes, Beatty, the primacy of feeling over reason is affirmed both in the moral development of a person and in his comprehension of the beautiful. A special role in the formation of the aesthetics of sensationalism and subsequent literary trends is acquired by the book of the English publicist and philosopher Edmund Burke "A Philosophical Study on the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful" (1757). These categories, according to Burke, have completely different sources: joy and fear. Burke concludes that both positive and negative emotions are necessary for the development of human character. On their basis, passions arise that can change the personality. The misfortunes of a person give him the opportunity to sympathize with the misfortunes of others. Certain religious movements also contribute to the development of the ethics and aesthetics of sentimentalism. Among them, the most important was Methodism, with its rejection of the dogmas of the Anglican Church, the glorification of immediate feeling and intuitive attraction to God.

The literature of sentimentalism, emerging on this basis, proclaims the cult of the senses. She sought to show the richness of emotions and their role in the formation of personality. Sentimental writers are ready to influence the souls of their readers, glorifying life in the bosom of nature, depicting the ruinousness of urban civilization. Their works are characterized by high emotionality and simplicity of expression at the same time. Their task is to make the reader believe what they are portraying, empathize with the heroes of their misfortune and become cleaner and better from this.

However, at a later stage of sentimentalism, English writers are already well aware that a person cannot be changed with the help of sensitivity alone. And then in their works pictures of the struggle of human passions appear, contradictory feelings are depicted, portraits of heroes with a complex inner world appear, in which high moral qualities do not always prevail over low motives. That is why the literature of late sentimentalism is characterized not only by sensitivity and gentle humor, but sometimes also by a skeptical grin.

In the first period of the development of English sentimentalism, the main works were lyrical. They served as the most appropriate way to express the emotions and feelings of an individual. In vivid sensual images, they painted emotional impulses, mood variations.

The most characteristic hero of the poetry of sentimentalists is a person close to nature, her enthusiastic admirer. Poets glorify the loneliness of a person left alone with himself, when he reflects on his deeds in front of God and glorifies the beauty of the surrounding nature. Very often the lyrical hero of sentimental poetry is a young poet.

Another theme of the poetry of sentimentalism, inseparable from the first, is the vanity of life, the short duration of its joys and the persistence of sorrows. The hero reflects on the frailty of all living things. Grief for the departed is mixed with the light sadness of memories of them.

Works about the death and frailty of everything earthly are called "cemetery poetry."

Most often, sentimental poets write in the elegy genre. Solemn odes and didactic poems no longer appeal to them.

One of the first manifestations of sentimentalism in poetry was the work of James Thomson (1700 - 1748), which was a kind of transitional phenomenon in English literature. Scots by birth, Thomson, after graduating from the University of Edinburgh, lived in London. He entered the history of literature primarily as the author of the four-part poem "The Seasons". Relying on Virgil's Georgics as a model, Thomson creates a completely original work, in which sentimental tendencies are extremely strong along with the classicist traditions. However, these tendencies never prevailed in his poetry.

The manifestation of divine will in the world around us (according to Thomson's thought, God is embodied in nature, and this brings the poet closer to pantheists) corresponds to the desire of man to comprehend the will of providence. The very orderliness of the idea of ​​the poem, the constant transitions from observation to reflection, show how the human mind works. But deep thoughts are born only in those who have felt what they saw, says Thomson. Feeling arises only in close communication with nature. It was she who became the center of the poem. By its very perfection, nature develops feelings and emotions. In Thomson's understanding, man is an integral part of nature and its embodiment. And the feelings that he experiences are instilled in him as a result of communication with the world around him of fields, forests and mountains. However, in poetry

⁵Thomson's pictures of nature are still quite generalized. They do not contain specific observations or descriptions of any specific places. The feelings of the lyrical hero, awakened by nature, are vague and devoid of individual shades.

Thomson's work is a descriptive poem in its genre. Its main content - a description of nature at different times of the year - is interrupted by a story about individual incidents or by an appeal to the reader with moralizing instructions. The life of animals and the occupation of people, the hard peasant labor and entertainment of the villagers, the difficult road of the weary traveler wandering through the blizzard, and the contentment of people who provided themselves with food for the winter are directly related to nature.

