On King Lear, The confessions, and human experience and nature

"Augustine's Confessions and Shakespeare's King Lear are two of the most influential and enduring works of the Western canon or world literature. But what does Stratford-upon-Avon have to do with Hippo, or the ascetical heretic-fighting polemicist, with the author of some of the world's most beautiful love poetry? Pairing and connecting the insights of Shakespeare's most nihilist tragedy, with those of Augustine's most personal and sometimes self-condemnatory, sometimes triumphal work, challenges us to see worldviews more similar than they seemed at first, and more relevant to our own fragmented and disillusioned world"--