English Literature / Unit 11 ENL 1016 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy
Captions available
The idea
Laurence Sterne, a Yorkshire clergyman, published Tristram Shandy in nine volumes from seventeen fifty-nine. Its digressive narrator begins with his own conception and does not reach his birth until volume three, meanwhile describing his father Walter and his gentle Uncle Toby.
In practice
Digression as the method.
Where people slip
The novel plays with its own form.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it · Sources for English Literature