4.3. Insertions

I will now turn to the purpose and function of insertions in Tristram Shandy after which I will present the instances occurring in the first volume and explain how I translated them . I have chosen to discuss them all, rather than to present just examples, to avoid a prejudiced choice of examples which is a common problem in translation studies. There are different kinds and levels of insertions in Tristram Shandy and I have divided them into (1) quotations and allusions and (2) apostrophes. Lists could also be seen as a non-narrative element: Tristram makes fun of some earlier writers’ attempts to organize their material in lists and parodies legal verbosity (the catalogue of what constitutes the Shandy Estate takes sixteen lines in early editions), but since these lists did not present a particular translating problem I will not discuss them further.

4.3.1. Quotations and allusions

Tristram borrows to boost an argument, or to make someone look clever or stupid. Leppihalme (1997) argues that on the whole allusions can be thematic, that is, alerting the reader to pay extra attention to the theme of a text, or humorous, mocking the source or context or both, or lend extra strength to characterisation (37-41). All three are present in Tristram Shandy, often simultaneously. One more could be added: teasing. Lamb (1998) points out that Sterne can quote and allude to look learned, or illustrate an idea, or to mock his source, and adds, ‘ but whatever Sterne’s first motives of borrowing, he often develops secondary ones which makes the discovery of a theft his triumph and not the detective’s, or which give allusive strength to a professed imitation’ (22). Sterne does not do many things by half in his book, and when he quotes and alludes, he does so with gusto and invites his reader to a veritable game of hide and seek. Hawley (1992) coins an original phrase: Sterne evokes a ‘communion of scholars’ (57) instead of a communion of Saints.

Hawley (1991) has looked at Sterne’s 227 borrowings and divided them into categories: 153 come from genuine works, 26 are partially spurious, 9 entirely spurious, 19 internal and 22 are from the fictional Shandy family archives (10). Sometimes Tristram gives his source: ‘as Horace says, ab Ovo’ (TSE 8); and perhaps to prove to his readers that the extraordinary document from Sorbonne was genuine, Sterne added a footnote to the second edition (New 1997:558), although I rather suspect most readers would still think the document is his own invention. This footnote was for some reason left out of TSF/P, but I have added it to TSF/R. Tristram can also give a source without referring to it: ‘I have not the time to look into Saxo-Grammaticus's Danish history, to know the certainty of this’ (TSE 22). In some cases, as in a reference to a book of Joseph Hall (TSE 57), the source has not been found, which means that either Sterne got it wrong or invented it, in spite of all the details he gives.

Leppihalme (1997) has conducted a study with some experienced Finnish literary translators and found that when encountering quotations and allusions many tended to choose the shortest route, translate or insert the allusion as such without giving extra clues to the reader even when he/she is not likely to be able to recognize it (85-105). It seemed to be a general trend amongst translators to consider allusions not very relevant. I can see several reasons for this. Even if English literature is better known in Finland than Finnish literature in England, translated material seldom finds its way to the collective treasury of quotations of a nation. Of the books quoted in Tristram Shandy, only the Bible can be said to have a similar standing in both cultures. Even when standard translations of Cervantes, Rabelais and Shakespeare were used in the Finnish Tristram Shandy, the reader is not likely to experience the joy of detecting them, let alone allusions to less known writers. This means that a lot of Tristram’s hide and seek simply cannot be conveyed to the Finnish readers. The level of cooperation which an educated English reader might be able to experience, will be impossible for a Finnish reader. Leppihalme has analysed the choices a translator has when encountering allusions and sees nine possible strategies: A. use a standard translation, B. minimum change, C. extra-allusive guidance, D. footnotes etc, E. marked wording or syntax and other similar devices, F. replacement by a preformed TL item, G. reduction of allusion to sense by rephrasal, H. recreation, I. omission (1997: 84). My favourite of these techniques is E: by making the phrase look like a quotation (italics, quotation marks, vocabulary, word order, or by adding the source it is possible to hint that the material is borrowed and give an overall impression of a high level of intertextuality. Sometimes Sterne has already done this which makes life easy for the translator.

