| dc.description.abstract | To explain the origin and development of Sterne's subject and pattern or satire, it is necessary to understands the author's concepts regarding the nature of man and the universe as they determined the fictional world he created in his satires, his initial attempts to employ satire to bring an end to a diocesan squabble and the customs that caused the argument, his expansion of subject and his perfection of method to attract a wider and more sophisticated audience by approaching the more general controversies of the day; and finally, his enlargement of satire by using himself in retrospect as the object of his satire. Chapter I of this dissertation deals essentially with Sterne's meditation "The Unknown World" (1743) and his two published sermons, The Case of Elijah (1747) and The Abuses of Conscience. These early works define Sterne's basic concepts regarding man's evil nature and man's inability to rely upon himself as a singular force in overcoming that nature. These ideas enabled Sterne to create a fictional world peculiar to satire wherein evil and folly flourish and truth and justice remain unrecognized. Chapter II presents A Political Romance, Sterne's first published satire (1759), as the foundation for his satirical patterns his attempt to attack a problem (a political controversy that had arisen in the Diocese of York) by using a narrator spokesman whom the reader distrusts. Found also in the Romance is the primary target of all of his later satires: the individual who abandons the rationality of mankind in favor of his own false reasoning. Chapter III is a study of volumes I and II of Tristram Shandy designed to show the expansion of his subject to include cultural issues pertinent to the mid-eighteenth century and the perfection of his satirical pattern as it is revealed in Tristram, the self-deceived narrator, and the characters of Walter, Toby, Trim, and Dr. Slop. In addition, this chapter will analyze Sterne's use of himself as the object of satire: the well-intentioned but ineffectual moralist who wrote The. Abuses of Conscience. Chapter IV begins with an explanation of the change in Sterne's life and personality after the success of Tristram Shandy as that change is revealed in his letters written between 1760 and 1766 and in his journal to Mrs. Elizabeth Draper written in 1767. This chapter concludes with an analysis of A Sentimental Journey as an enlargement of Sterne's pattern of satire: Sterne's use of himself to satirize the sentimental man whose benevolence is false, whose feeling is premeditated, whose fanciful transports are absurd, and whose life, in general, has been inane. | |
