
Contingency and its consequences in Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
Author(s) -
Tomasz Umerle
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of education, culture and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2081-1640
DOI - 10.15503/jecs20101.70.83
Subject(s) - contingency , narrative , german , character (mathematics) , reading (process) , focus (optics) , literature , psychoanalysis , psychology , art , philosophy , epistemology , linguistics , mathematics , physics , geometry , optics
My paper proposes a new approach to the famous novel by Laurence Sterne TristramShandy. In my reading of this work I use the category of contingency which I define by referring to the German philosopher Odo Marquard and literary theories of a monographer of the contigency in literature and film Rafał Koschany. These are the basic inspirations for reflections on Tristram as a character, and simultaneously, narrator in the novel. In my view contingency manifests itself in Sterne's work in a two-fold manner it affects Tristram's life and narration. I will try to focus on the different ways in which these manifestations relate to each other.