Foreign language quotes

The most obvious insertions are quotations in languages other than English, such as the Greek motto on the title page, and the Memoire presenté a Messieurs les Docteurs de Sorbonne (TSE 49). Many little phrases such as O diem praeclarum! (TSE 11) and de vanitate mundi et fuga faeculi (TSE 18), vive la Bagatelle (TSE 45) etc. appear on their own without explanation. Sometimes there is a translation included: Bishop Ernulphus’ Curse (TSE 140) and Slawkenbergius’ Tale (TSE 200) run side by side on even and odd pages in Latin and English. On occasion the translation is an adaptation for the situation concerned: ‘ De gustibus non est disputandum; that is, there is no disputing against Hobby-Horses’ (TSE 13), ‘Amicus Plato, my father would say [...], Amicus Plato; that is, Dinah was my aunt; sed magis amica veritas but Truth is my sister’ (TSE 56).

Some overall decisions needed to be made about translating non-English quotes in Tristram Shandy. The general principle adopted was to give a Finnish translation along with the original in most cases. I assumed that an educated reader at Sterne’s time would have been able to understand them, although not all his readers were educated, some belonging to the merchant classes and a great number being women. In modern Finland most readers (like me) would find Greek, Latin, and Italian and to a lesser extent French incomprehensible. The Norton notes (Anderson 1979) supply translations to all foreign material, and I simply translated from these and inserted the translations to the text. To my knowledge there were no established Finnish translations that I could have used of these foreign texts. As I knew the context where they belonged in the book, I felt that by doing the work myself and making sure it would fit the context, I would counteract the loss of precision resulting from the use of a mediating language.

The motto Tarassei touj ’Anqrwpouj oÙ ta Pragmata, ¡lla peri twn Pragmatwn, Dogmata appears without a translation (TSE 1). It is of crucial importance for understanding the book, and the notes (New 1997: 545) give two translations into English: ‘Men are tormented by the opinions they have of things, and not the things themselves’ and ‘Not practicalities concern human beings but dogmas concerning them’. With some ability to read the Greek alphabet the familiar sounding words ‘dogmata’ and ‘pragmata’ can be deciphered, and including the words dogmaattinen and pragmaattinen, which have indeed been borrowed into Finnish, could have offered interesting insights into Sterne’s convictions as well as gratified the reader who can read Greek letters if not understand the words. In the end the use of the word ‘opinions’ in the other English translation, which is also more accessible, proved too tempting, and I chose to use it as the basis of mine.

When Tristram gives just a few words in a foreign language, in most cases I have repeated them and added a few words between commas by way of explanation. In the first volume such cases are: ‘ab Ovo eli munasta’ (TSF/R 10) ‘O diem praeclarum, oi onnenpäivää!’ (TSF/R 20), ‘communibus annis, keskimäärin’ (TSF/R 47), ‘gaité de couer, sydämen ilo’ (TSF/R 60) ‘toties quoties, toistamiseen’ (TSF/R 96), ‘rerum naturâ, luonnon järjestyksen mukaan ‘ (TSF/R 133), qeodidaktoj, Jumalan opettama, (TSF/R 126) ‘La chose impossible, mahdottomuus TSF/R 141); – ‘Infantes in materinis uteris existentes (lausuu P. Tuomas) baptizari possunt nullo modo, äidin kohdussa olevia lapsia ei millään keinoin voi kastaa’ (TSF/R 141n), ‘par le moyen d'une petite canulle, ja sans faire aucum tort a le pere, pienen ruiskun avulla ja vahingoittamatta isää’ (TSF/R 153), Akm¾a eli huippua (TSF/R 159), ‘ad populum, rahvaalle’ (TSF/R 184).

