Shandean Humour in English and German Literature and Philosophy

James Vigus

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781907975318
• eBook ISBN: 9781351192538
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

"One of many writers inspired by Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, the German novelist Jean Paul Richter coined the term 'Shandean humour' in his work of aesthetic theory. The essays in this volume investigate how Sterne's humour functions, the reasons for its enduring appeal, and what role it played in identity-construction and in the representation of melancholy. In tracing its hitherto under-recognised impact both on literary writers, such as Jean Paul and Herman Melville, and on philosophers, including Hegel and Marx, the collection reveals that Shandean humour is a Grenzganger - a point of commerce not only between Anglophone and German discourses, but also between literature and philosophy. Klaus Vieweg is Professor of Philosophy at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena; James Vigus is postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of English and American Studies, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich; Kathleen M. Wheeler is Reader in English Literature at the University of Cambridge."

CHAPTER 1
Style and Syntax as Catalysts of Sterne's Humour in Tristram Shandy

Wolfgang G. Müller

Introduction

In humour, as well as in irony, two aspects can be distinguished, that of production and that of reception. Many theorists tend to focus their attention on the reception of humour which coincides with an act of cognition, i.e. the surprising perception of an incongruity, which provokes laughter or mirth. Sterne himself observes in Tristram Shandy that his work is written ‘against the spleen’ and that by stimulating the ‘muscles in laughter’ it is to ‘drive the gall and other bitter juices from the gallbladder, liver and sweet-bread of his majesty’s subjects’ (vol. IV, ch. 22).¹ And in connection with his comment on ‘True Shandeism’ he states that if he had to choose a kingdom, like Sancho Pansa, ‘it should be a kingdom of hearty laughing subjects’ (IV, 32). However, as important as the recipient’s reaction to an author’s humour may be, it should not be forgotten that it is the humourist who, by generating a comic event or situation, lays the foundation for the process of reception. Accordingly, this contribution will look at the production side in Laurence Sterne’s humour in Tristram Shandy, focussing on style and syntax, because Sterne’s comic and humorous effects derive to a great extent from his handling of language.² Before entering into textual analysis Sterne’s concept of style will be characterised. The narrator of Tristram Shandy has a pervasive tendency to comment on his way of telling his story, for instance when he refers to his novel as a ‘rhapsodical work’ (I, 13), but there is one chapter in which he presents what can almost be called a theory of style. This chapter, which has virtually been overlooked by critics, will be evaluated in the context of contemporary definitions of style.

Sterne's Theory of Style

In Volume IX, Chapter 13 of Tristram Shandy the protagonist refers to two cases in which he is prevented from ‘good writing’ (IX, 12), first, ‘ordinary cases, that is, when I am only stupid, and the thoughts rise heavily and gummous through my pen’, and, second, when ‘I am got, I know not how, into a cold unmetaphorical vein of infamous writing [...] like a Dutch commentator’. In such situations he does not ‘[confer] with pen and ink one moment’. If simple measures such as ‘a pinch of snuff or a stride across the room will not do the business for me’, he immediately shaves off his beard and dresses himself after his best fashion. The relevant passage deserves to be quoted in full:

I take a razor at once; and having tried the edge of it upon the palm of my hand, without further ceremony, except that of first lathering my beard, I shave it off; taking care only if I do leave a hair, that it be not a grey one: this done, I change my shirt—put on a better coat—send for my last wig—put my topaz ring upon my fingers; and in a word, dress myself from one end to the other of me, after my best fashion.

(IX, 13; 434)

The idea of a writer being ready for good writing after having shaved and dressed has to be seen in relation to the neo-classical concept of style as dress, as it is formulated by Alexander Pope in his Essay on Criticism — ‘Expression is the dress of thought’ (318) — and most famously by Lord Chesterfield in his letter of 24 November 1749: ‘Style is the dress of thoughts’. Sterne’s reference to the neoclassical ideal of style is obviously parodistic, but this is not the whole truth, since a little later in the chapter the protagonist introduces the notion of a merger of body and soul to his concept of writing:

[...] the soul and body are joint-sharers in everything they get: A man cannot dress, but his ideas get cloath’d at the same time; and if he dresses like a gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination, genteelized along with him—so that he has nothing to do, but take his pen, and write like himself.

