Laurence Sterne Irish writer Date of Birth: 24.11.1713 Country: Ireland

Biography of Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne was an Irish writer who was born in Clonmel, Ireland, in a family of an army officer. In 1723, he was sent to a grammar school in Halifax, where he studied until 1731, the year of his father's death. Thanks to the efforts of his relatives, Sterne was admitted to Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1736, Sterne became a priest and in 1738, he received a living in Sutton-in-the-Forest, where he lived for about 20 years. In his autobiography, Sterne mentions that during this 20-year period of his life, his hobbies were books, painting, playing the violin, and hunting.

In 1758, Sterne's first literary work, "The History of a Good Warm Watch-Coat, with which the present possessor is not content to cover his own shoulders, unless he can cut out of it a petticoat for his wife and a pair of breeches for his son," was published posthumously. This pamphlet satirized the quarrel between two members of the clergy in his circle, and it was the first work where Sterne's humor and irony traits emerged.

In 1759, Sterne started working on his first major work, "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent," with the first two books published at the end of the year in York. Encouraged by the success of these two books, Sterne traveled to London, where he soon became a regular visitor of high society due to his fame and wit. With the help of his newfound noble patrons, Sterne obtained a more lucrative living in Coxwold, where he wrote the third and fourth books of "Tristram Shandy," published in 1761. The following two books (V and VI) were published later the same year. The seventh and eighth books of the novel were published in January 1765, but they did not achieve the same success as the previous ones. The last, ninth book of the novel, remained unfinished and was published in January 1767.

In 1765, Sterne embarked on his famous "Sentimental Journey," which resulted in the publication of two volumes of the novel "The Sentimental Tourney through France and Italy" in 1768. According to the author's plan, these volumes were meant to be the beginning of a new serial novel, after which Sterne intended to return to "Tristram Shandy." However, his plans were interrupted by his death in 1768 in London. Besides the mentioned works, Sterne published collections of his sermons at different times (1760, 1766), written in his characteristic style, which the poet Gray aptly described as having "the most suitable style for the church pulpit, showing the imaginative power and sensitive heart of its author, but often you see him ready to burst into laughter and throw his wig in the face of the listeners."

In 1775, Sterne's daughter, Lydia, published his letters, which are of great biographical and literary interest. Additionally, Sterne's autobiography, written for his daughter shortly before his death, has been preserved. Sterne's works mark the end of the "Enlightenment" period in English literature while also giving clear expression to the tendencies of the new period of this literature's development - "sentimentalism." Before presenting the positive program of sentimentalism, Sterne embarked on a critical path of overcoming the literature of the Enlightenment. He opposed the rationalism of the Enlightenment with sensitivity, and the reason of the Enlightenment with the heart of the sentimentalist. The Enlightenment novel carried criticism of social injustices, but Sterne rejected this criticism. While the Enlightenment was interested in the individual as part of the social organism, Sterne was interested in the individual "in itself," displaying extreme individualism in contrast to the Enlightenment. Sterne's critique of the artistic methods of Enlightenment literature also corresponded to his departure from Enlightenment ideas. The main genre of Enlightenment literature, the novel, becomes the object of Sterne's attack. "Tristram Shandy" is a collection of all possible deviations from the canons of the classical bourgeois novel of the Enlightenment era, as they were theoretically formulated and practically embodied in the works of the greatest novelist of the period, Henry Fielding. The main theme of the novel, the life of the hero, remains in the shadow and does not find its development (Tristram's conception is described in the first chapter of Book I; the process of his birth takes place over 250 pages until his mother finally gives birth to him in Book III, and he only becomes worthy of wearing pants in Book VI). Sterne also disrupts the chronological sequence of events. He uses all the elements of the Enlightenment novel of the mid-18th century - the dedication and preface preceding the novel, the biographical framework of the plot, digressions, the technique of slowing down the denouement, the introduction of reasoning into the descriptive part, debates between characters (which served in the Enlightenment novel for propaganda and moral proof of the author), conversations with the reader, and more. However, Sterne distorts the proportions, emphasizing certain elements at the expense of others, bringing to the forefront what was previously in the background, and disrupting the connection and sequence (placing the dedication and preface in the middle of the book, placing an early chapter of a book in a later part while maintaining the original chapter numbering). In short, Sterne exaggerates the narrative techniques of the Enlightenment novel, pushing them to the extreme and turning them into nonsense. Thus, Sterne creates a parody that explodes the Enlightenment novel from within. Sterne also opposes the moralizing of Enlightenment writers, essentially rejecting the idea of "instructing readers." Sterne shares with the Enlightenment writers his humanity. His works are imbued with a warm feeling of love for humanity. Through the character of Corporal Trim, Sterne declares, "nothing can be sweeter than freedom" ("Tristram Shandy"), but he is far from actively fighting for this freedom.