Read complete books and articles on: Autobiography

Biography - reconstruction in print or on film, of the lives of real men and women. Together with autobiography—an individual's interpretation of his own life—it shares a venerable tradition, meeting the demands of different audiences through the ages.

The Origins of Biography

Among the most ancient biographies are the narrative carvings and hieroglyphic inscriptions on Egyptian

The Origins of Biography

Among the most ancient biographies are the narrative carvings and hieroglyphic inscriptions on Egyptian tombs and temples (c. 1300 b.c.), and the cuneiform inscriptions on Assyrian palace walls (c. 720 b.c.) or Persian rock faces (c. 520 b.c.). All these records proclaimed the deeds of kings, although accuracy often gave way to glorification. Among the first biographies of ordinary men, the Dialogues of Plato (4th cent. b.c.) and the Gospels of the New Testament (1st and 2d cent. a.d.) reveal their respective subjects by letting each speak for himself. Even these early achievements of biography, however, lack critical balance.

Equilibrium was established by Plutarch in The Parallel Lives (2d cent. a.d.). His method was comparative, e.g., Theseus is matched with Romulus; Demosthenes with Cicero. In his conclusions, he evaluates the connection between the moral standards and worldly achievements of each. St. Augustine turned the same critical judgment on himself in his Confessions (4th cent.), comparing his character and conduct before and after his conversion to Christianity.

During the Middle Ages credibility continued to be sacrificed to credulity. In the hagiographies, or lives of the saints, human flaws and actual events were bypassed in favor of saintly traits and miracles. Yet the few secular biographies produced in that era, Einhard's Life of Charlemagne (9th cent.), Eadmer's Life of St. Anselm (12th cent.), Jean de Joinville's Memoirs of St. Louis IX (13th cent.), and Jean Froissart's Chroniques (15th cent.), redeem the genre with their lively depiction of personalities and events.

With the Renaissance came rekindled interest in worldly power and self-assertion. Benvenuto Cellini's Autobiography (16th cent.), recounting his escapades and artistic achievements, is a monument to the ego. Saint-Simon's Memoirs (late 17th cent.) describe Louis XIV and his court at Versailles and record the effect of the monarch's absolute power on the daily lives of others. In England, Samuel Pepys's Diary, John Evelyn's Diary, Izaak Walton's Lives and John Aubrey's Lives of Eminent Men (all mid-17th cent.) introduced informality and intimacy to their treatments. Each wrote about contemporaries who were their friends or acquaintances.

The Development of Biography as a Literary Form

By the 18th cent. literary biography (works about poets and men of letters) had become an important extension of the genre. Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets (1779–81) set the example for James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), the first definitive biography. This monumental work was drawn not only from Boswell's exact recollections of conversations with Johnson, but from letters, memoirs, and interviews with others in Johnson's circle as well. Two equally celebrated autobiographies, Benjamin Franklin's, noted for its practicality, and Jean Jacques Rousseau's, noted for its candor, also mark this age.

Among the avalanche of biographies and autobiographies published in the 19th cent. Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit (1808–31), Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus (1833–34) and Frederick the Great (1858–65), and Ernest Renan's Life of Jesus (1863) are important. Also noteworthy was the publication of the Dictionary of National Biography (1882), edited by Leslie Stephen.

As a result of Freud's defining of the unconscious, the 20th cent. produced a new sort of biography—one that used the technique of psychoanalysis on the subject. Examples of such works are Freud's own Leonardo Da Vinci (1910) and Anaïs Nin's Diaries (1931–44). As antidotes to the tradition of the official biography Lytton Strachey wrote Eminent Victorians (1918) and Queen Victoria (1921), works that deflate and debunk.

Twentieth-century biographers often sought to make structure a reflection of theme. Henry Adams's Education of Henry Adams (1918) explores the metaphor of the title; Thomas Merton's Seven Story Mountain (1948) follows the analogue of Dante's Inferno; and Lillian Hellman's Pentimento (1973) presents portrait sketches of the people in her life as seen from the vantage point of her maturity. Notable literary and scholarly biographers of the 20th cent. include Harold Nicolson, Allan Nevins, D. S. Freeman, André Maurois, J. H. Plumb, Carl Sandburg, Dumas Malone, Elizabeth Longford, and Leon Edel.

