ABSTRACT
We have not a full knowledge of the autobiographical literature that appeared in the latter half of the fourth century a.d. In that epoch, again, the forms adopted in self-portrayal were more manifold than those that we now have before us. In spite of this, the autobiographical works still present a remarkably varied picture. We have already seen that the variety at this time was not due to the same causes as in Hellenism, in which autobiography first fulfilled a variety of functions. The difference becomes plain as soon as we search in other periods of the history of the European mind for autobiographical works comparable with those which we find in the fourth and fifth centuries; for such works are not to be found only in one definite period. Now we seem to be dealing with a monk or a feudal lord of the Middle Ages, now with a late humanist, now we hear sounds of romantic poetry, and Augustine's work, with its trend toward philosophical investigation of all life, corresponds to the modern type of autobiography since Rousseau. And while a new sense of life has developed, long to prevail in Western Christendom, obsolescent ideas continue to loom up.
