Comic digression in Tristram Shandy: A short essay

By Raffaele Messinese

This paper examines the comic function of digression in Laurence Sterne's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, arguing that Sterne elevates digression from a subordinate narrative deviation to the governing principle of the text. By reading representative episodes (e.g., the fly, the chair, the recurrent "nose," and the embedded "Tale of Slawkenbergius") through a framework that draws on formalist and dialogic theories (notably Shklovsky's "game of materials" and Bakhtinian carnival and Menippean satire), the study shows how digression simultaneously fragments plot and expands thematic range via association, rhythm, etymology, and chance reference. These procedures generate a serio-comic tonal oscillation and produce a grotesque, multi-perspectival narrative "body" that parodies the codifying eighteenth-century English novel. Digression is further described as operating defensively (delay) and offensively (expansion), including typographical and enumerative proliferations that spatialize time and disrupt cause-effect syntax. The article concludes that Sterne's comic digression underwrites the novel's open, anti-teleological closure, presenting narrative as potentially infinite and resisting definitive genre categorization.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H1H1W2YP
• ISBN13: 9798196503801
• Release Date: May 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 34 Pages
• Weight: 0.11 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.1" x 5.3"