(IX, 13)

Sterne does here put on a new basis the age-old concept of an equation of man and style — which is to be found in classical and Renaissance sayings such as ‘Imago / speculum animi sermo est / Qualis vir, talis oratio’,³ ‘style, the image of man [mentis character]’, and in the eighteenth century in Buffon’s famous dictum ‘Le style est l’homme même’⁴ [style is the man] and formulations of the age of Romanticism such as Coleridge’s: ‘For language is framed to convey not the object alone, but likewise the character, mood and intentions of the person who is representing it.’⁵ Sterne himself produces a version of this topic (topos) in a letter to David Garrick of 27 January 1760 in which he calls his novel ‘a picture of myself’ (imago animi).⁶

To further explore the richness of Sterne’s references to traditional topics (topoi) of the theory of style we may ask ourselves why he brings together the idea of shaving in front of a mirror and the idea of a man’s writing style, which I have left out of my discussion so far. Obviously shaving lays bare a man’s face, permitting a free view of his physiognomy. Now it is well known that whenever a close relationship between a man’s character and his style is assumed, style tends to be seen as a second, or a literary physiognomy. To mention at least one example from classical antiquity, in the 115th letter of his Epistolae Morales Seneca, after having defined style as outward manifestation of the soul (oratio cultus animi), describes, in glowing words, the inward face (facies), the inner physiognomy of a virtuous man (vir bonus).⁷ In a commentary on one of the many classical formulations of style as an index to the soul, Erasmus says, in one of his adages, ‘Hominis figura oratione agnoscitur.’⁸ It is interesting, that in this context, as in the Sterne passage, the image of the mirror frequently emerges. In Dialogus cui titulus Ciceronianus Erasmus says, ‘Habet animus faciem quandam suam in oratione velut in speculo relucentem.’⁹ Unfortunately, there is no room to adduce more evidence for the physiognomic understanding of style, which culminates in Schopenhauer’s aphorism, ‘Der Stil ist die Physiognomie des Geistes. Sie ist untrüglicher als die des Leibes’ [Style is the physiognomy of the spirit. It is more unmistakeable than that of the body].¹⁰

At this point I would like to point out in a little digression that it is by no means rare that physiognomic definitions of style focus on one part of a person’s outward appearance. Since classical times, the eye has been regarded as the most expressive part of the physiognomy. Cicero, for instance, says, ‘imago animi vultus, indices oculi’.¹¹ But other parts of the face may also be focussed on. In his Anti-Goetze Lessing says, ‘Jeder Mensch hat seinen eigenen Stil, so wie seine eigene Nase’ [Every man has his own style, just as he has his own nose].¹² There is, of course, irony to be noticed in this use of synecdoche which reduces the physiognomy to the nose. If the nose is referred to as the most prominent part of the body, we are, of course, close to Sterne. Much later, Virginia Woolf adduces the nose and the eyes as items analogous to Sterne’s style: ‘But if it were possible for Sterne to correct his manners, it was impossible for Sterne to correct his style. That had become so much a part of himself as his large nose or his brilliant eyes.’¹³

After this little digression concerning the fact that a physiognomic understanding of style has also been attributed to Sterne, I return to the context of the chapter on style in Tristram Shandy. Sterne’s idea of style brings together body and soul, or, in other words, physiognomy and inner self. To adduce at least one example from eighteenth-century reflections on style, this duality is to be found in James Beattie’s characterisation of an ‘ingenious author’: ‘Hence his work, as well as face, if Nature is permitted to exert herself freely in it, will exhibit a picture of his mind [...]’.¹⁴

It ought to have become clear that Chapter 14 of volume IX from Tristram Shandy contains an astonishing number of allusions to various concepts of style which were discussed in the eighteenth century. How, then, can we characterise Sterne’s own position, when he, in an apparently eclectic way, refers to concepts of style which seem to be divergent or contradictory? For him style is, first, dress and physiognomy, i.e. a matter of presenting his personality to the public, and, second, self-expression, ‘writing like himself’, as he says. If, as he states, ‘the soul and body are joint-sharers’ also in his manner of writing and if we consider this duality in the context of then current theories of style, we have to acknowledge that there is both extraversion and introversion in his concept of writing, performance and self-representation. In other words, his style does not simply express subjectivity, but subjectivity is always performed in his specific way of writing. The whole novel can be looked at as a performance staging the author’s self.¹⁵ This performance quality is pervasively in evidence in his style. This holds true, too, for his humour which predominantly is the result of his use of language and style and, on a higher level, of his use of narrative form. In a way Sterne turns his humour into performance, exhibiting it in front of the reader. An important aspect of this quality of Sterne’s Tristram Shandy is thus the novel’s constant consciousness of the reader and its pervasive use of a conversational style. That style and especially syntax are essential constituents in the production of Sterne’s humour has been recognised by such a perceptive theorist as Jean Paul, who says, ‘An die humoristische Totalität knüpfen sich allerlei Erscheinungen. Z. B. sie äußern sich im sternischen Periodenbau, der durch Gedankenstriche nicht Teile, sondern Ganze verbindet; [...]’ [Various phenomena are joined to the humoristic totality. For instance they are manifested in Sterne’s period construction, which by dashes connects not parts, but wholes].¹⁶

