Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
This book introduces two major theoretical perspectives that have been consistently overlooked: the performance nature of confession, and the incorrect classification of confession as only a subset of autobiography. As this book demonstrates, confession is not always autobiographical but is always performative.
Synopsis
Confessional literature stretches beyond autobiography and overlaps every literary genre. It is eminently dramatic and always performative, it is a hopeful crying out in response to crisis, and a plea for reconciliation with community. It is an individual's private admission of guilt or a community's open plea for mercy, an auricular-ocular confession, and a pervasive human activity that is both heard and seen. This study introduces two major theoretical perspectives that have been consistently overlooked: the performance nature of confession, and the incorrect classification of confession as only a subset of autobiography. As this book demonstrates, confession is not always autobiographical but is always performative.