Abstract

Following upon his Soundings in St. Augustine's Imagination, O'Connell is sensitive to the "image-clusters"--images moving on and into each other--found in the discursive language of St. Augustine's classic work. In the Confessions, the overarching image of conversion he finds to be wayfaring, departure, being in the wrong direction or upside down, and return. It is the image of the prodigal rising up and returning to his father. Along the way, the author teases out the meaning of many a controverted passage from the rhetor's terse Latin style.