Abstract
Buckley enters into a unique discussion of fathers and the paternal imagination. Chapter 4 reverses the polarity of the book’s argument to examine the way Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy draws upon the unusual notion of paternal imagination and role of the father and identify a mid-century crisis in thinking about pregnancy and foetal development; not only in fiction, but also in more scientific genres. Medical texts on paternal imagination by physicians such as Erasmus Darwin contextualise Sterne’s comic emphasis on Walter Shandy’s paternal imagination and reveal a pressing anxiety to deny the mother’s imagination as a source of power. Close readings of the novel demonstrate that Sterne invokes the anachronistic paradigm of paternal imagination in order to criticise and mock the concept of maternal imagination.
I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they had begot me; had they duly consider’d how much depended upon what they were then doing; – that not only the production of a rational Being was concern’d in it, but that possibly the happy formation and [temperament] of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind.…(Sterne, I: 1)
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Notes
- 1.
Although disentangling the character of Tristram Shandy and that of the author Laurence Sterne is notoriously difficult, this chapter will refer to Tristram as the main focaliser and Sterne as an omniscient narrator who frequently satirises or challenges Tristram’s views. For more detail on the mistaken elision of Tristram and Sterne see Jeffrey Williams (1990, especially 1037).
- 2.
Hunter suggests that Toby or Yorick might be Tristram’s father, but concludes that the novel teasingly raises the issue without resolution.
- 3.
The very concept of Sterne’s hobby-horse is remarkably akin to the model of paternal or maternal imagination, as one particular idea or emotion takes hold of the parent’s mind. This parallel is further embellished by the physical marks that the Shandy men leave, as a result of their respective hobby-horses. While Tristram’s body is marked by his father’s fixation with noses and midwifery, Uncle Toby’s fascination with recreating the Siege of Namur transforms the bowling green. Tristram’s own hobby-horse is his autobiography and he leaves unusual marks upon its pages.
- 4.
Ruth Marie Faurot (1970) suggests that Tristram blames his mother for his own ill health and cites a passage addressed to his mother in Volume 5 “you have left a crack in my back, – and here’s a great piece fallen off before, – and what must I do with this foot? – I shall never reach England without it” (V: 331). However, I believe the passage is ambiguous as Tristram here addresses “Madam”, which could refer either to his mother (whom he discusses in the previous sentence) or to the reader (whom he has also addressed as Madam earlier in the text).
- 5.
The quotation is actually from the French physician Jean Fernel (Sterne, 675 n. 1).
- 6.
Tristram is conceived and born within eight months – “as near nine calendar months as any husband could in reason have expected” (I: 10) – and various details, such as the embarrassing bend sinister on the Shandy coach, indicate Tristram’s doubtful lineage.
- 7.
Elizabeth Sterne had at least one stillborn child and a daughter who died a day after birth. Ian Campbell Ross states that “exactly how many children were born to Elizabeth Sterne is not known. What is certain is that only one would survive beyond the first weeks of life” (2001, 118). Campbell speculates that Sterne took the deaths hard and perhaps blamed himself for his wife’s inability to bear a child.
- 8.
Classical myth featured Zeus giving birth to Athena from his head and Dionysis from his thigh, however these were cases of divine surrogacy rather than paternal imagination.
- 9.
Feyens’ De viribus imaginationis tractatus (or On the Forces of Imagination) mainly relies upon the authority of Aristotle, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, but also includes a wide range of ancient, medieval and early modern writers, including Galen, Avicenna, Marsilio Ficino and Pietro Pomponazzi. Debate regarding when exactly a mother’s imagination acted most forcefully dated to at least the sixteenth century; see my Chapter 1.
- 10.
This strange idea is preceded by Colio Malespini’s translation of a Spanish text by Antonio Torquemada in 1597, which claimed Neopolitan women were afraid to give birth because little animals resembling frogs were delivered before the baby (Finucci 2003, 56).
- 11.
- 12.
Carolyn D Williams (2011) discusses gender roles and the medical history of reproduction.
- 13.
In Shelley’s Preface to the 1831 edition, she referred to the “experiments of Dr. Darwin” (8) in which a piece of vermicelli moved with voluntary motion. Clearly, Darwin’s ideas and theories had some influence on Shelley’s tale of a creature with only one (male) parent.
- 14.
- 15.
Toby’s method of consolation was to mutely comfort Walter with his presence, rather than with an excess of words.
