Tag: Premodern Metafiction

This is not the title of another post on Tristram Shandy

because I am still considering what title I want to use. Although I have already written about the play of form in Laurence Sterne’s book (Tristram Shandy ****s Up the Page, Progressive Digressions in Tristram Shandy, and The Stuff That Dreams are Made Of), there is so much more to say! I feel I could go on exploring metafictional elements in Tristram Shandy for years and never get to the bottom of the book. So here are just a couple of additions to my earlier observations of metafiction in Laurence Sterne’s masterpiece.

Continue reading “This is not the title of another post on Tristram Shandy”

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made On: Paper, Ink, Letter and Word

00011011100010101111001000011010111010010101001001111010001000000101010101110
cvlkjva [-09w8u} =t04 olsd; lkcmvfdkn [goiwe[oidufalkdm;olwih[ot9iyu=frik]; lfdkvna; leirthj ofiu so fijgs; lkrjt
word though there Sterne is attention black and of aware deal recommend the stridulous parcel burn it

In Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne draws the reader’s attention to the stuff a book is made of: the pages, the spaces, the ink, the letters, and the words. I have already written about this in “Tristram Shandy ****s Up the Page,” but much more could be said about the earliest and still most complete metafictional novel ever written.

Continue reading “The Stuff That Dreams Are Made On: Paper, Ink, Letter and Word”

Progressive Digressions in Tristram Shandy

In my copy of Tristram Shandy, pages 23 to 68 came loose and I joked about mixing them up and reading them in a random order, but it doesn’t work. There is order to the disorder, organization to the chaos.

Continue reading “Progressive Digressions in Tristram Shandy”

Why Read Spenser When Allegory Invites Despayre

When Allegory invited me to a read and feed, I hesitated. He is a thin man, easy to overlook, his yellowish skin almost transparent. He wears a mishmash of musty, old-fashioned clothing: a toga and a biblical robe, medieval hose and cod piece, moccasins and a romantic scarf. Nothing modern, except maybe the combination.

Continue reading “Why Read Spenser When Allegory Invites Despayre”

Tristram Shandy ****s Up the Page

Shockingly audacious even today, Tristram Shandy was printed in installments from 1759 to 1769, about two hundred and fifty years ago. Laurence Sterne misuses the stuff novels are made of — the ink, the symbols, the pages, the fly-leafs — to make readers aware of the materiality of the book. Flipping through the novel you will come across a totally black page, front and back. I say totally black, but only the part of the page where the text normally appears is blacked out. The block of ink is framed by normal margins and includes page numbers (33 and 34 in my edition). The motivation for this famous black page is the exclamation “Alas, poor YORICK!”, which appears twice on the previous page.

Continue reading “Tristram Shandy ****s Up the Page”

When a Reader Enters a Book: Sampson and Quixote

How would you feel if you heard that a book had been written about you without your knowledge or permission? You would worry, I’m sure, about how it portrayed you. Unfortunately, Don Quixote has just learned from Sancho Panza that a book of their exploits is spreading across Europe and the book portrays him a madman and Sancho a fool. The knight dispatches his chubby squire to fetch the bachelor who has read the book El Ingenioso Hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha.

Continue reading “When a Reader Enters a Book: Sampson and Quixote”

When Don Quixote and Sancho Panza Hear of Their Book

At the beginning of Book II, Don Quixote says, “tell me, friend Sancho, what do folks say of me about this town? what opinion has the common people of me? what think the gentlemen, and what the cavaliers? what is said of my prowess, what of my exploits, and what of my courtesy? What discourse is there of the design I have engaged in, to revive and restore to the world the long-forgotten order of chivalry?” (481). Sancho will only agree to discuss his lord’s reputation, however, if he promises not to get angry. The knight gallantly accedes.

Continue reading “When Don Quixote and Sancho Panza Hear of Their Book”

La Mancha: The Stain of Truth

Mancha, in Spanish, means “stain,” and in La Mancha, the region Don Quixote comes from, everything is true. So, for our purposes the excellent word “Mancha” will symbolize truth, which stains every page of Cervantes’ masterpiece (not to mention your screen).

Continue reading “La Mancha: The Stain of Truth”

Who Wrote Don Quixote?

Don Quixote is the first modern novel. But who wrote it? In the preface, the narrator states, “though I seem to be the father [I am] but the step-father of Don Quixote” (15). He has compiled and translated a book, we learn, written mostly by Cid Hamet Ben Engeli, “Arabian historiographer” (68), who gathered his material from various sources.

Continue reading “Who Wrote Don Quixote?”

How to Sound Like an Author of Great Reading, Learning and Eloquence: A Quixotic Preface

Cervantes’ preface to Don Quixote is a caustic satire of academic writing, just as valid today as it was four hundred and five years ago. Full of delicious irony, Cervantes brags with the deepest humility. He points out the flaws in the book are its qualities.

Continue reading “How to Sound Like an Author of Great Reading, Learning and Eloquence: A Quixotic Preface”