Biblical Sterne - Rhetoric and Religion in the Shandyverse

List of contents

Chapter 1: The Shandean Apology
Chapter 2: Paranormal Tristram Shandy
Chapter 3: Are the Sermons Funny?
Chapter 4: Maria in the Biblical Sense
Chapter 5: Otherworldly Yorick
Chapter 6: Ghost Rhetoric
Chapter 7: Why Sterne?
Bibliography

Index

About the author

Ryan Stark is Associate Professor of Humanities at Corban University, USA. He is the author of Rhetoric, Science, and Magic in Seventeenth-Century England (2009) and co-editor—with Tina Skouen—of Rhetoric and the Early Royal Society (2015). He has also published numerous essays on Renaissance and Enlightenment thought.

Summary

Is Laurence Sterne one of the great Christian apologists? Ryan Stark recommends him as such, perhaps to the detriment of the parson’s roguish reputation. The book’s aim, however, is not to dispel roguishness but rather to discern the theological motives behind Sterne’s comic rhetoric, from Tristram Shandy and the sermons to A Sentimental Journey. To this end, Stark reveals a veritable avalanche of biblical themes and allusions to be found in Sterne, often and seemingly awkwardly in the middle of sex jokes, and yet the effect is not to produce irreverence. On the contrary, we find an irreverently reverent apologetic, Stark argues, and a priest who knows how to play gracefully with religious ideas. Through Sterne, in fact, we might rethink humour’s role in the service of religion.

Foreword

This book explores Sterne’s engagement with the Christian religion, and offers a persuasive reading of the biblical rationale informing Sterne’s use of humour and interest in talking and writing about sex.

Additional text

Biblical Sterne will change the way I think about all of Sterne’s works – something that can be said of too few works of scholarship.

Product details

• Authors: Ryan J Stark, Ryan J. Stark, Stark Ryan J.
• Assisted by: Mark Knight (Editor), Emma Mason (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.08.2022
• EAN: 9781350202894
• ISBN: 978-1-350-20289-4
• No. of pages: 184
• Series: New Directions in Religion and Literature; New Directions in Religion and
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; RELIGION / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / General, Ireland, Religion & beliefs, 18th century, c 1700 to c 1799, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Religion and beliefs, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800, C 1700 To C 1800