Sternean Writing in Wiadomości Brukowe (1816-22)

Abstract

Wiadomości Brukowe [News from the Gutter] was a Polish-language periodical appearing in Vilnius between 1816 and 1822. The announcement of the paper’s aims and objectives invokes Laurence Sterne, in a manner that has been identified in recent criticism as a form of branding: Sterne becomes a name tag that vaguely defines the ‘nature’ of the writing. Several entries in particular may be considered as belonging to the transnational phenomenon of Sterneana, creatively responding to A Sentimental Journey and Tristram Shandy. This note reads these works in the broader context of Sterne’s reception in Poland at the beginning of the nineteenth century.