FOR FURTHER READING

Biographies and General Works on Augustine

Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. 1967. New edition with an epilogue. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000. The classic biography; presents a rounded view of Augustine as a man of the late Roman Empire.

Chadwick, Henry. Augustine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Elegant introduction to the complex of Augustine’s thought, including its theological intricacies.

Fitzgerald, Allan D., ed. Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia.

Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1999. Contains useful articles on Augustine’s historical milieu, his theological and philosophical positions, his literary and intellectual sources, controversies in which he was involved, and the later reception of his work and ideas.

Lancel, Serge. Saint Augustine. Translated by Antonia Nevill. London: SCM Press, 2002. The most richly documented modern biography.

O‘Donnell, James J. Augustine: A New Biography. New York: Harper-Collins, 2005. A subtle probing of what Augustine does and does not tell us about himself. O’Donnell maintains a valuable website on Augustine : http:l/ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html.

Rist, John M. Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. A full and lucid exposition of Augustine’s philosophical thought.

Wills, Garry. Saint Augustine. New York: Viking, 1999. Stylish capsule biography by a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian. The author has also published several lively new translations of individual books of the Confessions.

 

 

Studies Especially Relevant to the Confessions

Bright, Pamela M., ed. and trans. Augustine and the Bible. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999. A collection of essays on Augustine’s approach to and use of biblical texts, including a number directly on the Confessions.

Clark, Elizabeth A., ed. Saint Augustine on Marriage and Sexuality. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996. Selected passages in translation from a range of Augustine’s works, with illuminating commentary and bibliography.

Clark, Gillian. Augustine: The Confessions. Exeter: Bristol Phoenix Press, 2005. A clear and well-informed introduction to the work, with a guide to resources for further study.

Kermode, Frank. The Classic: Literary Images of Permanence and Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983. A study that provides the essential context for an understanding of the place of the Confessions in the long history of Western literature.

MacCormack, Sabine. The Shadows of Poetry: Veirgil in the Mind of Augustine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. A finely drawn portrait of the most important literary relationship in the Confessions.

Miles, Margaret R. Desire and Delight: A New Reading of Augustine’s Confessions. New York: Crossroad, 1992. A stimulating account of Augustine’s treatment of emotions, the body, sexuality, and human relationships.

O’Connell, Robert J. St Augustine’s Confessions: The Odyssey of Soul. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969. A strong reading of the Neoplatonic quest for unity in Augustine’s work.

Paffenroth, Kim, and Robert P Kennedy, eds. A Reader’s Companion to Augustine’s Confessions. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003. Thirteen essays, one on each book of the Confessions taken as an interpretive key to the whole.

Power, Kim. Veiled Desire: Augustine on Women. New York: Continuum, 1996. A careful and largely persuasive analysis of Augustine’s attitudes.

Starnes, Colin. Augustine’s Conversion: A Guide to the Argument of Confessions I-IX. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1990. An accessible running commentary, drawing on extensive scholarship.

Stock, Brian. Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996. Dense but illuminating study of a crucial dimension of Augustine’s work, centered on the Confessions.