Biblical Sterne: Rhetoric and Religion in the Shandyverse

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Is Laurence Sterne one of the great Christian apologists Ryan Stark recommends him as such, perhaps to the detriment of the parsons roguish reputation. The books aim, however, is not to dispel roguishness but rather to discern the theological motives behind Sternes 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 humours role in the service of religion.

Reviews

Biblical Sterne will change the way I think about all of Sternes works something that can be said of too few works of scholarship. * Jack Lynch, The Shandean *

Author Bio

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