A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

Yorick is the narrator of A Sentimental Journey. It is commonly accepted that he is a thinly-veiled alter-ego for the book’s actual author, Lawrence Sterne. As a travel writer, Yorick takes on the role of providing the kind of literature Sterne himself values. It is useful to note that Yorick often defines himself in relation to a rival writer, Tobias Smollett, who appears in the novel via his respective alter-ego, Smelfungus. Yorick is highly disparaging of Smelfungus and the qualities he believes Smelfungus lacks (and which, accordingly, Sterne believes Smollett lacks) are those which come to define the text: sentimentality, geniality, and an ability to truly appreciate another country. Yorick believes himself to possess all of these qualities, which is why he believes his own writing to be of far greater value than the “spleen and jaundice” (21) of Smelfungus.

This appreciation of his own abilities is one of Yorick’s defining traits. He possesses a natural arrogance, always willing to enter into a situation with the assurance that his wit will see him through. His addresses to the reader reflect this self-assurance, with his delineation of the types of traveler a good example of the ways in which he is happy to speak with authority on a subject which he is inventing on the spot.