Uncrystalized Flesh and Blood: The Body in Tristram Shandy
Juliet McMaster, University of Alberta
Volume 2, no. 3, April 1990
©McMaster University, 2015. All articles published on the Eighteenth-Century Fiction website are protected by copyright held by Eighteenth-Century Fiction, a journal published by the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University.
ABSTRACT
In the debate among eighteenth-century novelists on the relation of the body to character, Laurence Sterne differs from his contemporaries, who tend to show a fortunate consonance between the two … For Henry Fielding, the mind does shine through the body. Tobias Smollett and Samuel Richardson also routinely provide detailed physiognomical descriptions of their personnel, and appearance is always relevant in a judgment of their characters. The outward and visible aspect of Sir Charles Grandison perfectly matches his inward and spiritual grace: and this harmony has much to do with the fact that the novel in which he appears is a comedy, with a fortunate outcome. Lovelace, on the other hand, has a graceful exterior which belies his moral corruption, and it is partly this vitiation of nature’s true language of physiognomy which makes Clarissa a tragedy. A character’s bodily appearance for Richardson is in any case relevant and expressive; and therefore describing it is a useful and much exploited means of characterization.
Other ECF articles on the topic of “Laurence Sterne” include:
Consuming Indians: Tsonnonthouan, Colonialism, and the Commodification of Culture
by ROBBIE RICHARDSON (ECF 22.4, Spring 2010)
The Literary History of the Sash Window
by RACHEL RAMSEY (ECF 22.2, Winter 2009-10)
Talking Coins and Thinking Smoke-Jacks: Satirizing Materialism in Gildon and Sterne
by SCOTT NOWKA (ECF 22.2, Winter 2009-10)
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