As you work through Volumes 8 and 9 of Tristram Shandy in preparation for class on Monday, feel free to post here about (a) any passages that seem particularly impenetrable; (b) any passages you think you might grasp but would like confirmation of; (c) any questions you have.
Some specific questions you might want to think about:
1. "Not touch it for the world!" why does this phrase "overheat" the narrator's imagination?
2. Is it just smut, or is it sublime? Is "sublime smut" really a...thing?
3. What causes Toby to fall in love?
4. Does the narrator distinguish sheer lust from a deeper emotional connection? How? Where?
5. Why, ultimately, don't things work out between Toby and the Widow Wadman? Where is the, so to speak, climax of their courtship?
6. Is love sublime? Is sex? Does the narrator think so?
Deadline: Monday (4/18), start of class.
3 comments:
When the narrator writes that his metaphor has "heated [his] imagination," he is alluding to our idea in class that the sublime involves, in part, the unknown. We talked at great length Friday about how obscurity is necessary when attempting to invoke the sublime. The narrator finds the bawdy innuendo and dirty metaphors throughout Chapter 9 of Volume 8 stimulating and sublime because the actual act that's being alluded to, sex, is presented as an obscure thing. This is an idea that exists today and is usually presented as "leaving something to the imagination," implying that our imaginations, when forced to work to figure out what is going on (as the narrator's writing forces him to do), can be more stimulating than a succinct and direct summary of sexual acts. This is at least partly why people enjoy romance novels (at least, ones safe enough to be sold at a Borders) over, say, anatomy textbooks.
Perhaps things have changed too much in 250 years, but I can't find anything sublime in the "smut" we looked at on Friday. We just might be too desensitized, or maybe I'm turned off by the constant appearance of these allusions to sex all over the novel, but there's something childish about his descriptions of sex that makes me unwilling to pay much attention. Again, things were different, and (I'm pretty sure that) this was the only way he could include such ideas and get the book published. I think that love certainly can be sublime, and sex, as an often-critical component of love, can be equally sublime. It just isn't portrayed subliminally, so to speak, here.
Ultimately, the relationship between Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman falls apart somewhere between pages 584-585. I believe that Uncle Toby is trying to make a list of all of Widow Wadman's virtues, and lists compassion as one, since she is always so concerned about his injury. The Corporal breaks the news to Toby that the Widow Wadman is only concerned about his injury because she is worried that he is now impotent. Uncle Toby is greatly disenchanted that the Widow Wadman is not the woman that he thought she was, and thus their relationship ends and goes no further.
However, I think the climax of their relationship has to be their discussion of his war wound, when the Widow Wadman is talking about the physical location of his wound, while Uncle Toby is talking about it geographically. Many bawdy jokes ensue, with Uncle Toby saying "You shall see the very place" and the Widow Wadman blushing (567). I would argue that you don't really see much substance to their relationship, as it is mostly built on a misunderstanding, having to do not only with Uncle Toby's injury, but also with Uncle Toby completely misjudging the Widow Wadman's character.
I do think that love is sublime and that Tristam describes love as a beautiful, mystical emotion. Tristam says, “what in this vessel of the human frame, is Love—my be Hatred, in that—Sentiment half a yard higher- and Nonsense---no Madam, -not there—I mean at the part I am not pointing to with my forefinger---how can we help ourselves?....who ever soliloquized upon this mystical subject, my uncle Toby was the worst fitted” (492). Tristam describes this love as a mystical subject that is evokes similar emotions as sentimentality, hatred and nonsense. In this regard, love is definitely sublime in the manner the class has been discussing it. Love is an emotion that is very personal and almost bewitching to the individual’s soul and heart.
It appears that Toby is captivated by Mrs. Wadman (I thought so, but then another passage confused me with whom loved who). The distinction between who loves whom is an important one, and Tristam points out that this was an important point for him to clarify in his description of love. Tristam says, “I chuse for that reason to call these the amours of my uncle Toby with Mrs. Wadman, rather than the amours of Mrs. Wadman with my uncle Toby. This is into a distinction without a difference. …but there is a differene her in the nature of things” (498). It is important to know that Mrs. Wadman is in love with Toby, but Toby is not in love with Mrs. Wadman, although I thought Toby had affection for her. I was confused, but Tristam cleared this up by blatantly pointing out that, “Now as widow Wadman did love my uncle Toby—and my uncle Toby did not love widow Wadman, there was nothing for widow Wadman to do, but to go on and love my uncle Toby—or let it alone” (499).
The other part that plagued me was the description of “water drinkers.” I was intrigued because I thought Tristam was playing with a nice metaphor between drinking water and drinking love. He outlines how water goes to the brain and is a fountain that governs the world and changes the face of nature(491). In the next chapter, he says he “wish my uncle Toby had been a water-drinker; for then the thing had been accounted for, that the first moment Widow Wadman saw him, she felt something stirring within her in his favour- Something!—something. From this it seems as though that being a “water-drinker” is a metaphor for opening your heart to love and “drinking the passion from the other person.” If Toby was a “water-drinker,” he could have loved Mrs. Wadman.
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