Tristram Shandy - Quotes Flashcards Preview

Paper 6 > Tristram Shandy - Quotes > Flashcards

Flashcards in Tristram Shandy - Quotes Deck (35)
Loading flashcards...
1
Q

No, I’ll not say a word about it—here it is;—in publishing it—I have appealed to the world—and to the world I leave it;—it must speak for itself.

A
  • “to the world I leave it” the text should exist unmediated by the author - perhaps emphasising the manipulation of the reader and how power should return to them in shaping their reading experience
  • author has to surrender the text to his readers
  • under obligation to write a preface but undercuts its purpose entirely
2
Q

Black pages

A
  • prompts readers’ introspection of their own temporal relations to a text with typographical features
  • as an inflated full stop - forces the reader to pause, destabilises our control over the narrative
  • raises questions of how long do we dwell on them etc.?
  • stimulation of the mind with nothingness OR stimulates the mind with itself - we are invited to look into the void of our own mind and left to inwardly contemplate these questions
  • by suspending our temporal progression throughout the text he crystallises readers into the same status as the page itself - we take the form of visual artwork who are subjected to inspection
3
Q

Marble page

A
  • comment on how a book is constructed
  • comment on the individuality of a text and the necessity of reimbuing the reading experience with individuality
  • possible comment on the disconnect between authors and readers ie. writing for the masses (Grub Street etc.)
  • mode that explicitly performs its own transition across contexts ie. reception, each was individually marbled whereas now each text is printed the same
  • nostalgic recalling of manual print and thus a rebellion against print culture - subverts the impersonality of print culture
  • harnesses the mode of print and redirects its attack inwardly
4
Q

But before the Corporal begins, I must first give you a description of his attitude;—otherwise he will naturally stand represented, by your imagination, in an uneasy posture,

In a word, you would be apt to paint Trim, as if he was standing in his platoon ready for action,—His attitude was as unlike all this as you can conceive.

A
  • begins to pre-empt our mental constructions of the text
  • forces our surrender to Tristram’s corrections of how we have imagined the characters - accusation is that we will warp the narrative
  • encapsulates his difficulty in sacrificing the narrative entirely to readers - cannot help but tweak our imaginations
  • Anderson: makes us doubt the imaginative faculties that we have thus used - makes it clear that our preconceptions are inadequate for the unusual circumstances that we find ourselves in
    ie. we as readers have made logical assumptions whereas Sterne emphasises that reality does not function in this fashion (would be part of reading “straight forwards”)
5
Q

To conceive this right,—call for pen and ink—here’s paper ready to your hand.—Sit down, Sir, paint her to your own mind—as like your mistress as you can—as unlike your wife as your conscience will let you—’tis all one to me—please but your own fancy in it.

A
  • implication that the story is unfinished without the reader’s input - truly a co-operative process
  • introduces the validity of relativism ie. disrupts the hierarchy of knowledge between author and reader
  • challenges our hesitation at the preservation of the text’s integrity
  • “paint her” - inviting but also challenging
  • “paint” - semantic field of language connected to the visual arts, if we are invited to ‘paint’ this implies that it is also Sterne’s (ie. painting his characters, narrative, and readers as visual art)
  • delegates a particular time for his readers’ contributions (“conversation” of the narrative, have to wait for our turn
6
Q

Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.

The truest respect which you can pay to the reader’s understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.

and blank page

A
  • “(as you may be sure…) - slyly boastful
  • if we trace TS to postmodern works such as that of Keri Smith then we question whether it would be incomplete without its readerships’ contributory ‘defacement’
  • we think of it as ‘defacement’ because we have internalised the rhetoric of there being a ‘correct’ way of reading a book - even with the allowance of relativism the concern remains
  • we consider our contributions as a form of low culture, especially visual art which is also considered low culture (a binary that Sterne is challenging)
  • part of trying to forge a new kind of intimacy with readers by creating a wholly individual copy of the text
  • prints exactly that which supersedes its own capability ie. blank page is the same across time but is the platform for the spontaneity of human creativity
7
Q

“Pray, what was your father saying? - Nothing”

—But pray, Sir, What was your father doing all December, January, and February?—Why, Madam,—he was all that time afflicted with a Sciatica.