Biography in a Multimedia Age

Motion pictures and television have adapted the form of biography to their own needs. With Paul Muni as Louis Pasteur, Charles Laughton as Rembrandt, or Spencer Tracy as Thomas Edison, films retraced for new audiences, although often in a romanticized fashion, the paths to success taken by men of intelligence and character: the old Plutarchian formula. Documentary biographies, composed of newsreel clips and photographs, have been made about public figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt, the Duke of Windsor, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Two innovations of television are the dramatic documentary ("docudrama") and the interview. Ken Russell's film essays, commissioned by the British Broadcasting Company (1965–70), on Elgar, Rossetti, Delius, Richard Strauss, and Isadora Duncan attempted to convey the essence of a person's character and work rather than just the facts of his life. Homage to Plutarch was evident again in the format of Edward R. Murrow's interview program, Person to Person (1953–59), where guests like Marilyn Monroe and Sir Thomas Beecham were deliberately paired.

The television interview was expanded by such talk show hosts as Dick Cavett, David Frost, and Charlie Rose, who have led their usually well-known guests to talk about their lives for an hour or longer. The expansion of oral history programs, in which prominent figures record their reminiscences, are also providing a body of primary biographical source material. With the advent of cable television, biography became a daily staple of various channels and biographies were offered as part of the programming on channels devoted to a number of special subjects, e.g., history and education.

Bibliography

See H. G. Nicolson, The Development of English Biography (1928); E. H. O'Neill, A History of American Biography (1961); A. Maurois, Aspects of Biography (tr. 1966); S. Weinberg, Telling the Untold Story (1992).

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: Autobiography

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Autobiography & Postmodernism » Read Now
by Kathleen Ashley, Leigh Gilmore, Gerald Peters. 318 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Autobiography and Postmodernism AUTHOBIOGRAPHY POSTMODERNISM...Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Autobiography and postmodernism / edited by Kathleen...
2.

Representing Others: Gender and the Subjects of Autobiography, in Differences » Read Now
by Nancy K. Miller. 27 pgs.

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...Others: Gender and the Subjects of Autobiography Our sweetest moments are relative...Gertrude Stein, Everybodys Autobiography ) There are things so deeply personal...now...
3.

Critical Mirrors: Theories of Autobiography, in Mosaic (Winnipeg) » Read Now
by Charles Berryman. 15 pgs.

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...Critical mirrors: theories of autobiography. by Charles Berryman...to establish a theory of autobiography are fairly recent despite...still describe the study of...
4.

Anthropology and Autobiography » Read Now
by Helen Callaway, Judith Okely. 252 pgs.

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5.

Documents of Interaction: Biography, Autobiography, and Life History in Social Science Perspective » Read Now
by Michael V. Angrosino. 118 pgs.

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...Documents of Interaction: Biography, Autobiography, and Life History in Social Science...4. Albert Gomes: Autobiography as Psychohistory 42...alternative method for dealing...
6.

Touching the World: Reference in Autobiography » Read Now
by Paul John Eakin. 249 pgs.

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Paul John Eakin's earlier work Fictions in Autobiography is a key text in autobiography studies. In it he proposed that the self that finds expression in autobiography is in fundamental ways a kind of fictive construct, a fiction articulated in a fiction. In this new book Eakin turns his attention...
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Paul John Eakin's earlier work Fictions in Autobiography is a key text in autobiography studies. In it he proposed that the self that finds expression in autobiography is in fundamental ways a kind of fictive construct, a fiction articulated in a fiction. In this new book Eakin turns his attention to what he sees as the defining assumption of autobiography: that the story of the self does refer to a world of biographical and historical fact. Here he shows that people write autobiography not in some private realm of the autonomous self but rather in strenuous engagement with the pressures that life in culture entails. In so demonstrating, he offers fresh readings of autobiographies by Roland Barthes, Nathalie Sarraute, William Maxwell, Henry James, Ronald Fraser, Richard Rodriguez, Henry Adams, Patricia Hampl, John Updike, James McConkey, and Lillian Hellman. In the introduction Eakin makes a case for reopening the file on reference in autobiography, and in the first chapter he establishes the complexity of the referential aesthetic of the genre, the intricate interplay of fact and fiction in such texts. In subsequent chapters he explores some of the major contexts of reference in autobiography: the biographical, the social and cultural, the historical, and finally, underlying all the rest, the somatic and temporal dimensions of the lived experience of identity. In his discussion of contemporary theories of the self, Eakin draws especially on cultural anthropology and developmental psychology.
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7.

