Page "Laurence Sterne" Paragraph 16

Sterne is best known for his novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, for which he became famous not only in England, but throughout Europe.

Translations of the work began to appear in all the major European languages almost upon its publication, and Sterne influenced European writers as diverse as Diderot and the German Romanticists.

His work had also noticeable influence over Brazilian author Machado de Assis, who made exceptional ( and outstandingly original ) usage of the digressive technique in the masterful novel The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas.

Indeed, the novel, in which Sterne manipulates narrative time and voice, parodies accepted narrative form, and includes a healthy dose of " bawdy " humor, was largely dismissed in England as being too corrupt.

Samuel Johnson's verdict in 1776 was that " Nothing odd will do long.

Tristram Shandy did not last.

" This is strikingly different from the views of European critics of the day, who praised Sterne and Tristram Shandy as innovative and superior.

Voltaire called it " clearly superior to Rabelais ", and later Goethe praised Sterne as " the most beautiful spirit that ever lived.

" Both during his life and for a long time after, efforts were made by many to reclaim Sterne as an arch-sentimentalist ; parts of Tristram Shandy, such as the tale of Le Fever, were excerpted and published separately to wide acclaim from the moralists of the day.

The success of the novel and its serialized nature also allowed many imitators to publish pamphlets concerning the Shandean characters and other Shandean-related material even while the novel was yet unfinished.