There is one case when a literal translation of the Latin would have meant nothing to Finnish readers. I chose to explain the words Te Deum (TSE 42) according to their function: voittolaulu,’ a song of victory’ (TSF/R 115) and omit the original Latin in order to keep things simple. In the tenth chapter the French poudrè d’or (TSE 17) was also omitted and replaced by a Finnish translation ‘kullalla silatut’ (TSF/R 40); printing both seemed to draw too much attention to a minor detail.

Once in volume one Sterne offers a translation himself: ‘par le moyen d'une petite Canulle, – Anglicé a squirt’ (TSE 49n) which I translated: ‘par le moyen d'une petite Canulle, meikäläisittäin, ruiskulla’ where Anglicé is represented by meikäläisittäin ‘in our way’ (TSF/R 139) to avoid naming the language (should it be English? Finnish?). In the Finnish translation this case is indistinguishable from the ones where there is no translation in the original. Whether that is a great loss, is a matter of opinion. When the English was an adaptation for the situation, I followed suit: ‘De gustibus non est disputandum; – eli keppihevosista ei pidä kiistellä’ (TSF/R 27)  and ‘Amicus Plato, oli isälläni tapana sanoa, tulkiten sanat Toby-sedälleni niitä lausuessaan, Amicus Plato, se on, Dinah oli tätini; – sed magis amica veritas – mutta Totuus on sisareni’ (TSF/R 170).

Some foreign words and phrases have been left untranslated in the Finnish book in the hope that a reader can figure them out from the context: femme sole (TSE 35) is followed by the word ‘unmarried’ in the text. Perhaps the following are also understandable to at least some modern Finnish readers: bon mot (TSF/R 65), vive la Bagatelle (TSF/R 129), forum Scientiae (TSF/R 171), piano, and forte (TSF/R 184). Sometimes it was felt that an added translation would have made the structure too heavy as in chapter ten where Yorick contemplates de vanitate mundi et fugâ saeculi (TSF/R 44). Sous condition is repeated four times in the preceding long French quotation and it is therefore assumed that the reader is familiar with it. Personally I feel, comparing these cases to the ones which do have a translation, that something of the force of the quote is lost by explaining it. The sentence ‘ne kaikki ja itse kukin niistä kastetaan uudestaan (sous condition)’ (TSF/R 154)  works as it is, the small extra effort to recall that this means ‘ehdollisesti’ (‘conditionally’) adds to the thrill. This raises an interesting question: how to establish the balance between a pleasant effort in processing text and too much hard work. In the next quote I did not rely on the reader’s memory but translated the word canulle. This is not very consistent, but consistency can easily lead to rigid choices in translation and eliminate the influence of intuition.

In the original work Memoire presenté a Messieurs les Docteurs de Sorbonne appears untranslated (TSE 49-51) but it was felt that it would be unfair to leave a Finnish reader without a translation. As it was decided only to include Sterne’s own footnotes in the Finnish translation, there seemed to be no other solution but to add a Finnish translation after the French in the text itself. This is not ideal. Sterne does supply a translation of two other longish foreign insertions: Ernulphus’ Curse (TSE 140) and Slawkenbergius’ Tale (TSE 200) presenting Latin and English side by side rather than consecutively, but it can be argued that the Memoir takes far too much space when printed twice and there is no hint in the Finnish book that Sterne did not supply his readers with a translation of the Memoir.

English or translated borrowings

Most of Sterne’s borrowings in English tend to be more deeply embedded than the foreign ones – perhaps simply because they consist of words of the same language as the book itself – and I would classify most of them as allusions. Many of these would be very difficult to detect for a modern English reader without annotated editions.

