Shandyean Satire and the Rhetorical Arts in Eighteenth-Century England.

Examines within Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy" two representative orientations (reasons and experience) as indices of popular attitudes about the rhetorical arts during the eighteenth century. Argues that, as a satire on rhetorical pretensions and excess, this novel is an important document in the venerable battle between the ancients and the moderns. (KEH)