God and Self in the Confessional Novel explores the question: what happened to the theological practice of confession when it entered the modern novel? Beginning with the premise that guilt remains a universal human concern, this book considers confession via the classic confessional texts of Augustine and Rousseau. Employing this framework, John D. Sykes, Jr. examines Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Percy's Lancelot, and McEwan's Atonement to investigate the evolution of confession and guilt in literature from the eighteenth century to the early twenty-first century.

Autorentext

John D. Sykes, Jr. is the Mary and Harry Brown Professor of English and Religion at Wingate University, USA. He is the author of Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and the Aesthetic of Revelation (2007) and has published widely in the field of theology and literature.

Klappentext
God and Self in the Confessional Novel explores the question: what happened to the theological practice of confession when it entered the modern novel? Beginning with the premise that guilt remains a universal human concern, this book considers confession via the classic confessional texts of Augustine and Rousseau. Employing this framework, John D. Sykes, Jr. examines Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Percy's Lancelot, and McEwan's Atonement to investigate the evolution of confession and guilt in literature from the eighteenth century to the early twenty-first century.

Inhalt

1. Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Augustine and Rousseau: Confessio laudis, Confessio peccatorum, and the Nature of the Self

2.1 Augustine: The Rhetoric of Confessio and the Unfinished Self

2.2 Rousseau: The Rhetoric of Justification and the Monadic Self

3. Chapter 3 The Sorrows of Young Werther: Confessions without Confession

3.1 Nature and Confessio laudis

3.2 Guilt and Confessio peccatorum Chapter 4 Notes from Underground: Self-Deception and the Dialogic Self

4.1 Vicious Circles: Recursive Narrative and the Snarling Cry of Freedom

4.2 Loopholes: Self-Deception and Endless Confession 4.3 The Road Not Taken: Faith and Kenotic Love

4.4 Confessio peccatorum and Confessio laudis Redux

5. Chapter 5 Lancelot: Dialogic Consciousness and the Triadic Self

5.1 Alter Ego, Memory, and Self-Definition

5.2 The Unholy Grail, Love, and the Trinitarian Self 6. Chapter 6 Atonement: The Novel's Confessional Limit

6.1 Literary History and the Ethics of Fiction

6.2 Self-Deception and the Author-as-God

7. Chapter 7 Conclusion