Each season appears on a detailed canvas in its uniqueness and originality. So, describing spring, he depicts a gradual awakening of nature, the revival of the earth to life. The poet shows in detail how animals, birds, and people react to her arrival. Spring becomes a kind of allegory of love that he feels for all living things.

Summer is described differently. Here is a picture of one summer day from sunrise to sunset. The poet depicts the daily work of the peasants, their humble family joys.

Autumn ”contains pictures of nature preparing for sleep and rest. Completes the cycle of works "Winter". There is another meaning hidden in Thomson's tetralogy. The Seasons is an allegory of human life from birth to death.

A distinctive feature of the poem is its patriotism. Despite the generalization of images, it contains pictures of the English nature, England and her people are glorified. Written in blank verse, Thomson's poem has evoked many imitations.Still further along the path of depicting feelings and emotions is another English poet of this period - Edward Young (1683 - 1765). His biography is not rich in events. After graduating from Oxford University, Jung became a priest in 1727.

Peru Jung owns an aesthetic treatise that played an important role in the establishment of sentimentalism - "Thoughts on the original work" (1759). This work glorifies feelings and imagination and affirms their superiority over reason. Jung requires the poet to imitate nature and follow its laws in the creative process, a harmonious combination of feelings and thoughts with high morality.

Jung began his poetry in the late 1720s with poems of religious and didactic content. But one of his last poems "Complaint, or Night Thoughts about Life, Death and Immortality" (1742 - 1745), in which the poet discusses the brevity of human life on earth and the eternal future, gained the greatest fame. It was this poem that marked the beginning of "cemetery poetry" in the literature of English sentimentalism.The poem is based on contrasting pictures. Against the background of a gloomy image of a night cemetery, which inspires horror and reminds of the inevitability of death, the image of a lyrical hero arises, reflecting on the purpose of life and the purpose of man on earth. Jung comes to the conclusion that suffering and dissatisfaction with his existence in this world is the eternal destiny of man. But they serve only as proof that happiness awaits him in the afterlife if he is virtuous here, in earthly life. The task of the poem is to create a certain mood in the reader, emotionally colored and enriched with the impressions of what has been described. The poem, like Thomson's cycle about the seasons, is overloaded with didactics. But the enthusiasm with which Jung defends his ideas, constant appeals to the reader with questions that seem to challenge him, the tension of the "blank verse" with which the poem was written, numerous repetitions, original comparisons and vivid images that support this tension - all this explains to us the fact that Jung's poem was a great success both at home and on the continent and caused many imitations.A huge role in the development of English sentimental poetry belongs to Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771). Gray was born into the family of a wealthy merchant, received an excellent classical education; he studied first at a privileged college at Eton and then at Cambridge. After graduating from university in 1739, he traveled extensively throughout Europe with his friend Horace Walpole, the future author of the first "Gothic novel", "Castle of Otranto". All this leaves an imprint on his work. On his return from this trip to Cambridge, where he spent most of his life, Gray begins to write odes in the classical style. However, he soon abandoned the classical style of writing. Gray's poems Towards Spring, West's Death, and A Distant View of Eton College (1747) herald the emergence of a new style. The lyrical hero of these poems vividly feels the beauty of nature, and the sadness of memories of an irrevocably gone childhood, and the pain of the loss of friends. Of great importance in the work of Gray is his program work "Ode to the Development of Poetry" (1758). The old genre of ode here serves to embody new impressions with the help of feelings and imagination. Central to Gray's poetry is Elegy Written in a Country Cemetery (1751). The setting in which the lyrical hero of the work is placed is characteristic of “cemetery poetry”. In the evening twilight, he wanders through the village cemetery, reads the inscriptions on the graves and reflects on those who fell asleep here in eternal sleep. However, unlike Jung, reflections on the inevitable death of a person lead him to different conclusions. Again and again remembering the dead people, he thinks that the poetic genius, the talent of a scientist, and the ability of a politician could have gone unnoticed in the wilderness. Difficult living conditions did not allow them to develop. Yet Gray prefers a peaceful life in rural seclusion to the empty, albeit brilliant life of the nobility. He chooses a rural idyll that allows him to walk the path of life without worries and worries, in the quiet joys of unity with nature:

Hiding from the worldly perilous turmoil,

Without fear and hope in the valley of this life,

Not knowing sorrow, not knowing pleasures,

They walked carelessly along their path ...

