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“I Have Become an Enigma to Myself”: A Comparative Analysis of Saint Augustine’s Confessions and Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis

At one point in Cosmopolis, DeLillo’s character Benno Levin quotes Saint Augustine of Hippo: “[I] have become an enigma to myself” (189). However, the similarities between the two narratives go beyond a simple reference. Although centuries apart and operating within different temporal and philosophical frameworks, both are examples of confessional prose, an inherently introspective genre which offers insight into the narrator’s emotional development. The works at hand explore concepts key to the human condition, such as time and temporality, corporeality, and morality. The narrators also seek to define themselves in relation to (or against) a superior, ubiquitous, and almighty Other (Saint Augustine in relation to God, and Benno Levin against Eric Packer, the embodiment of cybercapitalism). Apart from thematic similarities, biographical and structural similarities are also to be observed. Hence, as DeLillo is building on (or rather, subverting) what is considered to be the first piece of confessional prose in the Western tradition, the comparative method can be applied in analysing Cosmopolis. Such an approach makes possible the singling out and defining of peculiarities as depicted in the novel, which allows for an(other) analysis of the American here and now.

American literature ; capitalism ; corporeality ; temporality ; comparative analysis ; Confessions ; Cosmpolis

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