With English allusions and quotations I have not been as particular as with foreign phrases. Only when Sterne alludes to the Bible or world classics such as Shakespeare, Cervantes and Rabelais, who have been translated into Finnish and are known to (if not actually read by) the reading public, have I gone to the Finnish translation and used it. In chapter twelve ‘when he thought, good easy man! full surely preferment was o'ripening,– they had smote his root, and then he fell, as many a worthy man had fallen before him’ (TSE 26) echoes Henry VIII: ‘And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely / His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root, / And then he falls, as I do’ (III.ii.355-8). Cajander translates ‘Ihminen kun varmana jo levoss’/ Odottaa suuruutensa kypsyvän – / Se juureen puraisee ja hänet kaataa / Niin kuin nyt minutkin (Shakespeare 1958 [Henry VIII]: 81).‘ The translation in TSF/P: ‘tuon hyvän miehen, luottaessa ylennyksen kypsyvän, –– he olivat jo iskeneet juureen ja hän kaatui niin kuin moni kelpo mies on kaatunut ennen’ (36) does not resemble Cajander, probably because the translator did not look it up. TSF/R corrects this omission: ’Yorick, kun varmana jo levoss’ odotti ylennyksen kypsyvän, he juureen iskivät ja hänet kaatoivat, niin kuin niin monen hyvän miehen häntä ennen’ (TSF/R 72). ’[S]et the table in a roar’ (TSE 27) in the same chapter reminds the reader of Shakespeare’s (who is mentioned here) words about Yorick’s namesake in Hamlet (V.i.189-91), and Cajander translates: ‘saivat koko pöytäseuran nauruun purskahtamaan’ (Shakespeare 1953: [Hamlet]: 125) which was used verbatim in TSF/P (37). In the same page ‘mitres from heaven’ (TSE 27) echoes Don Quixote (I.I.7) and is translated by J.A. Hollo (I give more context in Finnish): ‘vaikka hyvä Jumala antaisi sataa kruunuja maan päälle, ei niistä yksikään sopisi Mari Gutiéren päähän’ (Cervantes 1991: 74). Hollo’s kruunuja ‘crowns’ (representing reinos ‘kingdoms’ in Spanish) were replaced with piispanhiippoja ‘mitres’, following Sterne, but otherwise TSF/P follows Hollo. In chapter twenty three there is reference to Hamlet again (III.i.131-2): ‘play the fool out o'doors as in her own house’ (TSE 60) which was translated as ‘Shakespearen sanoin liikkua hupsuna muualla kuin talossaan’ (TSF/P 75) mimicking Cajander’s Finnish (Shakepeare 1958: [Hamlet]: 65). It is not likely that a Finnish reader is going to recognize any of these, particularly as there are several translations of the better known plays such as Hamlet which otherwise would stand a better chance, but he/she might pick some clues that there is something more behind the text. For instance, the word order of the first Hamlet quote is odd and could point to a poetic source, and to give the reader some clue I have added Shakespeare’s name, but not the title of the play, to the second quote. The allusion about mitres Sterne himself attributes to Sancho Panca and puts  into quotation marks, which should help the reader.

There seems to be only one reference to the Bible in volume one and it is not a literal quote: ‘he steps forth like a bridegroom’ (TSE 58), so the Finnish ‘hän astuu esiin kuin ylkä’ uses the biblical ylkä for ‘bridegroom’(TSF/R 179). There are actual quotes in later volumes and a choice had to be made as to which translation to use. A new Finnish translation of the Bible had been published 1992, but I decided to use the 1933-8 edition because in spite of its much later date, it has similar status to the Authorized Version (1611) in Britain. On a few occasions I had to use earlier nineteenth-century translations as they retained literal (and obscure) formulations found also in the Authorized Version. I take an example from the second volume, where Sterne quotes Hebrews 13:8: ‘For we trust we have a good Conscience’ (TSE 99). Unfortunately the word ‘trust’ is represented by tiedämme, 'we know' in the 1933-38 translation, while the whole argument of the sermon revolves round the idea of trusting and not knowing. Biblical quotations could not be translated ad hoc but luckily an earlier version used a noun derived from the verb uskaltaa 'to trust, to dare': ‘Sillä se on meidän uskalluksemme että meillä on hyvä omatunto’ (TSF/P 118).

