Augustine of Hippo and Mimetic Desire.
An Interpretation of the Pear-theft Episode (Conf. II, IV 9)
Abstract
The theft that St. Augustine declares to have committed at the age of sixteen in his Confessions has been the object of various interpretations. Here, through the treatment of some of them and of the sources on which they are based, a new reading is proposed which takes as its fundament a viewpoint not yet delineated in Augustinian studies. Through the application of the hermeneutical perspective proposed some decades ago by the French historian René Girard, it is seen that the pear-theft story constitutes an episode akin to the message revealed by the Scriptures concerning the nature of human desire. The exegesis developed, while taking into account previous interpretations, distances itself from some of their fundaments, in order to deepen their scope and demonstrate that the episode in question, in conformity with the Christian message, reveals the conflictive character of the mimetic nature of desire.Downloads
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