Tristram Shandy study questions
1. Tristram Shandy is a book which constantly draws the reader’s attention to its status of the book as an object. What typographic oddities does the book use and what role do they play?
2. The opening chapters revolve around the conception of a child and childbirth. Can you interpret it as a commentary on the nature of the creative process?
3. Two great obsessions of Sterne are time and language. How is it reflected in Tristram Shandy?
4. Viktor Shklovsky called Tristram Shandy “the most typical work of world literature” –why?
5. Tristram Shandy might be a postmodernist novel avant la lettre, but it is also grounded in historical reality of its times. For instance: Tristram is born on 5 November – what is the significance of this date in English history?
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