ABSTRACT
3Confessional literature is a kind of autobiographical writing in which one tries to tell the truth of oneself, about oneself, as honestly and completely as one can. We should think that confession, above all other modes of literary representation, would come closest to reporting the truth, for it is based on several things that tend to guarantee the truth from human beings: a desire to unburden oneself of pain and shame; the confessor’s fear of the consequences of mendacity; and it is spoken to a God whom the confessor desires to know and serve and elicit the forgiveness of—in other words, the confessor has the listener he wants, a listener who is both all-powerful and prepared to forgive.
