SOURCE: "Smollett and Sterne and Animal Spirits: Tristram Shandy," in her The Comic Spirit of Eighteenth:Century Novels, Kennikat Press Corp., 1975, pp. 119-47.

In the following essay, Auty observes that in Tristram Shandy, Sterne poked fun at the foolishness of human nature even as he acknowledged the pathos of the human condition.

The tenacious resistance of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent., to the stroke of Posterity's hatchet-man, Oblivion, is striking testimony to the special strength and resilience of this great comic work. Ever since Johnson made his famous pronouncement on its fate, "Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last," distrust and amazement have been voiced by critics who begrudge the presence of Sterne's work alongside the other great productions of the eighteenth century. Praise for the many handles that Sterne so obligingly offered the critics "to suit their passions, their ignorance or...