Love kept their memory on this stone,

Their years, their names are drawn out,

She depicted biblical morality around,

Why should we learn to die

(Translated by V. Zhukovsky)

One picture of nature is replaced by another. All of them are perceived differently by the hero. And each leaves its mark. The beauty of nature is projected onto his feelings, evoking sympathy for people, sublime thoughts about the greatness of the environment and the desire to merge with nature. This is how the "Elegy" creates harmony between man and the Universe. It arises as a result of his abandonment of the fruitless pursuit of illusory happiness and outwardly attractive rewards.

The measured flow of rhymed verse, as is written "Elegy", smooth transitions from one description to another, an abundance of typically sentimental comparisons and metaphors create a calm tone that leads the reader to think about himself and his time. An important place in "Elegy" is occupied by the image of the poet. This is a melancholy pensive person, immersed in contemplation of nature, in solitude indulging in his thoughts. He could bring his poetry to people, inspired by these paintings. But a tragic fate awaits the poet. Lonely and incomprehensible, he goes through his life. The same image of a subtle and impressionable person appears in the work of another sentimental poet James Beattie (1735 - 1803) "Minstrel" (1774). The author shows how the poetic gift develops in the hero of the poem. It is nature, in complete unity with which he lives, that becomes the source of his inspiration and sublime melancholy that permeates his work.

During this period, other representatives of the school of sentimentalists also create their best poems. These are William Cowper (1731 - 1800) and George Crabbe (1754 - 1832). In their poetry, along with the glorification of a solitary life near nature, accusatory, social motives arise and intensify. They sound especially distinctly in the poem of another representative of sentimentalism, Oliver Goldsmith (1728 - 1774) "The Abandoned Village" (1770). It combines an idyllic description of the past, in which the peace and tranquility of village life reigned, and an angry denunciation of the perpetrators of the calamities of modern society. The poet indignantly describes the ruin of the peasants as a result of the industrial revolution and fencing. Driven from their land, they are doomed to eternal wanderings in search of their corner. Sad pictures of an abandoned village, where nothing reminds of the former idyll, complete the poem.

Goldsmith also addresses the subject of oppressors and oppressed in his largest prose, one of the most notable examples of sentimental prose, The Priest of Weckfield (1766). Here Goldsmith is still in many ways close to the authors of traditional educational novels. Like them, the writer asserts the need for a harmonious, logically complete composition, speaks of the integrity of the characters. But in his work, the educational novel acquires important new features. "Weckfield Priest" belongs to the genre of the family and everyday novel, which is so characteristic of educational prose. It tells the story of the family of the provincial pastor Primroz, in which patriarchal relations reign. Goldsmith views this relationship from a sentimental perspective. The members of the Primrose family live in an idyllic setting: peace and harmony are almost always in their house. The writer draws a charming image of his hero, naive, sometimes funny, blindly believing people. Primroz is a person who lives by conscience, guided by his own feelings, the main of which is sympathy and sympathy for others. However, the characters of "Weckfield Priest" are not models of behavior, not ideal. Goldsmith endows his characters with comic features that make their characters more alive - Primroz's wife is smug, his daughters are vain, and his son is frivolous. The writer makes fun of them a little, of their inability to live and how often they take wishful thinking.

However, this idyllic world must inevitably face a harsh reality. Goldsmith understands this very well. The moral principles of the pastor are incompatible with the laws of bourgeois society. Deceived in his trust in people, offended, Primroz goes bankrupt and ends up in a debt prison. Here he sees that life, the existence of which he had not previously suspected.

⁶Although Goldsmith is quite truthful in describing the terrible pictures of poverty and in many respects in their depiction relies on the traditions of the educational novel, in his denunciation of the world around him he is not consistent enough.

