The textual self : autobiographical self-expression in Augustine's confessiones

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dc.contributor.authorOlson, Linda Anne Dawnen_US
dc.date.accessioned2024-08-15T16:36:52Z
dc.date.available2024-08-15T16:36:52Z
dc.date.copyright1993en_US
dc.date.issued1993
dc.degree.departmentDepartment of Classics|Department of Englishen_US
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en
dc.description.abstractAugustine's Confessiones are a spiritual autobiography in which internal progression and self-expression are achieved through the engagement of highly textual conventions. The autobiographer records his spiritual development as an intellectual and meditative journey through various authoritative voices and texts, both true and false; his essential self is personally constructed from the building blocks provided by these texts. In expressing the individuality of the self so shaped, Augustine naturally engages the texts he has assimilated, creating an intertextual and allegorical, yet nonetheless deeply sincere means of self­-expression. Augustine's Confessiones are an influential spiritual authority, yet they demand to be read in an intimate and meditative manner; thus Augustine's textual individuality informs both the meditative process of medieval monastic reading and writing, and the autobiographical writing which relates a similar spiritual ascension throughout the Middle Ages. This thesis traces Augustine's individual progression and intertextual expression in the Confessiones through the three critical stages of lection, meditation and composition, and views Augustine's text as unified precisely by the expression of his textual individuality, by, that is, its intensely autobiographical vein. Engaging the monastic meditative triad and calling upon the responses inherent in medieval iconography, the thesis hopes to reveal a new perspective from which to view the learned conception of spiritual individuality generated by Augustine's Confessiones in the Middle Ages.en
dc.format.extent204 pages
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/19180
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.subjectUN SDG 4: Quality Educationen
dc.titleThe textual self : autobiographical self-expression in Augustine's confessionesen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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