Writing Lives in Late Antiquity: Jerome and Augustine

This course will explore the development of new forms of biographical and autobiographical writing in Latin in the fourth and fifth centuries CE. We will focus on two monumental late ancient authors, Jerome and Augustine, and examine the way that these Christian intellectuals conceive of and express ideal lives in a newly Christian Empire. Texts will include selections of Jerome's Lives of Paul the Monk and Hilarion, his letters, and Augustine's Confessions.