The writer ends the tragic story with a happy outcome. By restoring balance in the idyllic world of Pastor Primroz, he affirms the harmony of family and social relations. He finds their support in the healthy way of life of the third estate. It is here that the foundations of true relations between people arise, the essence of which is mutual understanding and sympathy for each other, it is here that the author sees examples of sincerity, decency and benevolence. This is how the ideas of Hume and Smith are confirmed in Goldsmith's work.

The same ideas are reflected in the works of prose writers of late sentimentalism. Among them, the name of the writer Henry MacKenzie (1745 - 1831), the author of the novel "Man of Feeling", stands out. But Mackenzie looks at life more soberly than Goldsmith, the hero of his novel Harley is powerless in the face of the evil he faced in London, where he came to bother about his affairs. The hero's sensitivity is his only weapon in the fight against evil and injustice. But she is naive and funny. The tragicomic hero Mackenzie dies without achieving victory.

In the subsequent novels by Mackenzie "The Man of Light" (1773) and "Julia de Rubinier" (1777), the sensitive hero becomes the main character, but the exalted feelings of the heroes become a common cliche. By this time, English sentimentalism is already beginning to show crisis features.

A relatively short period of heyday of sentimental literature in England falls on the 60s, when the largest representative of the prose of sentimentalism, the outstanding English writer of the mid-18th century Stern, wrote. Laurence Sterne (1713 - 1768) was born in the south of Ireland in the family of an infantry officer. As a child, together with his family, he had to constantly move from place to place, wandering around the barracks. When the future writer was 18 years old, his father died. Thanks to the help of relatives, he graduated from the University of Cambridge, and then received a parish in Yorkshire, where he served as a curate for over 20 years. At one time he worked for a newspaper published by the Whigs, but soon retired from journalism.

In 1762, Stern went on a trip to Europe. He visited France and Italy, met with the most prominent figures of the French Enlightenment Diderot and Holbach. The writer died in London from tuberculosis.

Stern's literary heritage includes two novels - The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, a Gentleman (1760 - 1767), which consists of 9 books, and Mr. Yorick's Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768). The second novel remained unfinished. Both books were enthusiastically received by the readers. In addition, Stern owns a collection of church sermons (1760 - 1768) and a collection of letters published by his daughter already posthumously, as well as A Diary for Eliza (1767). These latter works serve as a valuable source both for biographers of the writer and for researchers of his literary views.

In his work, Stern summed up sentimentalism in English literature and at the same time outlined the ways for its further development. His books have become a symbol of a transitional era. Without breaking with the cult of feelings, he, nevertheless, treats it with irony and skepticism. This is how the famous art of Stern arises - the art of hidden allusion, the art of half-denial-half-affirmation, in which sensitivity is combined with satire, where the subtext is no less important than what is said openly.

A keen interest in a person as a unique personality, unique in its development, became the basis on which all of Stern's work was built. His books assert the human right to freely express himself in spite of all the difficulties of life. These features of Stern's work require new artistic means, which, however, do not deny the experience of the writers of the Enlightenment. In continuous polemics with them, and at the same time in reliance on them, the novelist's artistic method arises.

⁷The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy is a work that at the same time continues the traditions of an educational family and everyday novel, and completely denies them. The entire structure of the novel contradicts the traditional educational idea of ​​the plot. And the main problems that Stern raises in it are the eternal problems of educational literature, but they are solved in a completely new way. Stern summed up sentimentalism in English literature and at the same time outlined the ways for its further development. His books have become

The name itself contains this contradiction. The usual "Life and Adventure" is replaced here by "Life and Opinions".

At the center of the book is the question of human nature and how it is portrayed. Stern shifts the emphasis from the traditional teaching of the reader in educational novels to the study of the character of the hero. He does not so much talk about the actions of the characters, as he explores the reasons that prompted them to these actions.

The character image is made up of individual remarks and comments contained in deviations from the main storyline.

The author devotes considerable space to the description of seemingly quite insignificant events and their perception by the hero. He emphasizes the role of feelings in this perception, their immediacy and immediacy.

The worldview of a person and his relationship with other people occupy a central position in the narrative, and the place of the external history of human life is taken by the “biography of the soul”.

