Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In a famous passage in Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768), Yorick enters an unoccupied carriage and, “finding it in tolerable harmony with my feelings,” settles down to “write my journey.” As he scribbles, the “see-saw” of the chaise in which he sits (a Desobligeant) begins to distract him, yet he writes on, excited by “the Novelty of my Vehicle.” At last, interrupted by travelers who wonder why the stationary carriage is rocking, he informs them that the agitation of writing has produced its motion, and acknowledges that his preface would perhaps have been better if written in a Vis a Vis, a different sort of carriage producing a distinct experience of literary transport (1768/1967: 32–7). The scene calls attention to the rhythms of human experience, particularly the ups and downs of writing, and toys with the conceit that a book is a sort of vehicle whose capacity to transport its sedentary readers depends on its mechanics - namely, on its ability to resonate with its audience.Sterne's reflections on the relationship between physical and literary transport were hardly unprecedented. In Part Four of A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757, 1759), Edmund Burke attempted to demonstrate “why the body is at all affected by the mind, or the mind by the body” (1757/1968: 129). Burke was particularly ... log in or subscribe to read full text