Publisher's Synopsis
This study examines the relationship between pre-Christian and Augustinian aesthetics as it emerges in four of Augustine's major works: "De Musica", "Confessions", "De Doctrina Christiana", and "De Civitate Dei". It places these treatises against the historical circumstances in which each was written, and notes their unusual propositions against which the development of early Christian literary theory can be understood. The text considers at length how Augustine modifies secular aesthetics to satisfy the needs of the emerging Church, the role of truth and its relation to literary invention, the place of the self and its relation to community, and the evolution of early secular allegory.