Stern significantly complicates the educational concept of character. The author chooses the complex and contradictory spiritual world of his hero as the object of the image. At the same time, Stern discovers in him one dominant feature: it is a passion for the study of man. The hero is constantly engaged in introspection and analysis of human nature.

Tristram, and with him the author, notice the most important thing in the analyzed character and in his relations with others. This is how a "novel-game" with its peculiar architectonics arises, which "overturns" the traditional structure of the enlightenment novel. Stern creates a new structure that seems to follow the author's line of thought, and the world of his novel has a form, as it were, inherent in the thought process itself.

The writer does not just explode the traditional principles of composition of the novel from the inside.

Artistic time and space have the greatest uniqueness. Following the theory and practice of the educational novel,

Artistic time and space have the greatest uniqueness. Following the theory and practice of the educational novel, Stern would have to begin the story from the moment the hero was born. The writer seems to obediently follow the norm, but in fact ironically refutes it. Having begun in the first chapter the narrative from the moment of conception, by the end of the huge book he brings the story only to the first months of the hero's life. Time in this main storyline moves very slowly, almost imperceptibly. This happens because the story involves countless detailed, most thorough observations, which usually do not stop the artist's gaze. However, the time in Stern's novel is multi-layered. In parallel with the slow flow of the newborn's life, the events that happened to Tristram when he was five years old pass before the reader. And since the story in the first person is already led by an adult hero-narrator, the time frame of the novel is significantly expanded due to information that includes the life experience of the narrator. The artistic space of the novel is just as heterogeneous and multistage.

In front of the reader's eyes, the past becomes the present, and the present turns into the past. The time sequence does not depend on astronomical time, but on the course of the author's thought. In addition, the story is constantly interrupted by all sorts of digressions, leaps into the past, inserted stories about people and events that have nothing to do with the life of Tristram Shandy.

The structure of Stern's novel is due to the paradox of man's existence in time and outside it, in the timeless. consciousness. This is how the dialectical unity of the chronological sequence of the events described and its conscious violation by the author arises. This violation is due to the narrator's attempt to accommodate in a single moment the phenomena of different times passed through human consciousness, and to show human experience in its entirety.

This structure of the novel is determined primarily by the philosophy of Locke, the only philosopher whose name is mentioned in the novel. In accordance with it, the writer seeks to stop the train of thought for a moment and show how it arises. At the same time, the principle of selection of the described events is the unity and integrity of the consciousness of the narrator himself. And the apparent randomness of this selection is actually predetermined by two aspects of Locke's philosophy: the theory of sensations and the theory of the association of ideas. Stern shows how concrete images that arise in consciousness along with pleasant emotions lead to the formation of abstract ideas and how then the author moves from thought to newly created images that evoke feeling.

Such a construction of the novel was born not only by an attempt to psychologically accurately reproduce the train of thought. She has one more basis: "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy"

Is both a story about the fate of the hero and how this fate becomes the subject of description. In the novel, the theme of creativity arises. “Writing books,” the author claims, “when done skillfully (and I have no doubt that this is the case in this case), is tantamount to conversation ... The best way to show respect for the mind of the reader is to share your thoughts with him in a friendly way, leaving some work to his imagination as well. " Stern constantly draws the reader's attention to how the act of creativity itself occurs. The reader is presented with the process of creating a novel, not a finished work. The writer deliberately emphasizes those traits in character and psychology that contribute to creative activity: subtle sensitivity and energy of imagination. This is how another and main time layer of "Tristram Shandy" appears. it

- the time of the author, the time when the novel is being written. This is a generalizing time layer, which dialectically includes the individual time of the narrator, and the history of his family, and events that do not take place with him.

⁸From the same point of view, the author justifies numerous deviations. "After all, some new topic may arise or an unexpected thing may happen between me and the reader, which does not tolerate delay." Stern uses a variety of techniques to show how alien thoughts invade the thought of the association of ideas and how the artist's thought works. There are inconsistent chapter numbers, missing pages, and deliberate typographical errors. The book reveals all the methods of connecting separate parts. Stern not only understands this, but deliberately emphasizes it. One of the accented features of Tristram Shandy is its fragmentation. The episode, having suddenly begun, just as suddenly ends.

