Narrative, Attention, and Time in the Alypius Excursus of Augustine's Confessions 6

In the middle of Confessions 6, Augustine pauses his biographical narrative in order to tell a series of stories about his friend and fellow bishop, Alypius of Thagaste. Previous scholarship has rightly noted that the episodes centrally concern pride, the failure of the human will, the dangers of curiosity, self-control, and the importance of peace with oneself and God. More recently, scholars who have sought to study the Confessions as literary art have interpreted these stories in light of their narrative form, as well as their content. While such interpretations illuminate central themes within the stories, I have not found arguments that (a) focus on narrative form, rather than content, (b) account for the placement of these anecdotes within the context of Confessions 6, and (c) take into account their vivid and experiential presentation. In this thesis, I focus on narrative form to argue that the middle two episodes of the Alypius-vita encourage an experiential reading of Alypius's distraction, using second-generation cognitive approaches to narratology. I then argue that the narrative form of these tales interacts with theological themes concerning time and attention that permeate the rest of the Confessions. In this way, I seek to bring together the study of narrative form and theology in the Confessions, and thus making more sense of the Alypius-vita than previous scholars have done.