Table Of ContentGod
&
Self
in the
Confessional
Novel
JOHN D. SYKES, JR.
God and Self in the Confessional Novel
John D. Sykes, Jr.
God and Self in the
Confessional Novel
John D. Sykes, Jr.
Wingate University
Wingate, NC, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-91321-6 ISBN 978-3-319-91322-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91322-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018941876
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For Becky
my longsuffering wife
The holdfasT
I threatened to observe the strict decree
Of my deare God with all my power & might.
But I was told by one, it could not be;
Yet I might trust in God to be my light.
Then will I trust, said I, in him alone.
Nay, ev’n to trust in him, was also his:
We must confesse that nothing is our own.
Then I confesse that he my succour is:
But to have nought is ours, not to confesse
That we have nought. I stood amaz’d at this,
Much troubled, till I heard a friend expresse,
That all things were more ours by being his.
What Adam had, and forfeited for all,
Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall.
George Herbert
a
cknowledgemenTs
Thanking, like confessing, has no logical limit. But books, thankfully,
do have an end, and acknowledgments must be brief. My interest in this
topic is long-standing; in the course of my academic career, I have taught
each of these texts, and every time I have done so, I have learned some-
thing. Sometimes, I have been forced to confront my own ignorance;
more often, my students at Wake Forest University, Austin College,
or Wingate University have lent me their insights or pushed me to my
own through their questions. One of the pleasures of writing this book
has been the opportunity after years of trying to finally get it right. I
am far from certain that I have succeeded, but I am grateful to Wingate
University for the semester’s sabbatical leave that allowed me to try. Only
those who have savored it understand the joys of uninterrupted com-
munion with the best that has been known and thought in the world.
My thanks go to my supportive colleagues at Wingate, especially those in
the departments of English and religion. Luke Mills and Allison Kellar in
particular gave helpful responses to chapters I showed them. Academic
friends from beyond my daily circuit have formed me and fed me on this
journey; the names of many of them are to be found on the reference
pages of this volume. I am especially obliged to David Jeffrey, Farrell
O’Gorman, and the anonymous outside reader for the time they took
with the manuscript.
Dependent as I have been upon the academy for lo these many years,
I fully acknowledge that it has no patent on wisdom. I have profited
from the comments of two close readers whom I trust not only for their
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
intellectual acumen but also for their Christian witness: Kathleen Prevost
and Jim McCoy. My much-admired pastoral sister, the Rev. Shearon
Williams, and her husband Robbie, have been sympathetic sounding
boards for my ideas. My own congregation, Wingate Baptist Church, has
been for me a sustaining community of praise and confession for nearly
thirty years now. And finally, I remain grateful to those who taught me my
first lessons in guilt, confession, and forgiveness, my own loving family.
c
onTenTs
1 Introduction 1
Works Cited 10
2 Augustine and Rousseau: Confessio Laudis, Confessio
Peccatorum, and the Nature of the Self 13
2.1 Augustine: The Rhetoric of Confessio
and the Unfinished Self 13
2.2 Rousseau: The Rhetoric of Justification
and the Monadic Self 24
Works Cited 36
3 The Sorrows of Young Werther: Confessions
Without Confession 39
3.1 Nature and Confessio Laudis 41
3.2 Guilt and Confessio Peccatorum 54
Works Cited 59
4 Notes from Underground: Self-Deception
and the Dialogic Self 61
4.1 Vicious Circles: Recursive Narrative and the Snarling
Cry of Freedom 62
4.2 Loopholes: Self-Deception and Endless Confession 71
xi
xii CONTENTS
4.3 The Road Not Taken: Faith and Kenotic Love 79
4.4 Confessio Peccatorum and Confessio Laudis Redux 85
Works Cited 87
5 Lancelot: Dialogic Consciousness and the Triadic Self 89
5.1 Alter Ego, Memory, and Self-Definition 95
5.2 The Unholy Grail, Love, and the Trinitarian Self 103
Works Cited 112
6 Atonement: The Novel’s Confessional Limit 115
6.1 Literary History and the Ethics of Fiction 117
6.2 Self-Deception and the Author-as-God 128
Works Cited 139
7 Conclusion 141
Works Cited 151
Index 153
