The Poetics of Conversion: Salvation and Self-Justification in the Modern Autobiographical Novel

In Western literature the ideas of conversion and salvation have traditionally been associated with Christianity, beginning in the New Testament with conversions like that of St. Paul and continuing later in confessional writings like St. Augustine's Confessions, Dante's La vita nuova, Bunyan's Grace Abounding..., and Newman's Apologia pro vita sua. But the question, "What must I do to be saved?" need not be restricted to the Christian world. Many recent critics of autobiography have remarked upon the fact that conversions are prevalent in secular autobiographies and may well be an integral part of the structure and goals of the genre itself. The evidence that many modern secular autobiographies follow a similar pattern of loss and compensatory gain found in earlier religious confessions suggests grounds for a comparison and for carrying over the language of religion into the secularized quest for identity and justification.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Comparative and World Literature

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Peters, Gerald Nicholas

• Literature, Comparative

Identifier

(UMI)AAI8623389

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/71472