Sterne has helpfully italized some more obscure quotes: ‘As war begets poverty; poverty peace’ (TSE 53) comes from a popular song (New 1997: 559) and was translated as: ‘kuten sodasta sikiää köyhyyttä, köyhyydestä rauha’ in TSF/P (67), but this sounds more like a proverb than a song. Maybe ‘sota siittää köyhyyttä, ja taas rauhaa köyhyys’ in (TSF/R 160) has more songlike cadences. 'A mysterious carriage of the body to cover the defects of the mind’ (TSE 23) is a quote from a contemporary translation of Rochefoucauld (New 1997: 551), and was translated into TSF/P as ‘ruumiin arvoituksellinen käyttäytymismuoto, joka peittää mielen puutteet’ (33). Further research has unearthed a published Finnish translation by J. V. Lehtonen (Rochefoucauld 1961): [Arvokkuus on] ruumiin salaisuus, joka on keksitty peittämään hengen puutteita (65), literally: ‘[dignity is] a secret of the body, invented to cover defects of the spirit’. Maxim 257 which in French runs: La gravité est un mystère du corps, inventé pour cacher les défauts de l'esprit is not an easy task for the translator: what exactly does un mystère du corps stand for? Does l’espirit stand for ‘mind’ or ‘spirit’? No wonder then that Lehtonen’s translation is just as incomprehensible as mine. In addition, of the possible interpretations for gravity I had chosen to stress ‘seriousness’ rather than ‘dignity’. Gravity is discussed extensively in the context and the choice between the two is difficult: no one word in Finnish embraces both sides of gravity and using two words did not seem an elegant solution. It is possible that ‘dignity’ is a more accurate choice, however one translates the rest. An added complication rises from the fact that Sterne uses a contemporary translation: should the Finnish echo this? I am tempted to disregard Lehtonen and suggest a new translation of my own: ‘ruumiin mysteeri jolla peittää hengen puutteet,’ (TSF/R 63), ‘a mystery of the body to cover defects of the spirit with’, which is no more accessible, but by using the loan word mysteeri admits this and spells it out. A host of talented literary translators have worked on this for me on a translators’ email list, but a satisfactory solution is yet to be found. ‘Mask’ was suggested, as were ‘disguise’ and ‘cloak’, and a possible allusion to the mystical body of Christ was pointed out.

There are many extensive quotations in later volumes. In the third volume Tristram borrows Locke’s An Essay on Human Understanding at length (TSE 155-6, New 1997: 584), with a rare footnote to attribute one of the quotes to its source. The sermon in the second volume is an interesting case: Laurence Sterne had preached it himself in York Minster in July 1750 (New 1997: 572). One of the best known examples is the Chinese-box passage:

Shall we for ever make new books, as apothecaries make new mixtures, by pouring only out of one vessel into another? Are we for ever to be twisting, and untwisting the same rope?’ (TSE 283)

 These words are copied more or less accurately from the introduction to Anatomy of Melancholy by Burton, who in turn had copied them from more obscure sources (Watts 1996:22). The eighteenth-century critic John Ferriar found evidence in this of Sterne’s plagiarism (New 1997:610) but modern readers are likely to see this plagiarised attack on plagiarists as both intentional and clever.

Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy is certainly an English classic and has indeed been translated into Finnish, but is hardly known in Finland. I took the liberty to translate allusions to Burton as if they were not there. Stedmond (1959) points out that quotations from Burton and others fit into the text ‘with scarcely a ripple’ and sees this as proof of Sterne’s kinship with seventeenth-century writing (245). The strategy of making these borrowings stand out stylistically is thus not open to the translator.