Coordinated Lives: Between Autobiography and Scholarship, in Biography » Read Now
by Jeremy D. Popkin. 25 pgs.

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...Coordinated lives: Between autobiography and scholarship. by Jeremy D. Popkin Autobiography is usually thought of as a solitary...Philippe Lejeunes well-known definition of...
8.

The Grammar of Autobiography: A Developmental Account » Read Now
by Jean Quigley. 232 pgs.

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This is the first book to bring together four distinct literatures--functional linguistics, child language, narrative development, and discursive psychology. It is an outgrowth of the historical relationship between psychology and linguistics, especially the post-Wittgensteinian "turn to language."...
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This is the first book to bring together four distinct literatures--functional linguistics, child language, narrative development, and discursive psychology. It is an outgrowth of the historical relationship between psychology and linguistics, especially the post-Wittgensteinian "turn to language." Relevant issues are situated at that interface in a way that should prove accessible to both linguists with little or no psychological knowledge and to psychologists with no linguistics background are addressed. Previously, there have been volumes on the theses of discursive psychology and social constructionism and volumes on the workings and theories of functional linguistics, but none have attempted to link the two as natural bedfellows in this way. While clearly situated within the spirit of the Berkeley school, it goes beyond it by virtue of linking functional linguistics and discursive psychology, and by doing this ontogenetically. Overall, this book is an investigation of the psycholinguistic thesis of the social construction of selfhood and the psychology of everyday life. Featuring the only book-length studies of the use of grammatical analysis as a research strategy in psychology, it integrates issues of human development and child language in a new way. It deals in careful linguistic analyses, examining the role of grammatical forms in constituting context which involves an examination of their functions that are then used to highlight fundamental aspects of development. The linguistic analyses are treated as a testing ground for the ideas and claims made in discursive psychology. The discussion deals with many of the current issues in psychology and related disciplines, including narrative, morality, agency, and responsibility, in order to show the central role of language in human functioning.
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9.

Literary Selves: Autobiography and Contemporary American Nonfiction » Read Now
by James N. Stull. 160 pgs.

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Departing from previous discussions of literary nonfiction in terms of its being literature or journalism, this new study treats literary nonfiction as autobiography, examining a large body of work in terms of autobiographical theory. The collected works of six very different prominent literary...
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Departing from previous discussions of literary nonfiction in terms of its being literature or journalism, this new study treats literary nonfiction as autobiography, examining a large body of work in terms of autobiographical theory. The collected works of six very different prominent literary journalists--John McPhee, Joe McGinniss, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Hunter S. Thompson, and Norman Mailer--are analyzed from literary, autobiographical, and cultural perspectives. Author James Stull explains how the complex, fully-rounded psychological and social self is crystalized in these works into a more encompassing statement of self-identification, which he calls a "metaphor of self," a distinctive way an author presents a self and its world. Numerous other writers and critics are brought into the discussion, and the author provides an extensive reference bibliography.
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10.

Altered Egos: Authority in American Autobiography » Read Now
by G. Thomas Couser. 285 pgs.

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This work explores the "authority" of autobiography in several related senses: first, the idea that autobiography is authoritative writing because it is presumably verifiable; second, the idea that one's life is one's exclusive textual domain; third, the idea that, because of the apparent congruence...
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This work explores the "authority" of autobiography in several related senses: first, the idea that autobiography is authoritative writing because it is presumably verifiable; second, the idea that one's life is one's exclusive textual domain; third, the idea that, because of the apparent congruence between the implicit ideology of the genre and that of the nation, autobiography has a special prestige in America. Aware of the recent critiques of the notion of autobiography as issuing from, determined by, or referring to a pre-existing self, Couser examines the ways in which the authority of particular texts is called into question--for example, because they involve pseudonymity (Mark Twain), the revision of a presumably spontaneous form (Mary Chesnut's Civil War "diaries"), bilingual authorship (Richard Rodriguez and Maxine Hong Kingston), collaborative production (Black Elk), or outright fraud (Clifford Irving's "autobiography" of Howard Hughes). Couser examines both the way in which canonical autobiographers may playfully and purposely undermine their own narrative authority and the way in which minority writers' control of their lives may be compromised. Autobiography, then, is portrayed here as an arena in which individuals struggle for self-possession and self-expression against the constraints of language, genre, and society.
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11.

