A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy is a novel by Laurence Sterne, written and first published in 1768, as Sterne was facing death. In 1765, Sterne travelled through France and Italy as far south as Naples, and after returning determined to describe his travels from a sentimental point of view. The novel can be seen as an epilogue to the possibly unfinished work "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman", and also as an answer to Tobias Smollett's decidedly unsentimental "Travels Through France and Italy". Sterne had met Smollett during his
Denis Diderot Dressing Gown") up to the heady "D'Alembert's Dream" ("Le Rêve de d'Alembert") (composed 1769), a philosophical dialogue in which he plunges into the depths of the controversy as to the ultimate constitution of matter and the meaning of life. "Jacques le fataliste" (written in 1773, but not published until 1792 in German and 1796 in French) is similar to "Tristram Shandy" and "The Sentimental Journey" in its challenge to the conventional novel's structure and content. The dialogue "Rameau's Nephew" (French: "Le Neveu de Rameau") is a "farce-tragedy" reminiscent of the "Satires" of Horace, a favorite classical author of Diderot's whose