Sometimes it is useful to state more than is obvious from the original text. In the Finnish book the name Spectator is followed by the word lehti, ‘journal’ (TSF/R 157) and Lillebullero, which Uncle Toby whistles, is described as protestanttisten sotilaiden pilkkalaulu, a ‘mocking song sung by protestant soldiers’(TSF/R 172). In chapter twenty Tristram juxtaposes ‘The stories of Greece and Rome’ and ‘the history of Parismus and Parismenus’, and I have added to TSF/R ‘our’ before the English works: ‘meikäläinen kertomus Parismuksesta ja Parismenuksesta’ (TSF/R 139)

There are a couple of proverbial allusions in the first volume. ‘I think it must smell too strong of the lamp’ (TSE 60-1) refers to burning the midnight oil. The literal idea would mean nothing as such to Finns, so the translation follows the function of the proverb: ‘tuoksahtaisi väkisin väännetyltä’ (TSF/R 185) which could be translated back as ‘smelt a like hard work’ and refers nicely to the lavatorial comments in the previous paragraph. When Mrs. Shandy erroneously thinks herself pregnant and Tristram wonders ‘whether it was wind or water ‘ (TSE 36) this echoes ‘to be shot between wind and water’ which OED explains as ‘to receive a shot causing a dangerous leak’ but also as having a sexually transmitted decease or the pox (Rogers 1988:318). The Finnish ‘tuuliko syynä oli vai vesi’ (TSF/P 46) fails to convey the allusion as well as the double meaning – in fact it is difficult to extract a single meaning. I now suggest: ‘ties minkä ilman tahi veden syöksyn tähden’, (TSF/R 95) where the verb can have ejaculative connotations.

Allusive names

Tristram is an incurable names dropper. It seems Sterne was quite keen to appear erudite in his readers’ eyes, and one of the means to this effect was to refer and allude to more or less well known names. The first volume mentions Addison, Thomas Aquinas, Archimedes, Aristotle, Burgersdicius, Caesar, Cicero, Copernicus, Crackenthorp, Dryden, Farnaby, Robert Filmer , Joseph Hall , Horace, Isocrates, Longinus, Montaigne, Pompey, Pliny the Younger, Puffendorf, Quintilian, Ramus, Skioppius, Solomon, Tacitus, Tully, Virgil and Vossius; and such fictional characters as Candid, Cunegund , Dido and Aeneas, Dulcinea, Momus, Rosinante, Sancho Pança, Jack Hickathrift and Tom Thumb. A few contemporaries are also mentioned: Dr. Manningham (the leading man-midwife in Sterne’s day, New 1997:554), Mr. Dodsley (Sterne’s publisher), Kunastrokius (alludes to Richard Mead, eminent London physician, New 1997: 548), and Didius (probably alludes to Dr Francis Topham, a leading York lawyer, New 1997: 548).

Zimmer (1981) points out that it is possible for names of characters in a narrative both to bear cognitive information and to have associative meaning (cited in Fawcett 1996: 308). He defines three groups: ‘the name symbolizes a character trait [...], the name refers to historical personalities [...] the name lends itself to being translated’. The second category will be dealt with here, the two others later. It seemed important to unleash whatever allusory powers these names might carry for the Finnish reader and find a form of the name which he/she would be most likely to recognize. For some names this meant no change: Addison, Caesar, Cicero, Dryden, Robert Filmer, Montaigne, Ramus, Tacitus, Dido and Aeneas, Dulcinea, Manningham, Dodsley, Kunastrokius, Didius. If there was a Finnish rendering of a name, I used it: Tuomas Akvinolainen, Arkimedes, Isokrates, Kopernikus, Longinos, and Kettu Repolainen and Peukaloputti, Finnish folk story characters for Jack Hickathrift and Tom Thumb. For saint's names a Finnish form was used whenever possible even when they referred to places as in TSE 434. Fictional and biblical characters appear as they do in Finnish translations (if such exist): Candide, Cunegunde, Rocinante, Sancho Panza, and Salomo. For the rest of the names I tried to trace the language of origin and the standard spelling in modern sources: Aristoteles, Crakanthorpe, Burgersdyk, Momos, Plinius, Pompeius, Pufendorf, Quintilianus, Schoppe, Vergilius, Voss. Once I used Cicero for Tully (Tullius) to make life easier for the reader. Sometimes the choice between a Latin or Greek or native form of a name was difficult. When I could find Sterne’s Latin form in some Finnish source I used it, otherwise I rendered it into its native form. There are no examples of the former case in the first volume, but in later volumes Heinsius and Grotius are retained even if they also have the Dutch names Daniël Heins and Hugo, or Huigh, or Hugeianus de Groot.

