Character and Conversion in Autobiography
Subtitle: Augustine, Montaigne, Descartes, Rousseau, and Sartre
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Published: November 2004
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780813922928
Subjects: Literary studies: general; History and criticism; France; Philosophy; Biography / Autobiography; Religious; Reference; Philosophers; History & Surveys - General; Conversion; Biography; History
First sentence: The history of autobiography, from its origins to contemporary times, bears witness to the abiding influence of the structure and the rhetoric of conversion.
Description: "Beginning with Augustine's Confessions as the canonical model of religious conversion, the author investigates the changing forms of conversion in selected works by Montaigne and Descartes, culminating in reformulations by Rousseau and Sartre. Moving from a purely religious rebirth to works grounded in a personal philosophy or aesthetic vocation, the autobiographies considered in this book stand as episodes in a genealogy of conversion."--BOOK JACKET.