The oft-expressed opinion that Cervantes' Don Quixote influenced Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy was examined in the light of the two texts. Major aspects considered were character, narrative technique, and theme. For each, the model of Don Quixote was first analyzed--when possible, reconstructing Sterne's views--then, Sterne's use of the model was traced in Tristram Shandy. / The first chapter presents, in general terms, the use of Spanish sources in seventeenth-century English literature; the reception of Don Quixote and its interpretations in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; the changing attitudes toward Don Quixote, and their effect on the development of the novel; Sterne's allusions to Don Quixote and Cervantes, and his identification of his own humor as "Cervantick." The last part of the chapter concerns the question of translation, and Sterne's use of the Motteux-Ozell version, whose merits and flaws are examined. / The second chapter considers the characters, Don Quixote and Sancho from one work, and Walter Shandy, Toby, Trim, and Yorick from the other. Don Quixote is seen as didactic, eloquent, idealistic as well as irascible, ridiculous, and fanatical. Sancho is clever, loyal, ambitious as well as roguish, materialistic, and opportunistic. Don Quixote is maddened by his reading, and Sancho partakes of his madness. Walter Shandy shares with Quixote his temper, book-madness, didacticism, eloquence, fanaticism. Toby shares the knight's idealism, and his respect for soldiers. Toby also shares in several of Sancho's traits, especially his commonsense approach to life. Trim, Toby's servant, like Sancho, is loquacious, clever, loyal. Yorick, tall and lean, rides a hack like Rocinante and shares with Don Quixote his idealistic approach to life and his desire to help others. Like the knight, he gets only blows for his pains. The Walter-Toby and Toby-Trim relationships derive from that between Quixote and Sancho; that of Walter and Yorick derives from that of Quixote and the Curate. / The third chapter examines structural elements, and deals primarily with the narrators and dramatized readers in both works. Don Quixote uses a multi-level presentation with three narrators: a first narrator who interrupts his work; a second, the Christian editor of the third; and Cid Hamete Benengeli, the Arab who supplies most of the tale. The narrators manipulate the material, presenting differing options and asking for the reader's sympathy. Sterne's narrator, Tristram, uses a number of Cervantes' narrators' devices and picks up suggestions on the nature of fiction, time, and the author-reader relationship. Cervantes presents readers within his novel who dramatize the reception of fiction in general and of Don Quixote itself. Sterne develops this device by having Tristram engage in a continual conversation with the reader. / The fourth chapter deals with three themes found in both works: first, the relationship between life and art; second, literary theory and criticism; third, communication and frustration. For the first, Cervantes and Sterne explore the limits of fiction and reality, and the comic confusion of the two; however, the melding of art and life is not absolutely rejected by either. For the second, Cervantes presents a theory to dignify the new form of the comic epic in prose while Sterne presents an idiosyncratic theory to justify his own practices. For the third, the skeptical attitude of both authors with respect to language, their concern for communication and the inevitability of frustration in human endeavors, with verbal communication in the forefront, is analyzed. / The fifth and last chapter presents the writer's conclusions of the presence of Cervantes' influence on Sterne. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-09, Section: A, page: 4038. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74268 |
| Contributors | BOTHWELL DEL TORO, FRANCES MARGARET., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 319 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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