The word plays a huge role in the novel. The author plays up his smallest nuances and even understatement. These shades, omitted or added details add ambiguity to many of the characters' statements.

Thus, the deliberate disorder in the structure of the novel embodies the strictly thought out logical plan of the writer. And the reason he denies is present as the organizing center of the plot, developing at first glance only at the whim of the senses. The author's irony is also important here, which is embodied in a kind of “distortion” of the structure of “Tristram Shandy”.

The main character of the novel is Tristram Shandy, who is also the narrator. This is Stern's own double, but he also opposes the author. This character is both a conscientious reproduction of the "I" of the narrator of educational novels, and at the same time his funny parody. Irony plays an important role in creating the image of Tristram Shandy. The hero appears before the reader as "the one and the wrong one." Having set himself the goal of consistently presenting the course of events in his life, because of "excessive" painstakingness, he gets more and more confused in details and moves away from the goal. Numerous associations lead him into the jungle of retreats. The author is forced to stop, then turn back, then rapidly look into the future. Stern constantly emphasizes the relativity of knowledge about the world, the inadequacy of the perception of the world and the possibility of the existence of different points of view.

Since Stern's book belongs to the genre of a family and everyday novel, representatives of the Shandi family with their characters and individual characteristics are involved in the story. The central figures of this circle of characters are the brothers Walter and Toby Shandy, the father and uncle of Tristram. Their very name is significant. In the Yorkshire dialect, it means "a foolish man." It’s such a "jerk", a manifestation of eccentricity, and becomes the basis on which the writer builds the characters of the heroes. Each of them, thanks to this eccentricity, or "skate", as Stern calls him, continues to be himself in a world where everything is uniform.

Walter Shandy is a model of the rational worldview. A former merchant and provincial landowner during the novel, he became rich in trade and can now afford to lecture others. His firm conviction that a person should be educated from early childhood, developing his mind, is extremely reminiscent of the rationality of teachers from "Tom Jones, Foundling" by Henry Fielding. He is compiling a guide to raising his son - "Tristrapedia", with the goal of reasonably arranging his life. But Walter Shandy would not be a character in Stern's book if only these traits determined his character. As one of a cohort of eccentrics, a parody of scholastic educators, he bears the characteristic features of Shendism. Walter devoted himself entirely to the study of the science of "nasology", convinced that the shape of the nose can determine the future of a person. Shandy talks with importance about the insignificant things that, in his opinion, affect the fate of people. Uncle Toby is the complete opposite of his brother. This is a character who lives with feelings and emotions. Toby is kind, generous and magnanimous, naive and shy, and sometimes gullible, like a child. Uncle Toby's naivety sometimes goes beyond all limits. But it is in these moments that he suddenly discovers a natural sanity and intuitively comprehends the meaning of phenomena that is inaccessible to his dogmatic brother. His kindness helps him to comprehend the grief of his neighbor and come to his aid. This is the case with Lieutenant Lefebvre, whose son Toby is raising.

⁹But the sensibility of Uncle Toby's old soldier, like Walter Shandy's rationalism, is put to the test by Stern's life. And in this test, both of them turn out to be equally untenable. Uncle Toby's feelings are often exchanged over trifles.

His life is as empty as his brother's. His "strong point" is the game of war. On the lawn near the house, he is playing military battles with his orderly. Stern makes a good laugh at Uncle Toby's eccentricities.

Samples of secondary characters are also painted with humor. And among them is the one who will become the central character of Stern's next novel, Sentimental Journey, is Pastor Yorick. The name Yorick is borrowed by Stern from Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. It is symbolic in itself. It combines the extreme poles: buffoonery and a reminder of death. But the name Yorick also reminds of Yorkshire. This is a caricature of his own character and a kind of auto parody. The main feature of the tragicomic figure of Yorick in "Tristram Shandy" is endless kindness, sometimes causing trouble for himself. Yorick is a village priest who is constantly asked for help. And he doesn't refuse anyone.

