Autobiographical Quests: Augustine, Montaigne, Rousseau and Wordsworth

by Elizabeth de Mijolla

Overview

How reliable is the history that human memory produces? Does the self, creating for others, become other? Elizabeth de Mijolla approaches these questions using a descriptive, nonprescriptive approach to the writings of four famous autobiographers: the early Church Father Augustine, the Renaissance essayist Montaigne, the French Romantic philosopher Rousseau, and the English Romantic poet Wordsworth. Exploring theories of memory, time, and autobiographical design and disorder, she argues against the imperative of traditional mimesis and for the variety of autobiographical renderings that personal memory permits.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813914688
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	03/01/1994
Pages:	185
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.25(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Elizabeth de Mijolla is an independent scholar living in France.

Editorial Reviews

Posits two approaches to writing autobiography: that which records events in the order they happened and as they were perceived at the time; and that which interprets the past in light of subsequent experience and is more or less achronological. Shows how Augustine represents the first approach, and how the other three express varying divergence from strict temporal order. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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