The Reception of Laurence Sterne in Europe (The Athlone Critical Traditions Series)

Sterne's work has been received, translated and imitated in most European countries with great success. Interest in his life and work grew into a literary cult at an early stage and led to the vogue of sentimentalism: Sterne became a legendary English writer, second only to Shakespeare. Among the topics discussed in this volume are: questions arising from the serial nature of much of Sterne's writings; the various ways in which translators all across Europe coped with the specific problems which the witty and ingenious Sternean text poses; the extent to which especially "A sentimental Journey" was regarded as a provocative political text and was therefore used as a weapon in nationalist movements; how "Tristram Shandy" became a test case for theories of humour and sentiment; how Sterne's texts and the "Letters" were used as didactic tools; how the history of the reception of Sterne mirrors the continental shift from a French cultural paradigm to a German and English one; and how the cult of Maria materialized in prints, paintings and ceramics. Trans-national patterns are emphasized, as are the impact of Sterne on European sentimentalism and modernist narrative theory.