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)
