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The first four chapters of the book provide a close reading of the satiric, comic, and tragic action of Laurence Sterne’s novel in the context of criticism from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Chapter 5 provides a summary of Chapters 1–4, focusing on Sterne’s purpose in revising satiric plot structures and in blurring the lines between fiction and autobiography. Chapters 6–8 then examine Sterne’s themes from TristramShandythat inform his letters, sermons, and other fiction; Chapter 9 discusses the international reception of TristramShandy and argues for using writing-to-learn strategies to teach Sterne’s greatest novel to undergraduate and graduate students.
With admirable coverage (the letters and sermons as well as the novels) and a sure grasp of the longue durée of Tristram Shandy criticism, Richard C. Raymond is a thoughtful guide to the rich interpretive possibilities of Sterne’s masterpiece.-- Thomas Keymer, Chancellor Henry N.R. Jackman University Professor of English, University of Toronto.
Preface; 1. Walter, Toby, Tristram, and the Reader: Sterne’s Revision of “Dullness”; 2.The Yorick Standard, Walter’s Benevolent Dullness, and Tristram’s Friends:The Plot of Satire in Tristram Shandy; 3. “TrueShandeism”: The Unhappy Comic Action in Tristram Shandy; 4. Isolation and Death: The Tragic Undertones of Shandean Benevolent Dullness; 5. Benevolent Dullness, Ambiguity, and the Reader: Modal Complexity and the Plots of Tristram Shandy; 6. Laurence Sterne’s Letters; 7. The Shandean Sermons of Parson Sterne; 8. Parson Yorick in A Sentimental Journey and in A Continuation of Bramine’s Journal; 9. The International Perspective on Tristram Shandy and the Argument for Using Writing- to-Learn Strategies to Teach Sterne’s Globally Significant Novel ; References; Index