Reading Order
A Sentimental Journey Reading Order
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768) by Laurence Sterne is one of the most formally inventive and emotionally surprising works of the eighteenth century — a travel narrative that is simultaneously a parody of travel narrative, a comedy of sentimental excess, an erotic novel, and a philosophical meditation on sympathy, sensibility, and the nature of feeling. The narrator, Yorick (the same character Sterne used in Tristram Shandy, himself borrowed from Hamlet), travels through France and Italy, though the 'journey' barely reaches Lyon before the book ends mid-sentence — the Italy of the title is never reached. The book's method is to take the conventional eighteenth-century travel narrative (which catalogued monuments, art, history, and topography) and replace it with interior states: Yorick's sentimental reactions to everything he encounters (a dead donkey, a caged starling that says 'I can't get out,' a fille de chambre, a peasant family at supper) are the real subject. The book is also deeply ironic about its own sentimentalism — Sterne is aware throughout that sentimental feeling can be self-indulgent, performative, and even self-serving, and the comedy often lies in the gap between Yorick's noble feelings and his actual behavior (especially toward women). Voltaire admired it; it was the founding text of the European Sentimental tradition; and it ends, famously, with Yorick's hand reaching for something in the dark that turns out to be the fille de chambre.
Where to start
A Sentimental Journey (1768) — the Penguin Classics edition edited by Paul Goring (2001) is the best modern edition with an excellent introduction to the sentimental tradition; the Oxford World's Classics edition edited by Tim Parnell and Ian Jack is also excellent. The book is very short (under 150 pages) and can be read in a single sitting; reading it after Tristram Shandy reveals how Sterne refined his method for this different form.
Complete A Sentimental Journey Book List
- 1Buy
A Sentimental Journey (Penguin Classics)
Laurence Sterne (ed. Paul Goring)·2001·The best modern edition — Goring's introduction is the most accessible guide to the sentimental tradition and Sterne's relationship to it; essential notes on the French and Italian settings and the cultural context. - 2Buy
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
Laurence Sterne·1759·Sterne's masterpiece and the source of the Yorick character — A Sentimental Journey is shorter, lighter, and more focused; reading Tristram Shandy first gives the full measure of Sterne's genius but is not required. - 3Buy
Candide
Voltaire·1759·The companion work from the same moment — Voltaire (who admired A Sentimental Journey) deploys a similar satirical intelligence but in the opposite direction: Candide is a satire on optimism, where Sterne's sentimentalism is an ironic celebration of feeling; the two together define the philosophical range of 1760s European fiction. - 4Buy
Paul et Virginie
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre·1788·The French sentimental novel that most directly inherits A Sentimental Journey's tradition — Bernardin's tale of innocent love on a tropical island is the most popular French novel of the eighteenth century and takes its emotional method from Sterne. - 5Buy
The Man of Feeling
Henry Mackenzie·1771·The Scottish sentimental novel that most directly imitates A Sentimental Journey — Harley's excessive sensibility to every human and animal suffering makes him the decade's model of sentimental man; read alongside Sterne to see how the mode was taken up and simplified.
A Sentimental Journey — Frequently Asked Questions
What is A Sentimental Journey about?
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768) by Laurence Sterne is a travel narrative in which the narrator Yorick travels through France (and, nominally, Italy — the book ends before he arrives). But the journey is entirely interior: instead of cataloguing monuments and history, Yorick records his sentimental reactions to everything he encounters — a dead donkey, a caged starling, a fille de chambre, a peasant family. The book is simultaneously a parody of travel narrative, a comedy of sentimental self-indulgence, an erotic comedy, and a philosophical meditation on sympathy and sensibility. It ends, famously, mid-sentence.
Is A Sentimental Journey by Sterne a parody or a sincere work of sentiment?
A Sentimental Journey is both at once, which is what makes it so distinctive. Sterne was the greatest English writer on the subject of sincerity and performance — he is aware throughout that Yorick's sentimental feelings are partly self-serving (the emotional scenes with women consistently edge toward the erotic), partly performative (Yorick is always the hero of his own sentimental episode), and partly genuine. The comedy arises from this gap between the noble feeling and the actual behavior, and the book's irony never resolves into either pure parody (Sterne loves sentiment even as he sees through it) or pure sincerity. This double quality is why it was both enormously influential on the Sentimental tradition and also the text that allowed that tradition to be parodied.
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