Metafictional devices and intertextuality in Tristram Shandy
Lawrence Sterne’s most famous novel, entled “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy”, a preposterously comic literary creaon, is representave for the category of the realisc novel, the predominant form of literature in the 1th centur century y, which which centr centres, es, as a ma!or ma!or feat feature ure,, on the rela relaons onship hip "etwe "etween en the individua individuall and the social social environment, re#ecng the tensions and con#icts "etween private and individual convicons and ideas, and pu"lic and social norms and convenons$ “Tristram Shandy” can "e considered a non%convenonal novel in what concerns various aspects, such as outloo&, language, structure, narrave strategies and the treatment treatment of identy$ identy$ The enre structure of the novel folds on the principle of the spontaneous associaon of ideas, e'pressed e'pressed "y (ohn Loc&e, and e'plained "y the main character himself in the "eginning of the novel, in contrast to the illusion of linguisc transparency postulated "y the tradional literary wor&s$ Sterne’s novel was o)en called “an%novel”, “an%novel”, since its su"stance derives from the fusion of tradional elements and new techni*ues$ + profound understanding of the inner logic of the plot re*uires the ad!ustment of the reading strategy, strategy, in order to follow the stream of consciousness, regarding regarding the fact that Tristram Tristram is concerned with rendering everything crossing his mind while seng out to tell the story of his life, ancipang, for e'ample, -irginia .oolf’s later characters$ The theme of meta/con, although a fre*uent feature of postmodernist literature, is central to Sterne’s novel, a fact which de/nes him as a profoundly profoundly original author$ author$ 0eta/con is a term given to /conal wring which self%consciously and systemacally draws aenon to its status as an arfact in order to pose *uesons a"out the relaonship "etween /con and reality$ 2n providing a cri*ue of their own methods of construcon, such wrings not only e'amine the fundamental structures of narrave narrave /con, they also e'plore the possi"le /conality of the world outside the literary /conal te't$ .ayne 3$ 4ooth has shown, in one of his studies, that the novel “Tristram “Tristram Shandy” ma&es an aempt at self% conscious narraon with a comically intrusive writer preoccupied "y the pro"lems of wring$ The novel "egins with Tristram’s concepon a"out the way in which a child ought to "e "egoen and connues with an innocent remar& of Tristram’s mother a"out winding up the cloc&, which upsets the narrator’s fathe fatherr, .alter alter,, and dete determi rmines nes him to lose lose his concen concentr tra aon, on, with with a discus discussio sion n on the signi/ signi/ca caon on of “the “the 5omolunculus”, 5omolunculus”, which, in turn, em"roils the narrator in a discussion of his parents’ marriage contract, his uncle To"y, To"y, 6arson 7oric&, the midwife and 8r$ Slop, all of whom contri"ute, in one way or another, to the development of the protagonist’s protagonist’s life$ The /rst chapter, chapter, in fact, alerts the reader a"out almost all the concerns of the narrator, narrator, and it does so with a technical audacity that matches its su"!ect 9 maer$ maer$ “Tristram Shandy” is, at the same me, an auto"iography and a novel a"out wring a novel$ The concepon of Tristram is the concepon of the "oo&, and "y menoning the creaon of the world and the myth of +dam, Tristram indeed confronts us with the creaon of a world: the creaon of Tristram leads to the creaon "y Tristram of the world of “Tristram “Tristram Shandy” Shandy ”$ Sterne’s greatness is not simply that he wrote a novel a"out wring a novel; his triumph is due to the fact that, unli&e most of his imitators, he gave as much of his genius to his invented world as to the theme of invenng it$
, y>, intro introduc duced ed "y means means of rela relang ng other other stori stories, es, conversaons, e'planaons$ This is why “Tristram Shandy” is full of incidents or images which relate, at one and the same me, to the characters and to the novel itself$ ?or instance, when 8r Slop’s o"stetrical "ag has "een trussed
with a do@en ¬s so that it won’t rale, and then poor 8r Slop has to wrestle hurriedly with them, "ecause the "a"y is "eing "orn, the reader is aware not only of 8r Slop, "ut of the fact that Tristram has created, as part of the novel, e'actly this mulplicity of round%a"outs and intricate cross turns$ The incident within the novel, for 8r Slop, acts !ust as it does in the novel, "ut this me for the reader; such incidents can "e metaphorically called, from the point of view of meta/con, “wheels%within%wheels”, conferring to the plot a sense if di@@ying "ut comic speed$ Sterne’s wring demands a diAerent mode of annotaon, one arising from its o)en mas&ed em"eddedness in a literary past, the literary e'istence of its narrator, Tristram’s primary occupaon as an adult to write a "oo&, and its digressive te'ture, so o)en consisng of "orrowed documents and pseudo%documents, counter%narraves and parodies$ +nother meta/conal device is the mysterious appearance, from me to me, of an editor of the "oo&, whose footnotes “correct” Tristram, "ut, in fact, have no certain meaning$ Time also constutes one of the devices used in order to arculate the meta/conal scheme of the novel$ 2t is "oth a su"!ect Tristram and the other characters speculate a"out and a meta/conal mirror which re#ects two &inds of perspecve made iridescent "y the readers: the /rst one is represented "y the literal me of the reader, measura"le "y the cloc&, and the second one is the readerBs sense of how much =/conal> me has elapsed in the lives of the characters; in the /conal me, the characters have performed acons re*uiring more than the mere minutes of the readerBs real me$ ?or e'ample, Tristram notes that it has ta&en the reader a"out ninety minutes to read what happened since uncle To"y rang the "ell and O"adiah le) for 8r$ Slop$ The narrator asserts that, poecally spea&ing, he has allowed O"adiah me enough "oth to come and go$ Tristram goes onto ac&nowledge that no real or chronological me may have elapsed: truly spea&ing, the character scarcely had me to get on his "oots$ Tristram then addresses a literal%minded reader, whose o"!econs he sets forth, in order to demolish their irrelevance to /conal me$ Other me, Tristram refers to the me in which he is wring the novel, placing us in the room where he is wring, telling us a"out the weather as he writes, descri"ing his acvies or what he is wearing as he writes, as parcular thoughts which he has !ust wrien down come to him, “this very rainy day, March CD, 1EFG, and "etween the hours of nine and ten in the morningH$ The year is, of course, the actual me when Sterne was wring this volume$ Or, the narrator tells us, H+nd here am 2 sing, this 1Cth day of +ugust, 1EDD, in a purple !er&in and yellow pair of slippers, without either wig or cap on’$ Such intrusions of the narratorBs me calls aenon to the ar/ciality of the novel and the /conality of his characters, who yet are convincingly alive for the reader$ They also raise the *ueson of the relaonship of the actual writer =not the /conal persona> to his novel$ 2nterte'tuality represents the theory that a literary wor& is not simply the product of a single author, "ut of its relaonship to other te'ts and to the structures of language itself$ Laurence Sterne is an author who gets a"ove himself, from the point of using interte'tuality, also, since he manages to create his own literary canon$ SterneBs te't is /lled with allusions and references to the leading thin&ers and writers of the 1Eth and 1th centuries$ 6ope, Loc&e, and Swi) were all ma!or in#uences on Sterne and Tristram Shandy$ There are, for instance, all the hitherto unpu"lished "oo&s which Tristram &eeps menoning: his father’s life of Socrates, or his system of educaon for his son Tristram, the “Tristra%paedia” =rivalling Ienophon’s “3yropaedia”, the training of 3yrus the Jreat>$ The authors he does fre*uently cite as his fore"ears come from another tradion, and Sterne invo&es that tradion o)en enough to put the noon that he was wring a novel or even wring “against” the novel into some *ueson, assuming that we mean something more than
however, and the secons on o"stetrics and for/caons, for instance, indicate that he had a grasp of the main issues then current in those /elds$ There are two in#uences on Tristram Shandy that overshadow all others: Ka"elais and 3ervantes$ The /rst scene in Tristram Shandy, where TristramBs mother interrupts TristramBs concepon, tes/es to SterneBs de"t to Ka"elais$ The shade of 3ervantes is similarly present throughout SterneBs novel$ The fre*uent references to Kosinante, the character of Nncle To"y =who resem"les 8on ui'ote in many ways> and SterneBs own descripon of his charactersB B3ervanc humourB, along with the genre defying structure of Tristram Shandy, which owes much to the second part of 3ervantes novel, all demonstrate the in#uence of 3ervantes$