A
  • “pray” - momentary hesitation/ contemplation, religious connotations, heightened innocence, inflated shock
  • moment of address from Tristram to his fictionalised readers
  • we feel Sterne winking at us over the heads of his characters
  • as readers, we have unconsciously slipped into the mind of the fictionalised reader
  • we gain an objective perspective on the fictionalised reader as we already perceive the implications of the innuendo
8
Q

The truest respect which you can pay to the reader’s understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.

A
  • we find ourselves the quasi-addressees to shades of what feels more like Sterne’s voice reaching beyond the bounds of the fictionalised relationship between Tristram and his addresses to feel like a direct address to readers themselves
  • ironically what Tristram announces is exactly what Sterne is doing - he leaves us questioning our own status in this “conversation” and thus we cannot help but feel implicated
9
Q

Passages in French

A
  • raises much introspective speculation on our modern relationship to the text
  • are we deliberately alienated from the text? should we translate the pages?
  • do we deserve access to this knowledge?
  • part of his acknowledgement that language can work as a barrier - to then have the blank or black pages is to remove the barrier entirely
  • sustained ejection from the text - where Eliot weaves us in and out which creates insecurity and then security, this creates a chasm between reader and author (making comment on the fact that literature should have no grounding in reality and cannot accurately portray reality in the current form that it is taking ie. the novel)
10
Q

Twisting lines

A
  • recognition that text is the written word, and thus challenges this idea by showing that it can exist beyond the realms of the written word
  • shock for both contemporary and modern readers - derived from the context of literature, we are able to connect the text to other literature eg. Hope Mirrlees’ ‘Paris’ (use of song notation in literature)
  • we also maintain the generalised myths around literature ie. that the 18th century solely produced literature of conservative styles
11
Q

“I have had a moment to spare-and I’ll make use of it, and write my preface”

A
  • reduces the impact of the arbitrary literary structures that have been constructed ie. the preface
  • afterthought - should be subordinate to the significance of the narrative itself
  • questions how do we view its purpose and value?
  • it is a rehearsed part of textual structure - occupies an ambiguous position on the periphery of the text
    (part of our allegiance to pretension where we ally ourselves to convenient artifice instead of inconvenient reality)
  • we rely on the preface to provisionally shape our thoughts in relation to the text - this preface occupies an uncomfortable space in that it is provisional but must be read in amongst the text, questions if we should consider the entire text prefatory - liberates the reader from the seriousness of the text
  • plays with whether we can release ourselves from these boundaries ie. toys with publishers - can a book have two prefaces?
  • Pope’s ‘The Dunciad’ also challenges the purpose of the paratext by expanding it beyond all logical bounds
  • plays with the hierarchy of text in literature ie. that readers find the preface cumbersome so implicates us in having to read it and the arbitrariness of the distinction
12
Q

(preface)
“’tis one of the silliest things… to darken your hypothesis by placing a number of tall, opaque words… betwixt your own and your reader’s conception”

A
  • imbues the preface with important messages

- follows exactly the sentiment he sets out and uses the structural reorganisation to exhibit his point

13
Q

Squiggle of the cane - “Whilst a man is free,—cried the corporal, giving a flourish with his stick thus—”

A
  • graphical representation captures something not easily conveyed
  • part of appealing to the universality of experience - ie. when the conveyance of information relies on a reader’s ability to accurately recreate the effect - has to be able to produce a comparable effect
  • visuals evoke comparable effects in the imagination much more effectively than words
14
Q

“—‘My sister, mayhap,’ quoth my uncle Toby, ‘does not choose to let a man come so near her….’ Make this dash,—’tis an Aposiopesis,—Take the dash away, and write Backside,—’tis Bawdy.