In Sentimental Journey (1768), this image changes dramatically and acquires extraordinary complexity and contradiction. Here, as in Tristram, the story is told in the first person. But this time the storyteller is Pastor Yorick. Sentimental Journey is Stern's programmatic work. It consistently follows the main principles of the writer's aesthetics, deepens the view of the world, which was reflected already in the first novel.

The genre of "travel notes" was widely known in 18th century English literature. Descriptions of the journey across the continent ("grand tour"), in which wealthy young gentlemen accompanied by mentors-companions were required to complete their education, were published quite often.

However, Stern's work differed sharply from them both in form and in content. Outwardly, it resembles the notes of an inquisitive traveler. Many chapters are named after the names of the cities he visited. However, Stern needs the imaginary reliability of the description only in order for the reader to plunge into the world familiar to him at first glance. And then surprises await him. There is no description of the places in the book, no accurate statement of the facts, no assessment of what the author saw. The chronology is broken in it, there is no harmonious composition. The description of minor episodes grows to enormous proportions, overgrown with seemingly unnecessary details. Conversely, significant events are spoken of in passing, in passing. The book begins in the middle of a dialogue between Yorick (“In France,” I said, “it’s arranged better!”) And an unknown person. Further, the hero makes an unexpected decision - to travel around France in order to see everything for himself. The book also breaks off in a half-phrase. The sequence of presentation is broken by inserted episodes and borrowings from other works. And individual scenes are connected in such a way that the noble deeds that the hero committed in some are explained by unseemly reasons in others.

It turns out that the author is not at all interested in what the traveler saw. He only cares how he perceived what he saw. Just as in the first novel, Stern, as it were, puts psychological experience. His hero, torn from his usual life, must be a cold-blooded observer of everything that comes his way. But emotions, quirks, complexity of character do not allow Yorick to be just an observer. They make him a participant in events, leave an imprint on his soul.

"Sentimental Journey", like "Tristram Shandy", becomes a journey into the inner world of the hero. It is necessary in order to reveal his spiritual qualities, to show his weaknesses and virtues, the contradictory character and the importance of momentary impressions for his formation. And if in Tristram the events were shown as if from the outside, then in the new novel they are passed through the consciousness and feelings of the narrator, experienced by him.

¹⁰Stern makes pastor Yorick his hero for a reason. A sensitive person, easily amenable to impressions, he becomes a repository of the most contradictory sensations, thoughts and feelings. Stern depicts the smallest shades of his experiences, their overflows and modifications, a sudden change of mood. He shows how, in a specific situation, a struggle arises in Yorick's soul between generosity and stinginess, nobility and baseness, courage and cowardice. Moreover, noble feelings do not always prevail in this struggle.

Stern builds the character of the protagonist in accordance with the theories of Hume and Smith, in which sympathy for one's neighbor is the main ethical category. But in this same theory of Hume, he also finds a rejection of its imperativeness. The skepticism of the philosopher is also perceived by his followers. Stern doubts man's eternal virtue and his desire for mercy. He knows all too well how many other feelings are hidden in human nature. This leads to the destruction of the sentimental canon.

Yorick is a typical sentimental hero and at the same time his denial. His feelings are always moderate and colored with light irony in relation to reality, to other people, to himself. Yorick's sensitivity has a subtle tinge of skepticism. He is impulsive and often begins to act on a sudden impulse of the soul. But for every such outburst of feelings he has a certain amount of egoism mixed in. And he immediately pulls himself back sharply.

When he does a bad deed, he often tries to justify it by resorting to rationalistic arguments. But they quickly collapse under the pressure of feelings. However, his very feelings are vague. So, , Yorick intellectually understands that he should be merciful and noble, but sometimes this nobility is purely rational in nature Yorick intellectually understands that he should be merciful and noble, but sometimes this nobility is purely rational in nature. He begins to act under compulsion, because from the point of view of morality "it is necessary." And only when sincerity, a sense of empathy, compassion wins in him, does Stern's hero transform.

