Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy and the Aesthetic Theory and Practise of William Hogarth

Abstract

<p>Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy in many wetys follows the same aesthetic principles that English painter William Hogarth displays in his work and discusses in his treatise The Analysis of Beauty. The affinities between Hogarth's and Sterne's aesthetic methodologies have been noted--but not subjected to close examination--by modern scholars. This thesis explores some of the similarities between the two men: their rejection of neoclassical convention, their attempts to transcend the boundaries of their respective mediums, their ultimate recognition of the intrinsic differences between literature and art and of the limitations and advantages peculiar to each, and their espousal of rococo values: Hogarth in his moral progresses and In his Analysis of Beauty, and Sterne in the narrative structure of Tristram Shandy. Sterne acquired from Hogarth illustrations to Tristram Shandy, confesses his admiration for the painter's method of characterization, and commended and borrowed freely from his Analysis. This evidence strongly suggests (but cannot conclusively prove) that Hogarth influenced Sterne's narrative methodology in Tristram Shancty. Even if Sterne did not consciously and deliberately incorporate Hogarth's aesthetic principles into his novel, the many analogies between the techniques used by the two men reveal much about the general aesthetic movement taking place in the eighteenth-century; a movement in which they played an important part. It is hoped that this thesis will raise further questions regarding the relationship between Sterne's Tristram Shandy and William Hogarth, a relationship which might be more significant than previously supposed.</p>