Eternity's ennui : temporality, perseverance and voice in Augustine and Western literature / by M.B. Pranger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pranger, M. B.

Series:

Brill's Studies in Intellectual History 190.

Brill's studies in intellectual history, 0920-8607 ; v. 190

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Time--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Time.

Time in literature.

Augustine, of Hippo, Saint, 354-430. Confessiones.

Augustine.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (432 p.)

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Augustine articulates temporality as focus rather than duration. It encompasses the shift from the future through the present to the past. Yet this a-causal, free-floating concept of time has never been applied to the shape of Augustine’s own narrative in the Confessions , or to that other vintage Augustinian problem: predestination. This book examines Augustinian temporality by experimentally projecting it onto modern(ist) authors (Kleist, Henry James, Kafka, Beckett) who are less dependent on sequential narrative and more concerned with the fragility and sustainability of voice in time. Processed through this mill of unfamiliar readings, the poignant problem of Augustinian time is how focus can account for digression. How can one deal with an unfathomably brief notion of time while eternity’s longueur hovers over it?

Contents:

Preliminary Material

Introduction: Rambling

Chapter One. Time, Focus and Narrative in Augustine’s Confessions

Chapter Two. The Unfathomability of Sincerity: on the Seriousness of Augustine’s Confessions

Chapter Three. The Gift of Destiny and the Language of Dispossession

Chapter Four. The Sustainability of Voice

Chapter Five. Eternity’s Ennui

Bibliography

Index of Personal Names.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [411]-418) and index.

ISBN:

1-283-85211-X

90-04-18937-8

OCLC:

820009847

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004189379 DOI