Place names were dealt with similarly. London is represented by Lontoo, and sometimes a name in the local language had to be detected. Before the Duke of Marlborough had been taken through Europe in Finnish (TSF/P 491-2), there were scholars in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, tracing his steps, and colleagues in Finland studying modern German road maps. To help the reader an explanatory word is sometimes added: The Trent becomes Trent-joki ‘the river Trent’.

4.3.2. Apostrophes

As discussed above, one of the strategies Tristram employs to take the reader by surprise is the way he suddenly addresses him or her – or some imagined person. Often the reader is quite clearly you or me – the actual reader holding the book in his/her hand, but sometimes this person gains momentum and becomes a character in the book. In the famous opening chapter Tristram addresses us thus:

Believe me, good folks, this is not so inconsiderable a thing as many of you may think it; you have all, I dare say, heard of the animal spirits, as how they are transfused from father to son, &c. &c. and a great deal to that purpose:  Well, you may take my word […]. (TSE 5)

By the end of the first chapter the reader already has a line to him/herself: ‘Pray, what was your father saying?’ and in the beginning of the next chapter he is called ‘Sir’ (TSE 6).

The fact that Finnish has two forms of address in the singular, familiar and formal, often presents problems when translating from English. As Tristram still uses the old singular thou for familiar address, and you only formally, the choice was not that difficult. When he addresses a reader as thee, the Finnish familiar ‘sinä’ is used, when otherwise the formal ‘te’. In the plural the question does not arise.

The reader as a character

The distinction between the imaginary reader and the real reader is not always clear, and sometimes one turns into the other, as demonstrated above. In the first volume the reader is addressed as ‘your worship(s)’ three times, ‘Sir’ ten times and ‘Madam’ all of twenty three times. Once the reader is called ‘my dear friend and companion’ (TSE 11); another time we are approached as ‘my fellow-labourers and associates in this great harvest of our learning’ (TSE 53). There is one mysterious reference to ‘dear, dear Jenny’ (TSE 39), which is then discussed at length with ‘Madam’ (TSE 42). In later volumes addresses to members of the clergy and gentry, variations of the form ‘your reverences and worships’, become the standard formula for addressing readers. It seems quite clear that ‘Madam’ is invited to the scene when there is sexual innuendo in the air, and the nobility (your lordships) are approached with flattery. Tristram also supplies more than once lines for the reader and creates and imaginary exchange between the author and the reader:

–- But pray, Sir, What was your father doing all December, January, and February? –- Why, Madam, –- he was all that time afflicted with a Sciatica.

 (TSE 9)

Once Tristram addresses the doctors of Sorbonne and another time Thomas Aquinas (in a footnote). Pegenaute (1996:136) has counted that Tristram addresses his audience 350 times in the nine volumes and adds that there are two groups of adressees, those who support Tristram’s narrative and those who seem to disapprove.

Much thought went into translating the recurring forms of address his/your Lordship, Reverence, Honour, Worship, Madam and Sir. Idiomatic spoken Finnish only employs forms of address when asking for attention, not as a matter of course, so often the TT benefits from leaving them out. Tristram, however, addresses the reader in writing, and there is also a distinction between the different adressees. I came to the conclusion that the Finnish reader was best served with something fairly simple which would state the rank and sex of the person addressed in order to convey the implicit information in the English formula. So I translated: armollinen lordi, arvoisa kirkonmies or hurskas herra, ylhäinen herra or ylhäisyys, hyvä rouva, arvon herra or hyvä herra. If I had translated your reverences more literally, as I did in my early drafts, as kunnianarvoisat herrat, the Finnish reader would have had no way of knowing that this refers to clergy. The even more literal version Teidän kunnianarvoisuutenne I did not even contemplate as I felt it was clumsy and distinctively un-Finnish.

