A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

the long version

In the persona of Yorick, Laurence Sterne constructs A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy to document, fictionalize and sentimentalize his own 1765 travels in Europe. The author enhances each significant encounter of the journey with an emotional stocktaking as well as a philosophical probe into the encounter’s implications for the thinking traveler. Because the female travelers Yorick meets form the center of his felt experience, the dominant theme of the book may very well be “on how to approach women.” Somber and giddy by turns, the travelogue engages readers in Yorick’s constant social challenge: coming up with new environs (and new objects of adoration) with his heart on his sleeve.