Johnathan Swift and Laurence Sterne - Essay Example

Compare the Johnathan Swift “Gullivers Travels” and Laurence Sterne “The life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman” Before comparingthese two authors it is worth noticing that they belonged to the one and the same epoch and had much in common. Both made a great contribution to the world literature and to English literature in particular. They lived in one epoch which was characterized by a great number of rebellions and revolutions. Nevertheless both authors have certain peculiarities and there is a great difference between them. The first one is that they belonged to the same epoch, they lived in different time. For example Jonathan Swift created his works at the edge of the centuries what is often accompanied by great changes in the life of every society. And it is a fact that these changes which can be economical, political, and social. All this has a great impact on cultural life and on literature in particular. Jonathan Swift partially belonged to the epoch of Enlightenment while Laurence Sterne was definitely the representative of this time. Swift’s views were formed by the ideas of Temple and Monten. He shared Monten’s scepticism in Anglican interpretation, which was focused on the weakness and limited nature of human mind. This ethical study led to the Anglican rationalism. The idea of historical change was at the centre of Swift’s historical views. “Gulliver’s Travels” is the greatest work of Jonathan Swift. It should be mentioned that this book is one of the most complicated and cruel literature works of mankind. Besides it is a book that contains a great number of contradictions. In the forth part of “Gulliver’s Travels” Swift speaks about his hatred to all people. If these words were taken as an idea of his work it would mean that Swift was the enemy of humanism and progress. Swift’s views had always a revolutionary character and he argued that everybody had their own beliefs and opinion but it was really impossible to express them in public. “He said, he knew no Reason, why those who entertain Opinions prejudicial to the Publick, should be obliged to change, or should not be obliged to conceal them. And, as it was Tyranny in any Government to require the first, so it was Weakness not to enforce the second.”1 Swift’s work “Gulliver’s Travels” is closely connected with the time he lived in. It is infested with the hints on the cruel reality. Though the events described in the book take place far, it is possible to see Great Britain in every detail. The most remarkable in Swift’s satire is that his characters, events, and situation gain the meaning common to all mankind, peoples and times. The main theme of “Gulliver’s Travels” is the changeability of the habit nature world and human, which is represented by the fantastic environment of Gulliver. For achieving the aim Swift uses the double expressive function of fantastic – interest and grotesque parody – which is worked out in the style of antique and humanistic traditions. According to these traditions the plot of the book is grouped around the imaginary travel. As for Gulliver himself, it is worth noticing that his character is mainly based on the stories about the Great Geographical Discoveries. It is a very important fact that Swift included some autobiographical moments and own impressions to “Gulliver’s Travels”. This allows the book to be one of the most popular for the children’s reading. It is worth mentioning that we can not speak about such a great popularity of Sterne’s book “The life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman” among children. It is a fact that “Gulliver’s Travels” has much interesting information for an adult reader. There is a great many of political elements, satire, hints, pun, and parodies. The book “Gulliver’s Travels” is the story about searching, social investigations and an attempt to learn utopia. Besides this is the story about adopting to the life conditions, and compromising way of solving the problem: person – state – society. Gulliver’s talks with the different kings are an attempt to learn the power mechanism and to find the place in the state. It should be mentioned that Gulliver has a lot of the features resided to the tragic character. Gulliver was in a conflict with society. The novel “Gulliver’s Travels” is the complexity of political problems, philosophy, history, comic situations, fantastic, parodies, and tragedy. Speaking about Laurence Sterne it is worth saying that he was the forerunner of the “conscious stream” in literature of the XX century. Sterne’s masterpiece of literature work is “The life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman”. For the first sight the novel is a mixture of dramatic moments, bright characters, and various satiric situations, besides there are some typographical means. Comparing to Janathan Swift, Sterne uses the lyrical digression that is one of the peculiarities of his literature activity. The character of the novel Tristram is not the main hero of the book, because he is an embryo up to the third part of the novel, then he appears rarely and the last part is devoted to Uncle Tobby Shandy. That is one of the differences between the novels “Gulliver’s Travels” and “The life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman”. The character of Gulliver develops step by step as a main character of the novel while Tristram is just mentioned from time to time. It is possible to say that Tristram Shandy is a nominal character of Sterne’s novel. The story about the life of Tristram Shandy ends when he is five, and besides there is a riddle in the title, because none of readers can guess that that is the story about the boy who is five years old. This stylistic approached gave the possibility to the author to create a great number of extravagant characters, which are grouped around Tristram and think about his education. The novel is interesting not only for the hero and unusual characters, but for the paradox structure and the manner of writing: the author has a habit of repeating the things for several times. Later the book “The life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman” became one of the most important model of English sentimentalism and brought a great success to the author. The novel is also interesting because of Sterne’s original experiments with time. Sterne structured his novel on the base of Lock’s concept of subjective and psychological time. Sterne tries to show and explain the mechanism of subjective time, which is expressed in changing ideas. For example: «It is two hours, and ten minutes, – and no more – cried my father, looking at his watch, since Dr. Slop and Obadiah arrived, – and I know not how it happens, Brother Toby, – but to my imagination it seems almost an age»2 And then there is a short commentary of Uncle Tobby: «– ’Tis owing entirely, quoth my uncle Toby, to the succession of our ideas» 3 So as a result the concept about the famous time chaos of Tristram Shandy appears. There is one more evidence of Sterne’s special understanding the concept of time. Though Laurence Sterne lived in the epoch of Enlightenment, his thoughts about time give us the possibility to see that they are closely connected with the XX-ieth century: «I have a strong propensity in me to begin this chapter very nonsensically, and I will not balk my fancy. Accordingly I set off thus: If the fixture of Momuss glass...» Sterne has some doubts about language as a means of communication though he is always delighted with its magic strength: 4 “– In short, there is no end of it; – for my own part, I declare I have been at it these six weeks, making all the speed I possibly could, – am not yet born…” Language is a unique thing for the writer because it can express everything, though sometimes it is very difficult to control the situation. The concepts of time and language are very important in Sterne’s creative activity. It is even possible to say that he paid more attention to the linguistic features in his writings, so he was ‘more linguistic’ than any other writer of his time. In conclusion it is worth defining and pointing out the different features, which were distinguished in comparing “Gulliver’s Travels” by Johnathan Swift and “The life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman” by Laurence Sterne: living in different time (though it may be considered to be a contradictive difference because both writers lived and created in one and the same century, but Sterne’s belonging to the epoch of Enlightenment was more obvious); the difference in character development: Swift’s character is developing step by step and is gaining the new experience while travelling; Sterne’s character has a special way of development; the difference in structure of the novels: “The life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman” is not finished; though both writers used the means of satire, parody and humor, the had different aims: swift tries to show his political position while Sterne paid more attention to the philosophical aspect (the original concept of time). Works cited Sterne Laurence, ‘The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman’, Penguin Books Ltd, 2003 Swift Johnathan, ‘Gullivers Travels’ , Oxford University Press, 2005 Read More