The actual reader

One recurring feature in Tristram Shandy is the way Tristram all of a sudden abandons his narrative to discuss his writing project with the reader. This is particularly prominent in the first volume, at the beginning of the venture, where he/she is actually mentioned twenty three times as ‘reader’. This reader is a flesh-and-blood person, not one of Tristram’s fictional readers discussed above. The passages directed to us, as it were, have supplied Sterne scholars with an endless store of quotes to describe the book, and it is quite tempting to hear Sterne’s own voice in them. It is very easy to get Sterne and Tristram mixed up, and it is quite likely that this is intentional: In his letters to the actor Garrick Sterne boasts that he has been ‘shandying it’, that is, behaving as if he were Tristram. (Sterne 1935: 157, 163). One should never forget, though, that Tristram always has his tongue in his cheek and one should be very careful before taking anything he writes at face value. In this study I mainly refer to Tristram as the (fictional) author and only refer to Sterne when I want to stress the distinction.

The beginning of chapter four is dedicated to explaining why Tristram has been so ‘very particular’ (TSE 8). In chapters thirteen and fourteen he explains how ‘unseen stoppages’ (TSE 33) have slowed down his work and resolves to ‘go on leisurely, writing and publishing two volumes of my life every year’ (TSE 33). He has also tells us that a history cannot be written as a straight line. Later he introduces the concept of digressions and goes on to declare that they ‘are the sunshine; they are the life, the soul of reading!’ (TSE 58)

Tristram draws the readers’ attention to the book in his/her hand several times: in the first volume he mentions the present chapter five times, the previous six times, the next one three times and once advertises a chapter he will write later. After explaining how his father detests the name Tristram he asks the reader to look at the title page of the book. The volume ends with a reference to the next page.

Tristram likes to arouse curiosity by hinting at things to come. When the midwife and Uncle Toby are left behind because of a digression, Tristram promises to bring them back to the story later. He also tells us that there will be a map added to the twentieth volume (a promise he does not keep). How it came to pass that his nose was flattened on his face at birth because of her mother’s marriage settlement ‘shall be laid before the reader all in due time’ ( He refuses to tell us what Uncle Toby’s Hobby-horse is before he has described how he acquired it. Most of all he keeps the readers on tenterhooks for several hundred pages about his birth. He boldly lies that he ‘would as soon think of dropping a riddle in the reader's way, which is not my interest to do’ (TSE 54) – the book is full of the most tantalizing riddles. Sure enough he soon declares: ‘if I thought you was able to form the least judgment or probable conjecture to yourself, of what was to come in the next page,  I would tear it out of my book’ (TSE 64).

The readers are also given a certain amount of advice. We are told to be patient and not to lose our tempers (TSE 11). Tristram points out several times that we must read carefully, that the ‘mind should be accustomed to make wise reflections, and draw curious conclusions as it goes along’ (TSE 48). He says he writes for the ‘curious and the inquisitive’ (TSE 8). Sure enough, a close reading of Tristram Shandy will yield a seemingly inexhaustible amount of unexpected material.

Whether this voice that addresses the reader belongs to the fictional Tristram or the real life Sterne, it is nevertheless a voice and can be seen as dialogue – even if it is not part of the narrative and is aimed directly at the reader. For the translator this personal voice does not create similar problems to the ones caused by quotations, allusions and such like. It can be translated like dialogue within the narrative even if it falls outside it. This moves it into the elusive areas of narrative translation which are not the focus of my present study.