elonged:
It is more important to realize that the Confessions is an autobiography in which the author has imposed a drastic, fully-conscious choice of what is significant. The Confessions are, quite succinctly, the story of Augustine's "heart," or his "feelings"--his affectus (Brown 169).
Robert J. O'Connell emphasizes the problem created for readers by the mixture of autobiography and philosophical discussion, especially in trying to reconcile the autobiographical portion of the book, covering Books I-IX, and the final four books. Augustine examines the present state of his soul in Book X. That examination begins, however, with a lengthy discussion of "memory." Some authors see Book X as a later interpolation, but this does not explain how Augustine interprets those parts of th
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