Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Eine empfindsame Reise durch Frankreich und Italien
Go deeper: the whole of Eine empfindsame Reise durch Frankreich und Italien
About 2 h 50 min to read.Für wen es gedacht ist
Readers who love a witty, warm voice, small human scenes, and travel writing that cares more about people than monuments. It suits anyone who enjoys comic self-portraits and quick, tender sketches of strangers on the road.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy is a short comic travel book by Laurence Sterne, the English clergyman who also wrote Tristram Shandy. It appeared in the year he died, 1768, and it is told by Yorick, a parson who crosses to France almost on a whim. He is not after churches, pictures or ruins. He wants to study the human heart, and to see how people treat one another on the road.
You get a book of small scenes rather than a grand tour. A monk begs at an inn, a dead donkey is mourned, a caged starling cries out, a beggar works a secret on women. Each one is a short test of kindness, vanity and desire, told with a smile at the narrator's own expense. Let us begin in Calais, with a purse he has decided to keep shut.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A hasty crossing and a hard heartFree
- 2A monk, a lady and a snuffbox
- 3A servant, a pony and a dead donkey
- 4Paris, a pulse and a passport problem
- 5Versailles, Yorick the jester and a lucky name
- 6Temptations, flattery and the price of praise
- 7Maria, a farm supper and a shared bedroom
Punkt 1 von 7
A hasty crossing and a hard heart
The book opens with a quarrel about France. A gentleman asks whether Yorick has been to France, so he packs six shirts and a pair of black silk breeches and sails the next morning. By dinner at Calais he is sitting before a fricasseed chicken, in a kindly mood toward the King of France and the world.
Then a Franciscan monk comes in to ask for alms for his convent. Yorick has already decided to give nothing, and he keeps the decision by lecturing the old man about idle beggars. The monk answers with humility and no anger, and withdraws.
The moment the door closes, Yorick feels ashamed. Every unkind word returns to him, along with the monk's grey hair and gentle face. He tells himself he is only starting his travels and will learn better manners as he goes.
This small scene sets the pattern for the whole book. Yorick does not present himself as a model of virtue. He shows his meanness, his regret and his wish to do better, and he asks us to smile at both.
That’s 1 of 7 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Go deeper: the whole of Eine empfindsame Reise durch Frankreich und Italien
About 2 h 50 min to read.Who’s who
- Yorick
- An English clergyman traveling abroad, Yorick examines his feelings while seeking companionship and responding to strangers.
- La Fleur
- Yorick’s cheerful French servant offers practical help and an ease with people that contrasts with his employer’s self-examination.
- The Franciscan monk
- A monk seeking charity in Calais, he prompts Yorick to reconsider his refusal and pursue a warmer connection.
- The caged starling
- A captive bird whose repeated cry moves Yorick, the starling makes imprisonment feel immediate and painful.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 41,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 2 h 45 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 12 other languages
Questions about Eine empfindsame Reise durch Frankreich und Italien
What is A Sentimental Journey about?
It follows Yorick, an English parson, through France and into Savoy as he looks for kindness, feeling and human oddity rather than sights. Short scenes with monks, servants, beggars, ladies and officials make up the whole trip.
Who is Yorick in A Sentimental Journey?
Yorick is the narrator, a clergyman who shares a name with the dead jester in Hamlet. In the book he is a warm, vain, quick-witted traveller, and the Count de B— first mistakes him for that jester.
What does sentimental mean in the title?
Here it means guided by feeling and sympathy rather than by facts or sights. Sterne's traveller measures a country by the kindness and warmth he finds in people, and he laughs at his own tender heart too.
Is A Sentimental Journey a true story?
It is fiction drawn from Sterne's own travels in France. Yorick is a comic version of the author, and the book appeared in 1768, the year Sterne died. The journey ends in Savoy.
Why does the book end in the middle of a sentence?
The abrupt close fits its playful spirit, since the last scene builds toward the interruption. Readers have long enjoyed the cliffhanger, which seems to fit a book made of small, unfinished moments of feeling.
Cite this edition
Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-sentimental-journey-through-france-and-italy.
Sterne, L. (2026). A sentimental journey through France and Italy. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-sentimental-journey-through-france-and-italy (Original work published 1768)
Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-sentimental-journey-through-france-and-italy.
@book{sterne2026sentimental,
author = {Sterne, Laurence},
title = {A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/a-sentimental-journey-through-france-and-italy},
note = {First published 1768}
}
