God and Self in the Confessional Novel explores the question: what happened to the theological practice of confession when it entered the modern novel? Beginning with the premise that guilt remains a universal human concern, this book considers confession via the classic confessional texts of Augustine and Rousseau. Employing this framework, John D. Sykes, Jr. examines Goetheâs The Sorrows of Young Werther, Dostoevskyâs Notes from Underground, Percyâs Lancelot, and McEwanâs Atonement to investigate the evolution of confession and guilt in literature from the eighteenth century to the early twenty-first century.
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