confession

confession, in literature, an autobiography, either real or fictitious, in which intimate and hidden details of the subject’s life are revealed. The first outstanding example of the genre was the Confessions of St. Augustine (c. 400 ce), a painstaking examination of Augustine’s progress from juvenile sinfulness and youthful debauchery to conversion to Christianity and the triumph of the spirit over the flesh.

Others include Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822), by English essayist and critic Thomas De Quincey, focusing on the writer’s early life and his gradual addiction to drug taking, and Confessions (1782–89), the intimate autobiography of French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The Confessions of Nat Turner (1832) is the confession of Nat Turner, an enslaved Black man who led the only effective, sustained slave rebellion (August 1831) in U.S. history. It was dictated in the days leading up to Turner’s trial on November 5, 1831, to his attorney, Thomas R. Gray. It was published a few weeks after he was found guilty and hanged that same month. French writer André Gide used the form to great effect in such works as Si le grain ne meurt (1920 and 1924; If It Die...), an account of his life from birth to marriage.

In the 20th century American poets such as John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton wrote poetry in the confessional vein, revealing intensely personal, often painful perceptions and feelings. This movement is often called confessional poetry and continues to be influential in the 21st century.

Also in the tradition are the “confession magazines,” collections of sensational and usually purely fictional autobiographical tales popular in the mid-20th century.