Telling Lies in Modern American Autobiography » Read Now
by Timothy Dow Adams. 205 pgs.

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This collection of twelve essays discusses the principles and practices of women's autobiographical writing in America, England, and France from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries.
12.

States of Perfect Freedom: Autobiography and American Political Thought » Read Now
by Philip Abbott. 212 pgs.

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...FREEDOM STATES OF PERFECT FREEDOM AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND AMERICAN POLITICAL THOUGHT...literature -- History and criticism. 2. Autobiography. 3. Politics and literature --...
13.

The Evangelical Conversion Narrative: Spiritual Autobiography in Early Modern England » Read Now
by D. Bruce Hindmarsh. 384 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library
14.

Autobiography and Black Identity Politics: Racialization in Twentieth-Century America » Read Now
by Kenneth Mostern. 280 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Why has autobiography been central to African American political speech throughout the twentieth century? Kenneth Mostern illustrates the relationship between narrative and racial categories such as "colored", "Negro", "black" or "African American" in the work of writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois...
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Why has autobiography been central to African American political speech throughout the twentieth century? Kenneth Mostern illustrates the relationship between narrative and racial categories such as "colored", "Negro", "black" or "African American" in the work of writers such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Paul Robeson, Angela Davis and bell hooks. Mostern shows how these autobiographical narratives attempt to construct and transform the political meanings of blackness. This wide-ranging study will interest all those working in African American Studies, cultural studies and literary theory.
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15.

Feminism and Autobiography: Texts, Theories, Methods » Read Now
by Tess Cosslett, Celia Lury, Penny Summerfield. 270 pgs.

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Featuring essays by leading feminist scholars from a variety of disciplines, this key text explores thenbsp;latest developments in autobiographical studies. The collection is structured around the inter-linked concepts of genre, inter-subjectivity and memory. Whilst exemplifying the very different...
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Featuring essays by leading feminist scholars from a variety of disciplines, this key text explores thenbsp;latest developments in autobiographical studies. The collection is structured around the inter-linked concepts of genre, inter-subjectivity and memory. Whilst exemplifying the very different levels of autobiographical activity going on in feminist studies, the contributions chart a movement from autobiography as genre to autobiography as cultural practice, and from the analysis of autobiographical texts to a preoccupation with autobiography as method.
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16.

The Voice of the Mother: Embedded Maternal Narratives in Twentieth-Century Women's Autobiographies » Read Now
by Jo Malin. 124 pgs.

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Every woman autobiographer is a daughter who writes and establishes her identity through her autobiographical narrative. In The Voice of the Mother, Jo Malin argues that many twentieth-century autobiographies by women contain an intertext, an embedded narrative, which is a biography of the...
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Every woman autobiographer is a daughter who writes and establishes her identity through her autobiographical narrative. In The Voice of the Mother, Jo Malin argues that many twentieth-century autobiographies by women contain an intertext, an embedded narrative, which is a biography of the writer/daughter's mother.
Analyzing this narrative practice, Malin examines ten texts by women who seem particularly compelled to tell their mothers' stories: Virginia Woolf, Sara Suleri, Kim Chernin, Drusilla Modjeska, Joan Nestle, Carolyn Steedman, Dorothy Allison, Adrienne Rich, Cherrie Moraga, and Audre Lorde. Each author is, in fact, able to write her own autobiography only by using a narrative form that contains her mother's story at its core. These texts raise interesting questions about autobiography as a genre and about a feminist writing practice that resists and subverts the dominant literary tradition.
Malin theorizes a hybrid form of autobiographical narrative containing an embedded narrative of the mother. The textual relationship between the two narratives is unique among texts in the auto/biographical canon. This alternative practice -- in which the daughter attempts to talk both to her mother and about her -- is equally an autobiography and a biography rather than one or the other. The technique is marked by a breakdown of subject/object categories as well as auto/biographical dichotomies of genre. Each text contains a "self" that is more plural than singular, yet neither.
In addition to being a theoretical and textual analysis, Malin's book is also a mother-daughter autobiography and biography itself. She shares her own story and her mother's story as a way to connect directlywith readers and as a way to bridge the gap between theory and practice.
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