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Sterne travelled through France and Italy three years prior to writing A Sentimental Journey, which he completed on his death bed. The protagonist is a thinly-disguised Sterne who recounts hisâ??mostly amorousâ??adventures through the two countries. Sterne very particularly wanted the account to be subjective; he discusses opinions and morals and personal experiences in opposition to the drier travelling accounts which dealt with history and classical learning. His book helped to establish travel writing as the dominant genre of the late 18th century… (more)
This 250 year old novel was a fictional satire on a more serious non-fictional account of a journey through France and Italy by Sterne's contemporary Tobias Smollett. The satire is in the fact that the traveller here (Yorick, a minor character in Sterne's most famous novel The Life and Adventures of Tristram Shandy) is entirely uninterested in seeing the famous sights, more in meeting and bickering with a motley collection of monks, innkeepers and aristocrats and flirting with various women he meets. Sterne died in 1768 before completing this book, so Yorick never actually makes it to Italy, and the novel finishes with him awkwardly discussing sleeping arrangements with a lady and her maid when there are only two proper beds available. Quite funny, with a few slightly rambling diversions. ( )
Interesting fact (while I wait to write my review proper): Laurence Sterne met author Tobias Smollett (of 'The Expedition of Humphry Clinker' fame) in 1764. Sterne was struck by how critical Smollett was of the places he visited; so when Stern came to write A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, the moaning and griping character of Smelfungus was modelled after Smollett; much in the same way John Cleese's modelled Basil Fawlty after a hotel manager who made the Python's lives miserable during filming some years earlier. It is for this reason that I may one day put pen to paper myself. ;)
Sterne travelled through France and Italy three years prior to writing A Sentimental Journey, which he completed on his death bed. The protagonist is a thinly-disguised Sterne who recounts hisâ??mostly amorousâ??adventures through the two countries. Sterne very particularly wanted the account to be subjective; he discusses opinions and morals and personal experiences in opposition to the drier travelling accounts which dealt with history and classical learning. His book helped to establish travel writing as the dominant genre of the late 18th century
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Laurence Sterne - A Sentimental Journey
Wikipedia in English
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