The humour of Laurence Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy (1759–1767) has frequently been discussed as though it were a peculiarly English phenomenon. Yet admiration, imitation and critical discussion of Shandean humour were central characteristics not only of anglophone sentimental fiction and periodical writing of the later eighteenth century, but also of the European-wide ‘Sterne mania’. The present collection examines Shandean humour in Sterne’s own work and in subsequent English and German texts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with one excursion into an early twentieth-century French work.
This volume has its origin in discussions between the three editors regarding the curious, often underestimated, yet long-term appeal of Shandean humour to German philosophers and literary theorists. The initial result was a small conference held at the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge, in September 2010. This conference proved a fruitful forum for exchange between scholars of Anglo-American and German literature and philosophy, and the majority of the essays in this book began life as papers delivered on this occasion.
The editors are most grateful for the provision of conference funding from the Faculty of English, Cambridge; as well as from the Institute for Philosophy, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena; and from the Friedrich Nietzsche Kolleg of the Klassik-Stiftung, Weimar, directed by Rüdiger Schmidt-Grépály. James Vigus gratefully acknowledges the further funding received from LMUexcellent, which has supported his postdoctoral research fellowship at the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich (2009–2012).
For discussions and suggestions that have enriched the book, we thank all those who attended the conference in 2010, and especially Christoph Bode, Philip Jenkins, Julian Roberts and Claus-Artur Scheier; a special word of thanks to Cecilia Muratori.
Thanks are due to Kathleen Singles for translating chapters 4 and 5, both from the German.
John Woram kindly provided the images of the maps printed in chapter 8, published in an earlier form on his website: <http://www.galapagos.to/>.
With regard to the production of the book, many thanks to Graham Nelson for his advice and patience in equal measure; to Alexandra Lloyd for her copy-editing; and to Sue Dugen for compiling the index.