A
  • humour deriving from incongruity - we delight in the spontaneity of the passage
  • intimacy of exchange is heightened through the use of comedy (allows not only for jokes, but inside jokes)
  • becomes a form of shibboleth in certain circumstances
  • typographic representations of absence reflect the larger formal structure of the novel as a whole - transitions between modes, between languages etc. creates the space in which language can fill the space that Sterne has vacated
  • lack of distinction between high culture of “aposiopesis” and low culture of “bawdy” - readers need to widen their minds to the reception of both registers (education takes the form of reversing the codification of literature)
  • author also must allow fluctuation between both binaries - otherwise they are not exploiting the full richness of language
15
Q

“Imagine to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor Slop, of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done honour to a serjeant in the horse-guards.”

A
  • bathos of Dr Slop
  • aptronym - farcical, ridiculous, spineless
    (OED: links it to mud and liquid)
  • physiognomy and gait - physically diminishes him, lack of authority
  • relies on our comparative knowledge of the medical profession
  • why do we indulge in laughing at a professional - anarchy urges this, formal riotousness reflects laughter itself
  • humour is safe, however, as we have the security of knowing the outcome ie. Tristram is born
16
Q

‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said

The Lady of Shalott.

A
  • Lady of Shalott, Tennyson (1833)
    (as TS is 1759, have to say that we can trace his theme of the ambiguities of reality and inadequacy of human knowledge for the comprehension of reality)
17
Q

—How could you, Madam, be so inattentive in reading the last chapter? I told you in it, That my mother was not a papist.—Papist! You told me no such thing, Sir.—Madam, I beg leave to repeat it over again

A
  • disrupts our temporal progression through the text which means we become crystallised into visual art in the same manner that the black page operates - if we occupy the equivalent status of a visual art then we are entered into the politics of looking with Sterne
  • choose who we ally ourselves with in the narrative - do we turn back with Madam or continue?
  • “Papist!” - outrage, more resilient here - the syntactic reversal of “sir”
  • “leave” - imperative, spurns her from the group - forces her to physically transgress from the narrative where previously she mentally transgressed in her inattention
  • we become the onlookers to this rebuke, relief that we are not implicated
18
Q

—’Tis to rebuke a vicious taste, which has crept into thousands besides herself,—of reading straight forwards, more in quest of the adventures, than of the deep erudition and knowledge which a book of this cast, if read over as it should be, would infallibly impart with them

A
  • introduces the idea of the narrative as a form of punishment, warning or imbued with a didactic purpose
  • “vicious” “crept” - evokes feelings of threat, disease or corruptive force, “thousands besides herself” - trend is comparable to an epidemic - casts himself as the saviour
  • the complacency of the linearity of reading
  • reading for the plot and not the knowledge (eg. Robinson Crusoe - notably TS has opinions, not adventures)
19
Q

I know there are readers in the world, as well as many other good people in it, who are no readers at all,—who find themselves ill at ease, unless they are let into the whole secret from first to last, of every thing which concerns you.

A
  • part of the justification for the amount of detail
  • suggests that he obliges the reader by controlling the narrative when in reality it is the reader who has controlled the narrative through their needs
  • Sterne shows that there is value in the silences of literature - allows his narrative space to breathe, refuses to pander to the necessity for immediacy and detail
  • exactly where we locate TS - at the boundaries of definition
20
Q

you must have a little patience

my dear friend and companion

A

oo

21
Q

For in this long digression which I was accidentally led into, as in all my digressions (one only excepted) there is a master-stroke of digressive skill, the merit of which has all along, I fear, been over-looked by my reader

A
  • “over-looked” - keeps emphasising the value of his text in order to stop the reader resisting the progress of the narrative
22
Q

In a word, my work is digressive, and it is progressive too,—and at the same time.

