Probably the best known novel which adopts in considerable measure the style of Tristram Shandy is Wezel’s once famous “Tobias Knaut,” the “Lebensgeschichte Tobias Knauts des Weisen sonst Stammler genannt, aus Familiennachrichten gesammelt.”[70] In this work the influence of Fielding is felt parallel to that of Sterne. The historians of literature all accord the book a high place among humorous efforts of the period, crediting the author with wit, narrative ability, knowledge of human nature and full consciousness of plan and purpose.[71] They unite also in the opinion that “Tobias Knaut” places Wezel in the ranks of Sterne imitators, but this can be accepted only guardedly, for in part the novel must be regarded as a satire on “Empfindsamkeit” and hence in some measure be classified as an opposing force to Sterne’s dominion, especially to the distinctively German Sterne. That this impulse, which later became the guiding principle of “Wilhelmine Arend,” was already strong in “Tobias Knaut” is hinted at by Gervinus, but passed over in silence by other writers. Kurz, following Wieland, who reviewed the novel in his Merkur, finds that the influence of Sterne was baneful. Other contemporary reviews deplored the imitation as obscuring and stultifying the undeniable and genuinely original talents of the author.[72]
A brief investigation of Wezel’s novel will easily demonstrate his indebtedness to Sterne. Yet Wezel in his preface, anticipating the charge of imitation, asserts that he had not read Shandy when “Tobias” was begun. Possibly he intends this assertion as a whim, for he quotes Tristram at some length.[73] This inconsistency is occasion for censure on the part of the reviewers.
Wezel’s story begins, like Shandy, “ab ovo,” and, in resemblance to Sterne’s masterpiece, the connection between the condition of the child before its birth and its subsequent life and character is insisted upon. A reference is later made to this. The work is episodical and digressive, but in a more extensive way than Shandy; the episodes in Sterne’s novel are yet part and parcel of the story, infused with the personality of the writer, and linked indissolubly to the little family of originals whose sayings and doings are immortalized by Sterne. This is not true of Wezel: his episodes and digressions are much more purely extraneous in event, and nature of interest. The story of the new-found son, which fills sixty-four pages, is like a story within a story, for its connection with the Knaut family is very remote. This very story, interpolated as it is, is itself again interrupted by a seven-page digression concerning Tyrus, Alexander, Pipin and Charlemagne, which the author states is taken from the one hundred and twenty-first chapter of his “Lateinische Pneumatologie,”—a genuine Sternian pretense, reminding one of the “Tristrapaedia.” Whimsicality of manner distinctly reminiscent of Sterne is found in his mock-scientific catalogues or lists of things, as in Chapter III, “Deduktionen, Dissertationen, Argumentationen a priori und a posteriori,” and so on; plainly adapted from Sterne’s idiosyncrasy of form is the advertisement which in large red letters occupies the middle of a page in the twenty-first chapter of the second volume, which reads as follows: “Dienst-freundliche Anzeige. Jedermann, der an ernsten Gesprächen keinen Gefallen findet, wird freundschaftlich ersucht alle folgende Blätter, deren Inhalt einem Gespräche ähnlich sieht, wohlbedächtig zu überschlagen, d.h. von dieser Anzeige an gerechnet. Darauf denke ich, soll jedermanniglich vom. 22. Absatze fahren können,—Cuique Suum.” The following page is blank: this is closely akin to Sterne’s vagaries. Like Sterne, he makes promise of chapter-subject.[74] Similarly dependent on Sterne’s example, is the Fragment in Chapter VIII, Volume III, which breaks off suddenly under the plea that the rest could not be found. Like Sterne, our author satirizes detailed description in the excessive account of the infinitesimals of personal discomfort after a carouse.[75] He makes also obscure whimsical allusions, accompanied by typographical eccentricities (I, p. 153). To be connected with the story of the Abbess of Andouillets is the humor “Man leuterirte, appelirte—irte,—irte,—irte.”
