Petty Differences Hobby Horses, Pacing Saddles, Cane Chairs, and the Transmission and Transformation of Knowledge in Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus and Tristram Shandy
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article considers the relations between literature and science in the Enlightenment by comparing how two intertextual and interdisciplinary texts adapt their sources. The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus and Tristram Shandy are both loose adaptations of Don Quixote and treat the pursuit of knowledge as Quixotic quests. A striking feature of the adaptive practice of both Sterne and the Scriblerians is that sometimes the source text is barely changed at all. The difference might be petty. These authors test the definition of adaptation and raise questions about what happens to both the source and the new text when a fragment is adapted.
Source: English Literature
Author: Judith Hawley
Institution: Royal Holloway University of London
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7160857240