A Sentimental Journey and Other Writings (Oxford World's Classics) [Paperback]

Laurence Sterne (Author), Tim Parnell (Editor), Ian Jack (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0199537186 | ISBN-13: 978-0199537181 | Publication Date: December 15, 2008 | Edition: New

'Love is nothing without feeling. And feeling is still less without love.'

Celebrated in its own day as the progenitor of 'a school of sentimental writers', A Sentimental Journey (1768) has outlasted its many imitators because of the humour and mischievous eroticism that inform Mr Yorick's travels. Setting out to journey to France and Italy he gets little further than Lyons but finds much to appreciate, in contrast to contemporary travel writers whom Sterne satirizes in the figures of Smelfungus and Mundungus. A master of ambiguity and double entendre, Sterne is nevertheless as concerned as his peers with exploring the nature of virtue; unlike other writers of sentimental fiction Sterne insists on the inseparability of desire and feeling.

This new edition includes a selection from The Sermons of Mr Yorick, which shed light on the concerns of the Journey, The Journal to Eliza, which records Sterne's feelings as he languishes for the company of Eliza Draper, and A Political Romance, the satire on a local ecclesiastical squabble that was the catalyst for Sterne's literary career.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tim Parnell, Lecturer in English, Goldsmith's College, University of London. Ian Jack, Professor Emeritus of English, University of Cambridge.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; New edition (December 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199537186
• ISBN-13: 978-0199537181
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #215,094 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Reference > Writing > Travel
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great supplement for fans of Sterne, May 6, 2004

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Frikle - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Sentimental Journey and Other Writings (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

Most readers are familiar with Sterne for his more famous Tristram Shandy. This volume contains some of his other works. Personally, I found Tristram to be of a much higher caliber, mainly because it is a complete epic which covers so many of Sterne's theories and rantings. So, if you're encountering Sterne for the first time, go to Tristram. For fans wanting some more writings, this is a good collection.

The first section is A Sentimental Journey. We already have a part of a travelogue of Tristram in his self-titled work. In this one, it is the marvellous personage Yorick that undergoes the journey through Italy and France. The book in in the form of a ranty journal that supposedly draws from Sterne's own travels. He intended to publish 4 volumes but wrote 2 before other pursuits and eventually death caught up with him. In the work, his sentimentalism relaly comes through as he goes through various amusing incidents, tragic stories and semi-amorous adventures. All this is done with a certain dignity. The 2nd volume ends in a scene of planned abruption which I found amusing enough to justify the rest of the book.

I didn't read the next two pieces, the first one because I didn't want to pry into his private life and the second because it was hard to follow the context. The pieces are Journal to Eliza - a personal correspondence, and A Political Romance - his first published work which is a satire on a scandal which, with the proper background should be interesting.

The last section is a selection from the Sermons of Yorick, where the eccentric Shandean minister makes another appearance providing Sterne with an opportunity to make theological statements. These were very interesting, giving light to another side of Sterne. They are all based on a single biblical verse and explore its themes in termes of human experience.

The only possible inconvenience is that like many modern publications, this has endnotes rather than footnotes and because contextual explanations are necessary, you have to flip back and forth. Otherwise, a great insight into the writer and person behind Tristram.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lot's Of Stuff BESIDES The Title Novella, May 16, 2011

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S. Pactor "reader" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Sentimental Journey and Other Writings (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

Sterne is best known for his Rabelaisian tour-de-force Tristam Shandy, a novel which I had the "pleasure" to struggle through for the best part of a year back in 2008. Shandy is a sprawling, discursive comic masterpiece which has more in common with novels of the 20th century then those which followed it in the 19th. But Sterne also wrote another, minor, classic, A Sentimental Journey. First published in 1768, six months before the author's death, A Sentimental Journey was one of the first "novels of sentiment and sensibility" a genre which rose and fell by the turn of the 19th century, but one which would have a decisive impact on the Brontean/Austen wave of fiction which would define the 19th century.
Sterne's A Sentimental Journey was published three years before Henry MacKenzie's The Man of Feeling. Man of Feeling was in instant hit, selling out within two months and being reprinted six time in the following decade. Both novels echo the on-going debate in 18th century about the impact of modernity on the nature of man. As G.J. Barker-Benfield persuasively argued in his book, The Culture of Sensibility, "popular novels written by men in the 1760s and 1770s were preoccupied with the meanings of sensibility for manhood...and the ambiguity we now tend to read into the novels of Laurence Stern or Mackenzie reflects this contemporary ambivalence."
Regardless of how one interprets the underlying debate OR the role of the "novels of sentiment" in the 18th century, it's clear that these tales had an audience. Of course, in light of the rise of female novelists in the 19th century, I am left wondering who was buying all the copies of MacKenzie's The Man of Feeling. Was it men, interested in getting a fix on their identity in a rapidly changing world? Or was it largely women, interested in men who were depicted behaving in a traditionally "feminine" manner?
Sterne's Sentimental Journey is a clear way-station on the way to MacKenzie's mincing, sobbing Man of Feeling. Unlike MacKenzie, Sterne is a comic genius, and his book is filled with episodes of satire and wit that are sorely missing in Man of Feeling. There is also an element of bawdiness in A Sentimental Journey that is so clearly an element of Sterne's Rabelaisian style- something lacking in MacKenzie, let alone the oft humorless novels of sentiment that were published after the turn of the century. Blame the Victorians, or don't, it matters little.
However it's clear to me that the "Sentimental Man" was a cultural trend with all the complexity and force of later trends like Rock and roll, and it's interesting because it was one of the FIRST such modern trends whose influence was reflected in a contemporary art form that was ITSELF just rounding into form (the novel.) For that reason it's worth thinking about, because by learning about people then, we can learn about ourselves now.
In conclusion I'd just like to note that like the last classic novel I read (Castle Rackrent), A Sentimental Journey clocks in at around one hundred pages- so be warned- not a great value in that regard.