These are the episodes from the first chapters of the book relating to the story of the monk from Calais. Yorick wants to give him alms, but avarice is the top. The second meeting with the monk takes place when Yorick is in the company of a lovely lady. The writer shows the complex world of passions that overwhelm the hero. He is afraid that the monk will complain to a stranger, and at the same time he sets himself up for the traditional English distrust of the Catholic Church. Cowardice, hypocrisy, and hypocrisy are found here. Finally, Yorick gives alms to the monk, explaining that there is an exchange of gifts. Avarice is defeated, and yet this victory is accompanied by the most conflicting feelings. Yorick watches himself intently. Often he analyzes his actions and feelings that accompany them. It is noteworthy that such an analysis is never rationalistic. Rather, it is an alloy of tender sensitivity, narcissism and sly mockery of oneself. And all this is colored with humor, with the help of which the author comments on the described. The soul of a person is revealed to the reader in the process of experiencing what has been lived and seen. This description "from within" appears in 18th century English prose. first.

However, the hero often judges himself superficially. More precisely, Yorick does not always want to judge himself "by conscience." After all, his actions contradict the ideal that he claims. Thus, his arrogant chastity constantly comes into conflict with the temptations that come his way. And in fear of the Bastille, he is ready to humiliate himself to flattery to a noble nobleman. Yorick himself sometimes feels these contradictions. “It would be unpleasant for me,” the sentimental hero confesses, “if my enemy looked into my soul when I’m going to ask someone for protection.” I deserve the Bastille for each of them! "

Yorick's superficial introspection is explained not only by the fact that the hero lies to himself, trying to seem better than he is. Sometimes Stern deliberately does not fully investigate the causes of behavior, leaving the reader to solve this or that difficult psychological problem on his own. So, a kind of subtext arises in the book. What motivates Yorick when he throws angry philippics about freedom at the sight of a starling in a cage? Resentment against slavery or fear for their own independence? The author does not answer such questions, and the reader is not always able to answer them. The answer can be twofold. And this ambiguity of the decision is predetermined in the character of the hero. There are no extremes in it - good and evil. But his truth is also relative. Stern forever rejects the enlightenment's assertion that man is a being who intelligently solves his problems. His hero is ordinary and therefore he is an anti-rationalist.

Sometimes the hero's affectation puts him in a ridiculous position. And he does not notice this: “I sat down next to her, and Maria allowed me to wipe my tears with my handkerchief when they fell, - then I moistened it with my own tears, then with Mary's tears - then my own - then again wiped her tears with them - and when I did it, I felt in myself an indescribable excitement that cannot be explained by any combination of matter and motion. " This is how Yorick describes his meeting with a girl who has gone mad with love, simultaneously making an attack on the materialistic teaching about the source of feelings. But Stern makes equal jokes about the vulgar-materialistic explanation of how feelings arise, and about the excessive exaltation of his hero.

¹¹The portrait of the hero is ambiguous, but psychologically accurate. Yorick perceives the contradictions of human nature as something inevitable and enduring. Seeing the limitedness of human capabilities and the even more limited ability of a person to cognize, he can only laugh bitterly at these contradictions, but does not try to correct anything. He also considers the satirical ridicule of reality to be unnecessary and fruitless. Hence, an equal acceptance of good and evil, demonstrative amoralism arises. The essence of Stern's art, according to I. Vertzman [1], is that he proclaimed as his motto "wisdom grieving in the shell of clownish humor over the tragic course of life."

The Sentimental Journey culminated in the development of English sentimentalism, and Yorick can be called the herald of a new type of hero to be developed later in realistic prose of the 19th century. Stern's letters and his "Diary for Eliza" are also not only of historical and cultural interest. In them, the image of the "I" -the narrator continues to become more complex. The hero lives simultaneously in the real world and in the world of illusion - on earth with its very real worries and troubles and in the realm of dreams. Stern continues to pursue the same goal: by showing the complexity and impermanence of the human character, he demonstrates new ways of portraying the person.

Stern's work received a wide response outside England, having a great influence on European literature, in particular on the literature of Germany and Russia. One example of this influence is Karamzin's Letters of a Russian Traveler (1801). Responses to Stern's work are found in Pushkin and Gogol, and in many Russian authors of the second half of the 19th century.