To shake eternity and lick creation : Tristram Shandy and the carnivalesque spirit of time, language, and grotesque realism
Date
1998
Authors
Callin, Timothy William
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The objective of To Shake Eternity and Lick Creation is to explore the ways in which Tristram Shandy, through the means of time and space, language, and grotesque realism, participates in the carnivalesque spirit of undermining specific fixed forms of literary representation. In order to achieve this aim I have established a hybrid of two theoretical positions. The first, and of central importance to this study, is Mikhail Bakhtin's influential analysis of Rabelais and His World that explores the various ways in which carnivalesque literature intentionally subverts the handling of the images and structures of the traditional linear novel. Second, and in augmentation to Bakhtin, is Jacques Derrida's treatment offreeplay and difference that each focus on the unfixed metamorphosis of linguistic degeneration and regeneration. The combination of Bakhtin's unfixed forms, and Derrida's freeplay of language, offer a meaningful approach to Sterne's often chaotic and anti-structural treatment of textual design in Tristram Shandy, and the multiple ways in which the text transgresses the limitations of fixed design. Therefore, the carnivalesque mandate of undermining fixed forms, as well as the freeplay that ensues, foreground the ways in which Tristram Shandy participates in the carnivalesque spirit of time, language, and characterization.