ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a critical exposition of the mechanisms by which the novel generates humorous effects. It pursues the theme of humour as a Grenzganger or transitional device between philosophical and literary modes of discourse. The book draws strength from the recent critical consensus that the patterns of Sterne's thought lie closer to Hume than to the philosopher whom Tristram apostrophizes as the historian of the human mind. It explores a Shandean afterlife in the tradition of textual borrowing and pillaging. The book addresses three central sources which Sterne interwove into Tristram Shandy: Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and Swift's A Tale of A Tub. It departs from the Anglo-German theme, though with a suitably Shandean swerve rather than a radical break: for pataphysics, the satirical (pseudo-)science founded by Jarry, was regarded with considerable interest by certain twentieth-century philosophers.