Bibliograph

Confessions, a new translation, Augustine ; translation and notes by Peter Constantine ; foreword by Jack Miles

Type

Label

Confessions, a new translation, Augustine ; translation and notes by Peter Constantine ; foreword by Jack Miles

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Confessions

Nature of contents

bibliography

Responsibility statement

Augustine ; translation and notes by Peter Constantine ; foreword by Jack Miles

Sub title

a new translation

Summary

No modern, well-versed literature lover can call her education complete without having read Augustine’s Confessions. One of the most original works of world literature, it is the first autobiography ever written, influencing writers from Montaigne to Rousseau, Virginia Woolf to Gertrude Stein—and most recently informing Stephen Greenblatt’s provocative thesis about one of our foundational mythologies in The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve. It is here that we learn how one of the greatest saints in Christendom overcame a wild and reckless past, complete with a rambunctious posse of friends, an overly doting mother, and an affair that produced a bastard child. Yet English translators have long emphasized the ecclesiastical virtues of Augustine’s masterpiece, often at the expense of its passion and literary vigor. Restoring the lyricism of Augustine’s original language, Peter Constantine offers a masterful and elegant rendering of Confessions in what will be a classic for decades to come

Target audience

adult

Classification