The Sentence, The Novel, and Autobiography: The Histories of Reading and Self in Bunyan and Rousseau
Degree Year
2011
Document Type
Thesis - Open Access
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
English
Advisor(s)
Laura Baudot
Committee Member(s)
William Patrick Day
Wendy Hyman
Keywords
Bunyan, Grace abounding, Rousseau, Confessions, Autobiography, Reading, Extensive, History of self, History of reading, Foucault, The order of things
Abstract
This study analyzes late-seventeenth and eighteenth-century autobiographies in order to address questions regarding the relationship between the history of reading and the "history of the self" in the West. More particularly, it examines the treatment of reading and textuality in John Bunyan's "Grace Abounding" and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "Confessions" in order to suggest that the historical phenomenon Michel Foucault describes as the "emergence of Man" can be understood in terms of the rise of mass print culture and subsequent development of extensive reading practices during the eighteenth century.
Repository Citation
Rowe, Samuel, "The Sentence, The Novel, and Autobiography: The Histories of Reading and Self in Bunyan and Rousseau" (2011). Honors Papers. 420.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/honors/420
