Sterne's Fiction and the Double Principle

The author of Tristram Shandy made frequent use of literary fragments from other writers, as part of his own style. Laurence Sterne's quotations, plagiarisms and allusions were often employed in the service of the pleonasm, or 'performed pun'. Jonathan Lamb describes Sterne's operation of the pleonasm as his 'double principle'. He asks why the collection and arrangement of fragments had such an appeal for Sterne, and why his most original effects are derived from imitations and repetitions. This study shows many of his outrageous 'modernisms' to be part of a sceptical discourse joined by Addison, Hume, Hartley, and Lowth, and permits a sharper insight into his reading of earlier writers, particularly Montaigne and Cervantes.Lamb, Jonathan is the author of 'Sterne's Fiction and the Double Principle', published 1989 under ISBN 9780521372732 and ISBN 0521372739.