Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) [ Art and Literature ]
… caused the displeasure of some critics who disapproved of publication of religious texts under the name of Yorick, the King’s jester in Hamlet , a fictional character in Tristram Shandy , and subsequently the narrator of A Sentimental … (David Garrick, Joshua Reynolds, who painted his portrait while he was in London), as well in politics. In a most striking and exemplary aspect of the changing nature of celebrity in the middle of the eighteenth century, it is his book … as the reading of Tristram Shandy : ‘and so long as a man rides his H obby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King’s high-way, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him,—pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?’ …
Salons | Enlightenment | Sentiment | Novel | Celebrity | Satire | Slavery
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