1
The Life and Opinions of Tristram
Shandy, Gentleman
Autumn 2009, Friday 12-14, Phil
Fulfils MA requirements for half a credit module
Erzsi Kukorelly
Office hour Tuesday 14.15-15.15 CO 209
elizabeth.kukorelly@unige.ch Tel.
078.727.2268
Texts: Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Penguin Classics
edition.
Other texts will be available for photocopying on seminar shelf in library.
Participation: Active participation is required from all students. Although not formally graded,
in-class participation, enthusiasm and good preparation for class may be taken into
consideration when giving grades.
During class, your book is open on the desk, and bears the marks of interactive reading. You
are prepared to take risks and you contribute to but do not dominate the discussion.
Although you listen to your colleagues and your teacher with due respect, sincere and
politely expressed disagreement is encouraged.
Attendance: If you miss more than 2 seminar sessions without valid excuse (medical
certificate), you will not receive credit for this seminar.
Plagiarism: This institution will not tolerate plagiarism, which is a crime. The statement on
plagiarism is available on the department website.
Formal requirements:
a. All participants must give a number of short presentations based on the week’s reading
during the first five weeks of term, as well as longer reports on 6th November and 11th
December.
b. A graded essay,
OR c. An exam.
Seminar Goals: participants are expected to:
a. read Tristram Shandy, developing a feel for its themes and humour;
b. get a feel for the historicization of reception;
c. become familiar with a few different critical approaches;
d. read Bakhtin’s essay ‘Discourse in the Novel’ and apply it to Tristram Shandy
Schedule of reading
1. 25/09/2009 - Introduction
2. 02/10/2009
Reading: Tristram Shandy – up to p. 137 (end of vol. ii)
3. 09/10/2009
Reading: Eighteenth-century reviews of volumes one and two (on reserve shelf)
Tristram Shandy – up to p. 304 (end of vol. iv)
4. 16/10/2009
2
Eighteenth-century review of volumes three and four
Tristram Shandy – up p. 427 (end of vol. vi)
5. 23/10/2009
Eighteenth-century review of volumes five and six
Tristram Shandy – up to p. 539 (end vol. viii)
6. 30/10/2009
Eighteenth-century review of volumes seven and eight
Tristram Shandy – till end (vol. ix)
7. 6/11/2009
Oral report – reaction to two articles from list: compare them, say which convinces
you most and/or you find most interesting, and why. What is the article’s thesis? What
is its methodology? How does it help you further your understanding of Tristram
Shandy? What do you agree with? Disagree with?
8. 13/11/2009: early responses / criticism (on reserve shelf)
The Clockmakers Outcry (1760)
Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester ‘Comments on
Sterne’ (1793)
9. 20/11/2009: changing tastes: eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries (on reserve
shelf)
A Letter from the Rev. George Whitefield, M.A. to the Rev. Laurence Sterne (1760)
Vicesimus Knox. ‘On the Moral Tendency of the Writings of Sterne’ (1793)
Jeremiah Newman. Excerpt from The Lounger’s Common-Place Book – both editions
(1796 and 1805)
Samuel Coleridge on Sterne
Hazlitt on Sterne
10. 27/11/2009: Some twentieth century reactions:
Victor Schlovsky: ‘The Parody Novel: Sterne’s Tristram Shandy’
(http://www.utpa.edu/faculty/mitchell/classes/fall2007/3306/shklovsky.pdf)
Virginia Woolf: ‘The Sentimental Journey’ in The Commons Reader, 2nd Series
(http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91c2/chapter7.html)
Wayne C. Booth. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
pp. 221-240.
4/12/2009 – READING WEEK – read Bakhtin’ ‘Discourse in the Novel’
11. 11/12/2009 – Oral reports on Bakhtin. Apply one or more of Bakhtin’s theories to
Tristram Shandy
12. 18/12/2009 - Conclusion