Textual and Critical Intersections: Conversations with Laurence Sterne and Others

Melvyn New's collection of essays explores Laurence Sterne's influence on other authors, highlighting his borrowings, Anglicanism, and reliance on John Norris. It proposes removing "The Unknown World" from his canon and offers proximate readings of Sterne alongside his contemporaries and modernist authors, emphasizing the uncertainties and mysteries of great literary works.

Format: Hardback
Length: 398 pages
Publication date: 12 December 2023
Publisher: University Press of Florida

In this comprehensive collection of essays spanning fifty years of scholarship on Laurence Sterne, Melvyn New engages in a lively dialogue with a diverse range of authors, both his contemporaries, such as James Boswell and Samuel Richardson, and modernists, such as Marcel Proust and James Joyce. New's exploration begins by delving into Sterne's textual sources and the motivations behind his renowned borrowings from past writings, his Anglicanism, and his reliance on John Norris of Bemerton. This insightful section concludes with a compelling argument for the exclusion of "The Unknown World" from Sterne's canonical works.

Subsequently, New presents a series of readings that juxtapose diverse texts, pairing Charles Dickens's "Dombey and Son" with the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, and Samuel Johnson's "London" with T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The final section presents several proximate readings of Sterne alongside his contemporaries, Jonathan Swift, Richardson, and Boswell, as well as modernist authors and texts, including Proust, Bruno Schulz, Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway," and Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."

Through his meticulous analysis, New argues that literary greatness resides in the uncertainties and mysteries—as expressed by Keats—of works that have the ability to captivate thoughtful attention across different eras and vast geographical spaces. He implores the continued teaching of these challenging texts in the future of literary studies, recognizing their profound significance in shaping our understanding of literature and culture.

Dimension: 229 x 152 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780813069838