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The Review of English Studies 2005 56(223):49-58; doi:10.1093/res/hgi004
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© Oxford University Press 2005; all rights reserved

Articles

Unorthodox Theology in Two Short Works by Sterne

Duncan Patrick

Leicester

Although it is widely argued that Laurence Sterne's humour is founded in his professed Anglicanism, there are still many aspects of his life and work that do not readily support such a notion. This article describes signs of anti-clericalism in two lesser-known works by Sterne, beginning with a general review of the theological shortcomings of his early poem ‘The Unknown World’. This is followed by a more systematic analysis of the so-called ‘Fragment inédit’, or ‘Meditation on a Plum-tree’, which is argued to be blasphemous and heretical, and it is suggested that this long-neglected ‘moral essay’ should rightly be regarded as a bold expression of mid-eighteenth-century English deism.


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