Historicity of Narrative and Life WritingMary Shannon, ‘15 and Katherine Elkins

ABSTRACT

After closely examining the two primary approaches to literary study—universal and historical—we draw our conclusions and form a complex,nuanced approach that incorporates elements of both.

We subsequently employ our method to study life writing. We examineAugustine’s Confessions (397-398 C.E.) and Jean Jacques Rousseau’sConfessions (1782-1789 C.E.). Universal approaches help us see the wayin which narrative events are formally structured and patterned. InAugustine’s Confessions, he uses a palimpsestic approach in which hesuperimposes his own life story onto biblical type-scenes andconventions. Rousseau’s conscious self-mirroring of Augustine furthersthis tradition of imposing narrative pattern onto one’s life story, butcomplicates the act by simultaneously resisting and acting on such animpulse.

By moving beyond universal to historical approaches, differences becomeevident that are vital to understanding the two texts. Historical contextand ideological paradigms are shown to be immanent in the narrativepatterning of one’s life. Augustine’s relation to Christianity andRousseau’s negotiation of the modern tension between the unique,individual life and societal and ideological pressures that inform one’s lifeare crucial considerations when examining the two works.

The synthesis of both approaches allows us to see change in narrativeform over time. The tradition of life writing persists but historicalcircumstances, as well as conceptions of time and memory, inform thenarrative in a way that cannot be exorcised from the text.SAINT AUGUSTINE (354-430 AD)

During the course of the year 397 AD, Augustine ofHippo filled 13 books with his confessions. It is the“intensely personal document we now think of asthe West’s first autobiography” (Hampl xiii).Moreover, it is the first Western text that attributesincredible value to the individual life. Within thework, Augustine melds together experience andconsciousness, depicting his passionate and spiritualpursuit of meaning. The scriptures do not justinform the text, but rather are woven into the verytext itself.

Nearly 1400 years after Augustine’s Confessions,Jean-Jacques Rousseau endeavors to write his ownautobiography. Consciously echoing the title ofAugustine’s seminal autobiography, Rousseau wishesto declare boldly “’Here is what I have done, what Ihave thought, what I was. I have told the good andthe bad with equal boldness’” (Rousseau 5).Rousseau’s Confessions negotiates “the paradox ofmodern identity”: the conflict between the unique,individual self and the new and various social rolesthat man plays in modernity (Scholar vii). “No onecan write a man’s life except himself,” and Rousseauwrites to show his natural goodness and thecorruption done upon man by society (Rousseau644).

Context: Christianity

Religious Conversion

Quest to achieve oneness with God

Superimposes biblical scenes onto

own life

Religious confession

Divine meaning and explanation

Context: Rise of Modernity

Political & Social Philosopher

Quest to establish unique self and show

the corruption of society

Exposure—sexual and otherwise

Explanation

A FEW COMPARISONSAugustine Rousseau

TIMELINE: A BRIEF HISTORY OF WESTERN NARRATIVE & NARRATIVE THEORY

REFERENCES & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS• Augustine. The Confessions. Trans. Maria Boulding. Ed.

Patricia Hampl. New York: Vintage, 1998. Print.• Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Confessions. Trans. Angela

Scholar. Ed. Patrick Coleman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. Print.

• Scholes, Robert, James Phelan, and Robert L. Kellogg. The Nature of Narrative, Revised and Expanded. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.

We would like to thank the Kenyon Summer Scholars Program for funding this project.

RESEARCH METHODSUniversal Approach Historical Approach

Views narrative as transcendental and innate in

human beings; Pays close

attention to formal elements

Foregrounds the historicity of

narrative form, with a strong emphasis on

context

BC 0 AD 100 AD 200 AD 300 AD 400 AD 500 AD 600 AD 700 AD 800 AD 900 AD 1000 AD 1100 AD 1200 AD 1300 AD 1400 AD 1500 AD 1600 AD 1700 AD 1800 AD 1900 AD 2000 AD

Rise of Narrative

Theory

Theory on Form and Discourse; Structuralism; Narratology; Post-

narratology; Psychoanalysis; Deconstruction; Race; Feminist; etc.

Epic, Lyric Poetry, Drama, History,

Philosophy

New Testament,

Satire, Biography

Autobiog-raphy

Middle Ages: Christian Texts, Histories, Passion Plays, Allegories, Beowulf; Romances 12th and 13th centuries

Chaucer, The

Canterbury Tales

Invention of Gutenberg

Press in 1450

Early Modern Playwrights and Poets:

Shakespeare, Donne, etc.

Cervantes’ Don Quixote;

Milton’s Paradise Lost;Picaresques

Rise of the English Novel:

Defoe, Richardson,

Sterne, Smollett, Fielding

Romanticism;

Realism;

Naturalism;

Early Modernism

Modernism &

Postmodern-ism

?

Augustine’s Confessions397-398 AD

Rousseau’s Confessions1764-1765; 1769-1770

= Brief History of Western Narrative = Brief History of Narrative Theory

Our

Approach

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JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU (1712-1778 AD)