Latitudinarian and“Heteroclite”Preacher: Human Nature in Sterne's Sermons
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This paper is an attempt to place Sterne's sermons within the general context of Sterne's ethical fluidity as the controlling force of Sterne's narrative fictions. Although Sterne's sermons are more or less compilations of other divines' offerings, I argue that they are very specific to him, bearing the marks of his temperament, humor, and social standing. The paper examines Sterne's sermons in parallel with the sermons which have been identified as Sterne's sources and confirms that Sterne not only exercises a certain selectiveness but sustains his own particularity. I define Sterne's particular moral propositions as an ethics of pleasure, which is underlined by a conviction that pleasures can enhance the ethical disposition of man. Sterne is more attuned to the carnal and materialistic aspects of the human condition than most of his sources, accommodating bodily pleasures within the boundary of “innocent pleasures.” I further argue that Sterne, unlike most rationalistic divines, never envisions an ideal world of “universal happiness,” but simply seeks a “world worth living in.” Instead of polarizing reason and animal passions, he contrasts “the bowels of mercy” or “benevolent inclinations” with “unfriendly passions,” trying to promote the former, as he sees innate goodness as quite distinct from rationality. Sterne observes that the tendency to live more to oneself, which grows in proportion with the growth of wisdom, can again be reversed as man enters into the different role of a parent. The “workings of parental kindness,” for Sterne, attests that man is “but an instrument in the hands of God to provide for the well being of others, to serve their interest as well as his own.” This concept of man as “an instrument in the hands of God” is the fundamental basis for Sterne's ethics of pleasure which expands the domain of innocent pleasures.
Abstract
This paper is an attempt to place Sterne's sermons within the general context of Sterne's ethical fluidity as the controlling force of Sterne's narrative fictions. Although Sterne's sermons are more or less compilations of other divines' offerings, I argue that they are very specific to him, bearing the marks of his temperament, humor, and social standing. The paper examines Sterne's sermons in parallel with the sermons which have been identified as Sterne's sources and confirms that Sterne not only exercises a certain selectiveness but sustains his own particularity. I define Sterne's particular moral propositions as an ethics of pleasure, which is underlined by a conviction that pleasures can enhance the ethical disposition of man. Sterne is more attuned to the carnal and materialistic aspects of the human condition than most of his sources, accommodating bodily pleasures within the boundary of “innocent pleasures.” I further argue that Sterne, unlike most rationalistic divines, never envisions an ideal world of “universal happiness,” but simply seeks a “world worth living in.” Instead of polarizing reason and animal passions, he contrasts “the bowels of mercy” or “benevolent inclinations” with “unfriendly passions,” trying to promote the former, as he sees innate goodness as quite distinct from rationality. Sterne observes that the tendency to live more to oneself, which grows in proportion with the growth of wisdom, can again be reversed as man enters into the different role of a parent. The “workings of parental kindness,” for Sterne, attests that man is “but an instrument in the hands of God to provide for the well being of others, to serve their interest as well as his own.” This concept of man as “an instrument in the hands of God” is the fundamental basis for Sterne's ethics of pleasure which expands the domain of innocent pleasures.
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