- 16.
For more details see Anne Mellor (1987).
- 17.
In fact these images were not sanctioned by Leuwenhoek and served as a form of advertisement rather than scientific evidence. Despite this, the drawings of sperm as tiny men were irrevocably linked to Leuwenhoek’s theory.
- 18.
The only exception I have so far uncovered is Boucé (1987); see earlier in this chapter.
- 19.
For Walter’s failures of masculinity see Andrew Wright (1969). Dennis W Allen (1985) argues that Walter’s impotence is rooted in language, and notes that throughout the novel language and reproduction are intrinsically linked, Frank Brady (1970) also explores Walter’s impotence in connection to his endless theorizing, and Hunter (1989) says that Walter may not even be Tristram’s father. From an opposing view, Wilfred Watson (1947) argues that Walter Shandy’s Filmerian, patriarchal logic is successful.
- 20.
Slop’s name seems wilfully and comically vulgar, however it is worth bearing in mind that the real-life leading obstetricians in mid eighteenth-century Britain and France were named Dr. Leake, Dr. Smellie and Dr. La Touche.
- 21.
- 22.
Campbell Ross (2001) see Chapter 4 for details on Elizabeth Sterne’s pregnancies.
- 23.
Born in 1697 in Lanark, Smellie was apprenticed to an apothecary and possibly also taught by the Glaswegian surgeon John Gordon. Smellie practiced as an apothecary in Lanark, gaining crucial experience in midwifery as local midwives called him in when they had difficulties. From 1737 onwards he concentrated on midwifery.
- 24.
This was of more practical use than the long (and expensive) Oxbridge route one required to qualify as a physician. Smellie copied the design of the birth machine – a mechanical woman that simulated labour – from one he had seen used by M. Gregoire in Paris. It was a hooped, weaved machine with real bones, levers and leather pouches. The womb was a glass carafe with a doll squeezed inside – the idea was for the students to pull out the doll with forceps whilst someone (presumably Smellie) operated the levers to make the model simulate the movements of a real mother. For more detail of Smellie’s and other midwives’ obstetrical machines see Pam Lieske (2011).
- 25.
Smellie’s strategy had the extra benefit of treating impecunious women who would otherwise have had no assistance with their labours. Although his clientele may have been less fashionable, Smellie was equally, if not more, successful than Hunter in terms of professional merit and reputation.
- 26.
Adrian Wilson (1985) describes eight potential pathways for man midwives depending on whether they were emergency or pre-booked practitioners, rural operators or fashionable urban accoucheurs.
- 27.
Cash (1982) argues that Slop can be identified with John Burton, Smellie’s less successful rival.
- 28.
Later John Blunt’s Man Midwifery Dissected (1793) was addressed to Alexander Hamilton but also continually appealed to husbands not to employ man midwives.
- 29.
See Jean Donnison (1988, Chapter 2) for details. Mrs. Biker died in a mad house shortly afterwards and the husband was awarded £1000 in damages. Surprisingly both Bracken and Morley continued their practice after the accusations with a reasonable degree of success.
- 30.
The medulla oblongata is the lowest section of the brainstem, anterior to the cerebellum.
- 31.
- 32.
Burton fleetingly advocated both podalic delivery and caesarean section in his Essay Towards a Complete New System of Midwifry (1751, 163; 263).
- 33.
- 34.
Faurot has also cited this episode as an example of Mrs. Shandy’s skills in the art of deliberate frustration, as she refuses to be baited by Walter’s argumentative tone (1970, 581–582).
- 35.
The consistent appearance of a chapter upon the similitude between parent and child in the self-education sex manual Aristotle’s Master-piece throughout the eighteenth century editions demonstrates the importance of this concern. Both Marie Hélène Huet (1993, Chapter 4) and Valeria Finucci (2003, Chapter 3) have also commented upon the importance of this issue.
- 36.
The condition of echolalia refers to the uncontrollable and immediate repetition of words spoken by another person, and is a common trait of individuals with autism. Determining whether Elizabeth’s responses really are “uncontrollable” is key to one’s interpretation of the Beds of Justice conversation.
- 37.
Another dinner guest, Triptolemus, explains the principle:
’tis a ground and principle in the law, said Triptolemus, that things so not ascend but descend in it; and I make no doubt ‘tis for this cause, and however true it is, that the child may be of the blood or seed of its parents – that the parents, nevertheless, are not the blood and seed of it; inasmuch as the parents are not begot by the child, but the child by the parents (IV: 296).
