num_pages: 452
description: Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a huge literary paradox, for it is both a novel and an anti-novel. As a comic novel replete with bawdy humour and generous sentiments, it introduces us to a vivid group of memorable characters, variously eccentric, farcical and endearing. As an anti-novel, it is a deliberately tantalising and exuberantly egotistic work, ostentatiously digressive, involving the reader in the labryinthine creation of a purported autobiography.This mecurial eighteenth-century text thus anticipates modernism and postmodernism. Vibrant and bizarre, Tristam Shandy provides an unforgettable experience. We may see why Nietzsche termed Sterne 'the most liberated spirit of all time'.
language: English
title: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
titlecomplete: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy
characters: Uncle Toby, Trim, Mr. Shandy, Tristram Shandy, Mrs. Shandy, Yorick
genres: Classics, British Literature, 18th Century, English Literature, Humor, Novels, Classic Literature, Literature, Literary Fiction, Fiction
ratings_count: 21274
publisher: Wordsworth Classics