The author’s perplexities in managing the composition of the book are sketched in a way undoubtedly derived from Sterne,—for example, the beginning of Chapter IX in Volume III is a lament over the difficulties of chronicling what has happened during the preceding learned disquisition. When Tobias in anger begins to beat his horse, this is accompanied by the sighs of the author, a really audible one being put in a footnote, the whole forming a whimsy of narrative style for which Sterne must be held responsible. Similar to this is the author’s statement (Chap. XXV, Vol. II), that Lucian, Swift, Pope, Wieland and all the rest could not unite the characteristics which had just been predicated of Selmann. Like Sterne, Wezel converses with the reader about the way of telling the story, indulging[76] in a mock-serious line of reasoning with meaningless Sternesque dashes. Further conversation with the reader is found at the beginning of Chapter III in Volume I, and in Chapter VIII of the first volume, he cries, “Wake up, ladies and gentlemen,” and continues at some length a conversation with these fancied personages about the progress of the book. Wezel in a few cases adopted the worst feature of Sterne’s work and was guilty of bad taste in precisely Yorick’s style: Tobias’s adventure with the so-called soldier’s wife, after he has run away from home, is a case in point, but the following adventure with the two maidens while Tobias is bathing in the pool is distinctly suggestive of Fielding. Sterne’s indecent suggestion is also followed in the hints at the possible occasion of the Original’s aversion to women. A similar censure could be spoken regarding the adventure in the tavern,[77] where the author hesitates on the edge of grossness.
Wezel joined other imitators of Yorick in using as a motif the accidental interest of lost documents, or papers: here the poems of the “Original,” left behind in the hotel, played their rôle in the tale. The treatment of the wandering boy by the kindly peasant is clearly an imitation of Yorick’s famous visit in the rural cottage. A parallel to Walter Shandy’s theory of the dependence of great events on trifles is found in the story of the volume of Tacitus, which by chance suggested the sleeping potion for Frau v. L., or that Tobias’s inability to take off his hat with his right hand was influential on the boy’s future life. This is a reminder of Tristram’s obliquity in his manner of setting up his top. As in Shandy, there is a discussion about the location of the soul. The character of Selmann is a compound of Yorick and the elder Shandy, with a tinge of satiric exaggeration, meant to chastise the thirst for “originals” and overwrought sentimentalism. His generosity and sensitiveness to human pain is like Yorick. As a boy he would empty his purse into the bosom of a poor man; but his daily life was one round of Shandean speculation, largely about the relationships of trivial things: for example, his yearly periods of investigating his motives in inviting his neighbors Herr v. ** and Herr v. *** every July to his home.
Wezel’s satire on the craze for originality is exemplified in the account of the “Original” (Chap. XXII, Vol. II), who was cold when others were hot, complained of not liking his soup because the plate was not full, but who threw the contents of his coffee cup at the host because it was filled to the brim, and trembled at the approach of a woman. Selmann longs to meet such an original. Selmann also thinks he has found an original in the inn-keeper who answers everything with “Nein,” greatly to his own disadvantage, though it turns out later that this was only a device planned by another character to gain advantage over Selmann himself. So also, in the third volume, Selmann and Tobias ride off in pursuit of a sentimental adventure, but the latter proves to be merely a jest of the Captain at the expense of his sentimental friend. Satire on sentimentalism is further unmistakable in the two maidens, Adelheid and Kunigunde, who weep over a dead butterfly, and write a lament over its demise. In jest, too, it is said that the Captain made a “sentimental journey through the stables.” The author converses with Ermindus, who seems to be a kind of Eugenius, a convenient figure for reference, apostrophe, and appeal. The novelist makes also, like Sterne, mock-pedantic allusions, once indeed making a long citation from a learned Chinese book. An expression suggesting Sterne is the oath taken “bey den Nachthemden aller Musen,”[78] and an intentional inconsequence of narration, giving occasion to conversation regarding the author’s control of his work, is the sudden passing over of the six years which Tobias spent in Selmann’s house.[79]
In connection with Wezel’s occupation with Sterne and Sterne products in Germany, it is interesting to consider his poem: “Die unvermuthete Nachbarschaft. Ein Gespräch,” which was the second in a volume of three poems entitled “Epistel an die deutschen Dichter,” the name of the first poem, and published in Leipzig in 1775. This slight work is written for the most part in couplets and covers twenty-three pages. Wezel represents Doktor Young, the author of the gloomy “Night Thoughts” and “Der gute Lacher,—Lorenz Sterne” as occupying positions side by side in his book-case. This proximity gives rise to a conversation between the two antipodal British authors: Sterne says:
“Wir brauchen beide vielen Raum,
Your Reverence viel zum Händeringen,
Und meine Wenigkeit, zum Pfeifen, Tanzen, Singen.”