- 38.
Agnes received 10 guineas from Sterne during Elizabeth’s ninth month of pregnancy and wrote to demand changes to Sterne’s will (in her favour) a week after Elizabeth had given birth. After repeated financial gifts, for which Agnes was increasingly ungrateful, Sterne eventually refused to bail his mother out of debtor’s prison (Campbell Ross 2001).
- 39.
This baby, Lydia, was to be the Sternes’ only child.
- 40.
- 41.
This remark is also further complicated by the fact that Walter’s mother is also Toby’s mother, yet the mild-tempered character of Toby is quite different to Walter’s “rash humour”.
- 42.
Children conceived under the auspices of Pisces (February 19th – March 20th) were destined to be born sickly, stunted and malformed. As the poem explains,
-
The watery Pisces, fill’d with nauseous brine;
-
To sickness and to impotence incline:
-
Nor birth, no product of this sign can please,
But dwarfs start up and a Pygmean race (Oldisworth 1710, 36–37).
-
- 43.
See my Chapter 1.
- 44.
Much has been written about Sterne’s inclusion of John Locke and his work. Whereas previously Locke’s influence was taken for granted, and opinion is still divided over whether Sterne was a disciple or critic of Locke, from the late twentieth century some critics have suggested the possibility that Sterne’s reputation as an expert on Locke is undeserved. Among those who recommend that readers exercise caution when considering Locke’s significance in Tristram Shandy are Duke Maskell (1973), W G Day (1984), Peter M Briggs (1985), J T Parnell (2006) and New (2006).
- 45.
Sterne alludes to the idea of a blank canvas when he leaves an empty page for the reader to sketch a picture of the Widow Wadman in Chapter 38 of Volume VI (VI: 422).
- 46.
For example the episode of Dolly and the misapplied thimble (II: Chapter II), or another where Walter tries to explain the theory of associationism to Toby while Mrs. Shandy is in labour (III: Chapter XVIII).
- 47.
Other medical men agreed – Alexander Monro, Professor of Anatomy at Edinburgh University, also believed in the strong paternal role, although he differentiated between the sexes; forming educational societies for his sons and publishing An Essay on Female Conduct (c.1760) for his daughter.
- 48.
- 49.
Regarding men in the private sphere, Shawn Lisa Maurer (1998) provides a clear outline of the fallacy of “separates spheres: and emphasises the interaction between public and domestic sphere and Matthew McCormack (2005) has discussed male domesticity in regard to politics. See also Karen Harvey (2012, 1–8) for a useful summary of separate spheres debate and its relation to men in the domestic space.
- 50.
Although Gustafson uses the term “feminine imagination”, her description of a pregnant and potentially monstrous imagination falls under my rubric of maternal imagination.
- 51.
Clorinda’s white appearance, produced maternal imagination, is disastrous for her mother as she has to hide Clorinda and find a black infant to replace her. However, Clorinda’s whiteness is also portrayed as part of her unique beauty.
- 52.
Jacques Du Boscq’s Du La femme heroique ou les heroines compares avec les heros, en toute sorte de vertus was first reprinted in England in 1632 and was reprinted throughout the seventeenth century. The quote is from the first English translation, The Complete Woman (1753, 17).
- 53.
Victor Shlovsky’s influential 1921 article on Sterne’s plot stylistics examined the way that Sterne “prepares the groundwork for erroneous assumption” (33) to play with his reader’s errors.
- 54.
Ostovich (2006) also emphasises the active role of the specifically female reader.
- 55.
- 56.
Although Huet does not discuss paternal imagination as a separate theory, she argues that the monstrous power of maternal imagination was appropriated by male Romantics to become the model of artistic creation; see Huet (1993, esp. 126–128 and the chapters of Part II). Similarly Andrea Henderson (1996, Chapter 4) notes that in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s metaphors of monstrous fatherhood in The Cenci, Count Cenci’s fathering resembles both his role as an artist, shaping events around him, and Shelley’s own production and manipulation of the play.
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Buckley, J. (2017). “’Tis My Father’s Fault”: Tristram Shandy and Paternal Imagination. In: Gender, Pregnancy and Power in Eighteenth-Century Literature. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53835-8_4
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