LAURENCE STERNE IN GERMANY
Reading edition
A Contribution to the Study of the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Eighteenth Century
BY
HARVEY WATERMAN THAYER, Ph.D.
SOMETIME FELLOW IN GERMANIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Copyright 1905, Columbia University Press, New York
NOTE
Mr. Thayer has undertaken to write, in detail and from the sources, the history of Sterne’s vogue in Germany. As thus broadly defined the task had not before been attempted, although phases of it had been treated, more or less thoroughly, in recent monographs. The work here submitted, the result of careful research in a number of American and European libraries, is in my judgment an interesting and valuable contribution to our knowledge of the literary relations of England and Germany at the time of the great renascence of German letters.
Calvin Thomas.
Columbia University, May, 1905.
PREFACE
The following study was begun in the autumn of 1901, and was practically finished now more than a year ago. Since its completion two works of interest to lovers of Sterne have been issued, Czerny’s study of Sterne’s influence upon Hippel and Jean Paul, a work which the present author had planned as a continuation of this book, and Prof. Cross’s new definitive edition of Sterne.
I desire here to express my thanks to Prof. W. H. Carpenter, Prof. Calvin Thomas and Prof. W. P. Trent, under whose guidance my last year of University residence was spent: their interest in my work was generous and unfailing; their admirable scholarship has been and will continue to be an inspiration. I am indebted to Prof. Carpenter and Prof. Thomas for many helpful suggestions regarding the present work, and the latter especially has given freely of his valuable time to a consideration of my problems. I am grateful also to several other friends for helpful and kindly service, and to many librarians in this country and in Europe for their courtesy.
New York, May 1, 1905.
CONTENTS
Chapter I. Introduction 1
Chapter II. Sterne in Germany before the Publication of The Sentimental Journey 9
Chapter III. The Publication of The Sentimental Journey 35
Chapter IV. Sterne in Germany after the Publication of The Sentimental Journey 55
Chapter V. Sterne’s Influence in Germany 84
Chapter VI. Imitators of Sterne 112
Chapter VII. Opposition to Sterne and His Type of Sentimentalism 156
Chapter VIII. Bibliography 183
Index 196