Proust's Influence on Sterne: Remembrance of Things to Come

Solitary Confinement, Aloneness, and Sociability in Sterne

“…For New, the starling and captive sequence is integral to A Sentimental Journey's preoccupation with the difficulty of forging connections with others, which New situates in overtly gendered terms in drawing a parallel with Marcel Proust's The Captive: male-female relations propose the most challenging conundrum of navigating between self and others. 10 Yorick's inability to picture captivity, stimulated by the encounter with the starling, is 'not merely a failure of the imagination' but of 'true penetration and connection '. 11 This extends beyond male-female interactions (although they are undoubtedly a Sternean preoccupation) to characterise faultily forged connections throughout the journey, and returns to the essential problem of knowing oneself fully enough in order to bridge self and others with any degree of success.…”

“…These moments provide a recurrent motif reminding him of both the difficulties of and the reasons for travel outlined in the Preface he writes in the desobligeant. For all that 'nature has set up […] certain boundaries and fences to circumscribe the discontent of man' in order to 'sustain his sufferings at home', travelling abroad can open the mind beyond the self (13). However, 'we lie under so many impediments in communicating our sensations out of our own sphere, as often amount to a total impossibility' (13).…”

“…For all that 'nature has set up […] certain boundaries and fences to circumscribe the discontent of man' in order to 'sustain his sufferings at home', travelling abroad can open the mind beyond the self (13). However, 'we lie under so many impediments in communicating our sensations out of our own sphere, as often amount to a total impossibility' (13). Attaining the 'balance of sentimental commerce' necessary for human interaction is a particular challenge for any traveller abroad, out of his own culture and language.…”

“…As New suggests, this chapter is 'typical of Sterne's most mature writing-a virtuoso mingling of heretofore incompatible intentions, most obviously the pathetic and the bawdy', but mixed with 'The sad redundancy of solitary and alone'. 13 The remedy for unhealthy solitude does not lie in the wrong kind of sociability. Yorick determines to seek out what he perceives to be an authentic human experience among humbler citizens, an urban version of the sentimental novel's idealisation of rustic poverty as the closest approximation to 'nature', to be found in 'some winding alley' (rather than Paris' brightly coloured streets and squares), where 'thou mayest solace thy soul in converse sweet with some kind grisset of a barber's wife' (65).…”