Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote and Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. A Comparative Reading

It is not easy to comment on how both Miguel de Cervantes and Laurence Sterne contributed to the development of the modern European novel. Neither is it simple to trace the history of Cervantes’s influence on Sterne. The endeavour implies comments, reactions, delimitations, and explanations required by the complex intertextual configuration of two famous texts, Don Quixote and Tristram Shandy, which can in no way be approached with superficial intentions only. Moreover, the large assembly of commentators fascinated by the two novelists makes you feel greatly intimidated when attempting a new critical treatment. However, Oana Ivan is not afraid to present in this book her own interpretation of the way in which Laurence Sterne mirrored his literary predecessor, of how he fought with the ambiguities of Cervantes’s novel, and of the surprising links which connected the two novels over years, in spite of the major differences in their narrative design. – Pia Brinzeu