In describing these types and throughout the work, Yorick often makes use of the same comedic immodesty Tristram used to such good effect in Sterne’s earlier work. The narrator, Yorick from Tristram Shandy, lists the different types of travelers, including “Lying Travellers” and “Vain Travellers”, before describing his own type, the “Sentimental Traveller”. …both my travels and observations will be altogether of a different cast from any of my forerunners… Sterne took a radically different approach. Sterne may have written his 1768 work in reaction to Tobias Smollet’s Travels Through France and Italy (1766) which is full of condescension towards the locals, contempt for foreign people and culture, and self-congratulatory transcriptions of his conversations setting the natives straight. But A Sentimental Journey was, if anything, more groundbreaking in its time. Where Tristram Shandy was one long digression, A Sentimental Journey follows a more traditional narrative path. The ending is a bit abrupt, but charmingly a propo. But, despite being an unfinished portion of a planned larger work, it stands well enough on its own. Unfortunately, its slimness is due primarily to Sterne’s premature death of consumption. Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) followed up his excellent Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman with this slim volume.
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