Rhapsodic Style

One characteristic element of Sterne’s style is its rhapsodic nature — he himself styles his novel ‘this rhapsodical work’ (I, 13) and a contemporary review calls it a ‘humorous rhapsody’¹⁷ — which is manifested in its enthusiastic and rambling, though unstoppable, movement which accumulates nouns, phrases and clauses from diverse semantic areas, a stream of ideas which may be interrupted by parentheses but leaves the speaker undaunted. Here is a short extract from a larger context, in which the narrator talks about his duties as a writer:

Have not I promised the world a chapter of knots? two chapters upon the right and the wrong end of a woman? a chapter upon whiskers? a chapter upon wishes?—a chapter of noses?—No, I have done that—a chapter upon my uncle Toby’s modesty? to say nothing of a chapter upon chapters, which I will finish before I sleep—by my great grandfather’s whiskers, I shall never get half of ’em through this year.

(IV, 9)

The comicality of this passage derives to a great extent from its repetitive style with the accumulation of noun phrases related to incongruent or discrepant reference spheres. From an ordinary object like ‘knots’ the sentence moves on to the sexual innuendo of ‘the right and the wrong end of a woman’ and then changes between concrete (‘whiskers’, ‘noses’) and abstract terms (‘wishes’, ‘modesty’), only to end in the narrative meta-sphere of ‘a chapter upon chapters’. The passage is self-reflexive in that it deals with the problems of the writer. The performance quality of the passage is to be seen in the suggestion that a chapter on such a trivial thing as knots is presented to ‘the world’, in the interrogative form of the utterances, in the interruption of the flow of words by a parenthesis, containing a self-correction of the speaker, signalled by the characteristic Shandean dash, and in the apostrophe introducing the playful expression of despair in the last clause. The extract’s syntax is iconic in that it mimes the almost hysterical concern with all which its supposed author feels he has got to do. All this is, of course, a play which the narrator performs to amuse his recipients. The relation between Tristram and the author will be commented on later.

Parenthesis and Digression

A humorous effect may be derived from the technique of inserting a digression in the form of a parenthesis right in the middle of a sentence which may be resumed after many pages. The most notorious example of this technique occurs in Vol. I, Ch. 21, when the narrator breaks into a dialogue of the two Shandy brothers, interrupting a reply of Uncle Toby for the alleged reason that the reader must first be made acquainted with his character:

I think, replied my uncle Toby, taking his pipe from his mouth, and striking the head of it two or three times upon the nail of his left thumb, as he began his sentence,——I think, says he:——But to enter rightly into my uncle Toby’s sentiments upon this matter, you must be made to enter first a little into his character, the out-lines of which I shall just give you, and then the dialogue between him and my father will go on as well again.

There are multiple reasons for the comicality of this scene, the chief one being the fact that the sentence which is here interrupted — ‘I think, replied he,—it would not be amiss, brother, if we rung the bell’ — is under the given circumstances of such an ordinary nature that there is no need to interrupt it. It is an act of simulation on the part of the author-narrator, to whose traditional offices characterisation belongs, to pretend that he has to give information on Uncle Toby’s character at precisely this moment. The passage has the quality of a performance. What may look like a spontaneous intrusion into the syntax of the dialogue is actually a carefully designed strategy, for the narrator declares that the dialogue will, after the insertion, go on again. And he, in fact, reminds the reader at the end of chapter 4 of the next volume that, after having explained Toby’s hobby-horsical proj...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Textual Note
• About the Contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Style and Syntax as Catalysts of Sterne's Humour in Tristram Shandy
• 2 The Ruins of Melancholy in Sterne's Tristram Shandy
• 3 From Personal Identity to Character: Sterne and Hume
• 4 Literary Castlings and Backwards Flights to Heaven: Sterne's Über-Humor in the Work of Jean Paul Richter and Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel
• 5 Consciousness, Time, and System: On the Structure of Hegel's Phänomenologie des Geistes in the Light of Tristram Shandy
• 6 Shandean Taylor Coleridge
• 7 Karl Marx's Shandean Humour: Scorpion und Felix and its Aftermath
• 8 The Crafty Art of Textual Pirating: Melville and Sterne
• 9 From Shandyism to Pataphysics: Sternean Influence in Alfred Jarry's Gestes et opinions du Docteur Faustroll, Pataphysicien
• Bibliography
• Index