Narrative Aesthetics Of Tristram Shandy

"The Life and Opinion of Tristram Shandy" is the representative work of the English novelist Laurence Sterne(1713-1768) in the 18^th century. Its unique style breaks up the tie of novel form, and creates new styles in structure form, narrative technique, the treatment of time and language style. It is unique and fantastic, and can be called a truly experimental novel.The paper analyses the "Tristram Shandy" from the narrative theory together with the writer's philosophy idea, and mainly studies its unrestrained and modernist narrative art forms. It can make readers appreciate the great experimental novelist's wonderful achievements from the novel's creation techniques.In the preface, it gives a brief introduction about the research situation of the "Tristram Shandy" at home and abroad. The paper's main contents and structure are as follows:The first chapter analyses the philosophy idea, which contains in the unique narrative form of the "Tristram Shandy" together with the life and creation of Sterne. The paper thinks that on the one hand Sterne was deeply affected by Locke's empirical philosophy, and on the other hand he took up Anthony Ashley Cooper's optimistic philosophy and literary tendency of sentimentalism. It can be said that Sterne's philosophy idea is the deep reason why "Tristram Shandy" has a unique narrative techniques.The second chapter analyses the nariative structure of the "Tristram Shandy". The paper thinks that the novel's superficial structure seems disorder, and the vague plot was always broken down by digressions, insertions and leaping comments. Why Sterne took this kind of structure form, it is because that he was affected by Locke's Associations of Ideas theory.The third chapter analyses the narrative form. For Sterne, the novel would truly reflect the creation process, so he used the first person pronoun to tell the novel creation process. The recount form of Meta-fiction appeared in his work. So "Tristram Shandy" can be called a novel about novel.The fourth chapter analyses the time problem from two sides: mental time and time transformation. The paper thinks that Sterne dealt with the time problem skillfully. On the one hand, he was affected by Locke's idea of thought and tried to narrate complicate people and things by literature time. On the other hand, he realized the difference between the story time and the narrative time, so he took a narrative form of time transformation, which broke the order of the novel and paid attention to the simultaneous meaning of times. The fifth chapter talks about the language style. Sterne skillfully used the art of exaggeration, sarcasm and ambiguity to express words and behavior, create personal image with typical character, and cause a kind of humorous connect with grief. It made the sarcastic object ridiculous, absurd, and funny, and added the comedy elements to the whole work.In the end, it gives a summary and points out the purpose and meaning of this paper.