Confessions

No modern, well-versed literature lover can call her education complete without having read Augustine’s Confessions. One of the most original works of world literature, it is the first autobiography ever written, influencing writers from Montaigne to Rousseau, Virginia Woolf to Gertrude Stein—and most recently informing Stephen Greenblatt’s provocative thesis about one of our foundational mythologies in The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve. It is here that we learn how one of the greatest saints in Christendom overcame a wild and reckless past, complete with a rambunctious posse of friends, an overly doting mother, and an affair that produced a “bastard” child. Yet English translators have long emphasized the ecclesiastical virtues of Augustine’s masterpiece, often at the expense of its passion and literary vigor. Restoring the lyricism of Augustine’s original language, Peter Constantine offers a masterful and elegant rendering of Confessions in what will be a classic for decades to come.

Nici un iubitor de literatura modern si bine versat nu poate numi educatia ei completa fara sa fi citit Confesiunile lui Augustin. Una dintre cele mai originale opere ale literaturii mondiale, este prima autobiografie scrisa vreodata, influentand scriitorii de la Montaigne la Rousseau, Virginia Woolf si Gertrude Stein - si, cel mai recent, informand teza provocatoare a lui Stephen Greenblatt despre una dintre mitologiile noastre fundamentale din „Rise and Fall” a lui Adam si a Evei.