the memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner

Gil-Martin encourages Robert (perhaps) to commit ever more criminal acts – culminating in murder.

Wringhim’s beliefs are fostered by his mother and her mentor and alleged lover, the Rev Wringhim and enforced by his possibly imaginary “friend” Gil-Martin, who is part doppelganger and part Devil. Much of the action is focused around Wringhim’s violent engagements with his somewhat more wholesome estranged brother, George Colwan. If this sounds worthy but staid, the Confessions is in fact fast, dramatic, and shocking. The novel plays with Calvinist concepts of predestination and ideas around free will - whether our actions, or God’s plan, decide on our salvation and damnation. Partly based on E T A Hoffman’s Die Elixiere des Teufels (The Devil’s Elixirs) of 1815, Hogg explores the downward spiral of the unappealing Robert Wringhim, who comes to believe in the justness of all of his actions by virtue of being among God’s saved. In a year which is strong on Scottish literary adaptions (Alasdair Gray novel Lanark is also being staged, Paul Bright’s Confessions is based on James Hogg’s masterwork The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.įirst published anonymously in 1824, the Confessions is one of the defining texts of modern Scottish literature - and an outstanding novel within European traditions. One of the highlights of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival is undoubtedly a new production of Paul Bright’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner, which runs between August 19 and 22.

The memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner