Vision and Revision: A Model for Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel of Education

Abstract

LAURENCE STERNE'S SENTIMENTAL TRAVELER YORICK is a character certainly not known for his reticence. Only once during his tour through France and Italy does he find himself at a serious loss for words. By its singularity this temporary lapsus serves significantly within the novel define the grounds of Yorick's philosophic sentimentalism. And I shall in a moment comment on these grounds. But I wish primarily press this passage into my own service and offer it, quite tentatively, as a paradigm which expresses the coordinates of the typical plot structure of the eighteenth-century novel of education. Let me first recount the scene from A Sentimental Journey, then briefly consider the coordinates of its slapstick epistemology, and then move, in the body of the essay, apply these coordinates as a model generate readings of two novels of education, Fanny Burney's Evelina and Jane Austen's Emma. When Yorick visits Monsieur le Count de B**** in Versailles, the two men begin their conversation by discussing a range of social and, at least for men, sociable topics: books, politics and women. Suddenly the Count interrupts the dialogue request from Yorick the proper introduction that has so far been overlooked in their acquaintance. Faced with this request Yorick finds himself, for a moment, speechless. While our hero usually finds nothing easier than converse, he confesses that he finds nothing more perplexing than to set about telling any one who I am. He meditates on this problem: