Editing Digression (section)

=== 18th and 19th centuries ===
In 18th-century literature, the digression (not to be confused with [[subplot]]) was a substantial part of [[satire|satiric work]]s.  Works such as [[Jonathan Swift]]'s ''[[A Tale of a Tub]]'', [[Laurence Sterne]]'s ''[[Tristram Shandy]]'' and [[Diderot]]'s ''[[Jacques le fataliste et son maître]]'' even made digressiveness itself a part of the satire.  Sterne's novel, in particular, depended upon the digression, and he wrote, "Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; — they are the life, the soul of reading; — take them out of this book (''Tristram Shandy'') for instance, — you might as well take the book along with them."<ref>"Tristram Shandy." The Electronic Labyrinth. Christopher Keep, Tim McLaughlin, Robin Parmar, n.d. Web. 2 October 2013.</ref> This use of digression as satire later showed up in [[Thomas Carlyle]]'s work.

The digression was also used for non-satiric purposes in fiction.  In [[Henry Fielding]]'s ''[[The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling]]'', the author has numerous asides and digressive statements that are a side-fiction, and this sort of digression within chapters shows up later in the work of [[Charles Dickens]], [[Machado de Assis]], [[William Makepeace Thackeray]], [[Herman Melville]], [[Victor Hugo]] and others. The novels of [[Leo Tolstoy]], [[J.D. Salinger]], [[Marcel Proust]], [[Henry Miller]], [[Milan Kundera]] and [[Robert Musil]] are also full of digressions.