“내 안에서 꿈틀대는 것은 당신의 신성(神性)입니다”: [감상적 여행]의 아이러니에 대한 종교적 읽기 (“This is thy divinity which stirs within me”: A Religious Interpretation of the Irony in Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey)

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초록

This paper examines the use of irony in Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy in relation to the Anglican doctrine of original sin. Many critics have discussed the frequent use of sexual irony in Journey; however, few have acknowledged that Yorick’s enthusiastic endorsements of physical desires that frequently follow remarks loaded with sexual innuendo make the clerical first-person narrator an object of religious irony. Most notably, in his famous invocation of “Dear Sensibility” at the end of “The Bourbonnois”, Yorick’s ineptitude as a clergy is ironically revealed when he rapturously argues that he can directly ‘sense’ God’s presence through his own physical sensibility, thus violating the Anglican doctrine of original sin that emphasizes the fallen nature of the human body. Important is the fact that the irony in this invocation also discloses the rigidity of the Anglican view of the tainted human body, which forces the reader who subscribes to the teaching to interpret Yorick’s embrace of physical desire as inadequate and even blasphemous. In other words, the religious irony in the invocation intimates a sense of discontent with the Anglican teaching on the degeneracy of physical desires, which dissatisfaction suffuses the narrative and hinders its tone from settling as either comfortably sentimental or playfully ironical. The disconnect between the affable ambience created by multiple sentimental conventions and the religious discontentment revealed in the invocation’s irony is one of the sources behind the infamous tonal instability of Sterne’s novel.

영어초록

This paper examines the use of irony in Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy in relation to the Anglican doctrine of original sin. Many critics have discussed the frequent use of sexual irony in Journey; however, few have acknowledged that Yorick’s enthusiastic endorsements of physical desires that frequently follow remarks loaded with sexual innuendo make the clerical first-person narrator an object of religious irony. Most notably, in his famous invocation of “Dear Sensibility” at the end of “The Bourbonnois”, Yorick’s ineptitude as a clergy is ironically revealed when he rapturously argues that he can directly ‘sense’ God’s presence through his own physical sensibility, thus violating the Anglican doctrine of original sin that emphasizes the fallen nature of the human body. Important is the fact that the irony in this invocation also discloses the rigidity of the Anglican view of the tainted human body, which forces the reader who subscribes to the teaching to interpret Yorick’s embrace of physical desire as inadequate and even blasphemous. In other words, the religious irony in the invocation intimates a sense of discontent with the Anglican teaching on the degeneracy of physical desires, which dissatisfaction suffuses the narrative and hinders its tone from settling as either comfortably sentimental or playfully ironical. The disconnect between the affable ambience created by multiple sentimental conventions and the religious discontentment revealed in the invocation’s irony is one of the sources behind the infamous tonal instability of Sterne’s novel.

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