A
  • part of him painting a visual artwork through his literature - ie. only in artwork can you achieve that co-occurrence
  • “progressive” - future-orientated
23
Q

I would tear it out of my book
//
I have begun a new book

A
  • impact of serialisation of print, would have had a different impact from modern readers when reading as a complete novel
  • would have increased the destabilisation, readers are more in control today
  • confusion of sincerity and insincerity
  • modern readers have the physical synthesis of the narrative whereas contemporary readers would have had to achieve the synthesis organically
24
Q

when the door hastily opening in the next chapter but one - put an end to the affair

A
  • narrative interrupts itself
25
Q

go, poor devil, get thee gone, why should I hurt thee?

A
  • text on the page opens the doors of possible interpretation
  • readers’ opportunity to pursue the possible interpretations ie. either absurd or sentimental (always the question we return to, whether Sterne has a genuine message or if the book is merely part of an impish enterprise)
26
Q

—’Because,’ replied my great-grandmother, ‘you have little or no nose, Sir.’—

A
  • experience the discomforting crossing of interpretations
  • attempt to maintain the innocent connotations of the “great-grandmother” with the imaginative deviations into innuendo of our mind
  • Sterne enjoys pushing us into these ambiguities where we cannot sustain both connotations - questions if we have a choice over our own imaginations
  • locates the core humour at these points of ambiguity - means that to fully appreciate meaning we have to allow the mind to linger in that ambiguous space
27
Q

For three generations at least this tenet in favour of long noses had gradually been taking root in our family.

A
  • “taking root” - possible sexual innuendo
28
Q

—Now don’t let Satan, my dear girl, in this chapter, take advantage of any one spot of rising ground to get astride of your imagination, if you can any ways help it

A
  • “dear girl” - amplifies that condescension and her innocence
  • “get astride” - sexual innuendo
  • the implication is that she is physically chasted but her mind has ulterior motives
29
Q

Read, read, read, read, my unlearned reader! read—or by the knowledge of the great saint Paraleipomenon—I tell you before-hand, you had better throw down the book at once; for without much reading, by which your reverence knows I mean much knowledge, you will no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motley emblem of my work!)

A
  • reader has to gain knowledge to be able to recognise the meaning of the marble page which is that they have the power to harness the text as a wholly individual experience
  • the “motley emblem” being the greatest message of the work - requires the readers to recognise the value of their own subjective viewpoint - literature does not have to dictate to readers, readers can dictate to literature
  • “motley emblem” - coat of arms of the work, all encapsulating prideful symbol of the work’s sentiment
  • “motley” - disparate, reflects the effect of marbling but actually created with intentionality and creative intent
30
Q

“Pray, what was your father saying? Nothing”

A
  • Sterne winks at us over the heads of his readers

- the epitome of Victorian readers?

31
Q

(Pamela)

A horrid contrivance of my master’s to ruin me; being in my room, disguised in clothes of the maid’s

A
  • fantastical circumstance
32
Q

It is in vain to leave this to the Reader’s imagination:—to form any kind of hypothesis that will render these propositions feasible, he must cudgel his brains sore,—and to do it without,—he must have such brains as no reader ever had before him.—Why should I put them either to trial or to torture? ‘Tis my own affair: I’ll explain it myself.

A

e

33
Q

besides, Sir, as you and I are in a manner perfect strangers to each other, it would not have been proper to have let you into too many circumstances relating to myself all at once

A
  • dignifies him with the address of a companion
  • share the journey of the narrative together
  • offer gradual details, implies a revelatory effect
34
Q

Dr Slop had lost his teeth

A
  • it becomes a requirement of the narrative that we trust the author with shifting our mental images through these incongruities and anomalies
35
Q

(Pamela)
I left them both together, and retired to my closet to write a letter for the tiles; but having no time for a copy, I will give you the substance only.

A
  • writing to the immediacy of the moment