Abiography, or simplybio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile orcurriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of their life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.
Biographical works are usuallynon-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Works in diverse media, from literature to film, form thegenre known as biography.
Anauthorized biography is written with the permission, cooperation, and at times, participation of a subject or a subject's heirs. Anunauthorized biography is one written without such permission or participation. Anautobiography is written by the person themselves, sometimes with the assistance of a collaborator orghostwriter.
History
At first, biographical writings were regarded merely as a subsection of history with a focus on a particular individual of historical importance. The independent genre of biography as distinct from general history writing, began to emerge in the 18th century and reached its contemporary form at the turn of the 20th century.[1]
Historical biography
Einhard as scribe
Biography is the earliest literary genre in history. According to EgyptologistMiriam Lichtheim, writing took its first steps toward literature in the context of the private tomb funerary inscriptions. These were commemorative biographical texts recounting the careers of deceased high royal officials.[2] The earliest biographical texts are from the 26th century BC.
In the 21st century BC, another famous biography was composed in Mesopotamia aboutGilgamesh.One of the five versions could be historical.
One of the earliest Roman biographers wasCornelius Nepos, who published his workExcellentium Imperatorum Vitae ("Lives of outstanding generals") in 44 BC. Longer and more extensive biographies were written in Greek byPlutarch, in hisParallel Lives, published about 80 A.D. In this work famous Greeks are paired with famous Romans, for example, the oratorsDemosthenes andCicero, or the generalsAlexander the Great andJulius Caesar; some fifty biographies from the work survive. Another well-known collection of ancient biographies isDe vita Caesarum ("On the Lives of the Caesars") bySuetonius, written about AD 121 in the time of the emperorHadrian. Meanwhile, in the eastern imperial periphery,Gospel described the life ofJesus.
In the earlyMiddle Ages (AD 400 to 1450), there was a decline in awareness of theclassical culture in Europe. During this time, the only repositories of knowledge and records of the early history in Europe were those of theRoman Catholic Church.Hermits,monks, andpriests used this historic period to write biographies. Their subjects were usually restricted to thechurch fathers,martyrs,popes, andsaints. Their works were meant to be inspirational to the people and vehicles forconversion toChristianity (seeHagiography). One significant secular example of a biography from this period is thelife of Charlemagne by his courtierEinhard.
InMedieval Western India, there was aSanskrit Jain literary genre of writing semi-historical biographical narratives about the lives of famous persons calledPrabandhas. Prabandhas were written primarily byJain scholars from the 13th century onwards and were written in colloquial Sanskrit (as opposed toClassical Sanskrit).[3] The earliest collection explicitly titledPrabandha- isJinabhadra'sPrabandhavali (1234 CE).
By the late Middle Ages, biographies became less church-oriented in Europe as biographies ofkings,knights, andtyrants began to appear. The most famous of such biographies wasLe Morte d'Arthur by SirThomas Malory. The book was an account of the life of the fabledKing Arthur and hisKnights of the Round Table. Following Malory, the new emphasis onhumanism during theRenaissance promoted a focus on secular subjects, such as artists and poets, and encouraged writing in the vernacular.
Giorgio Vasari'sLives of the Artists (1550) was the landmark biography focusing on secular lives. Vasari made celebrities of his subjects, as theLives became an early "bestseller". Two other developments are noteworthy: the development of theprinting press in the 15th century and the gradual increase inliteracy.
Biographies in the English language began appearing during the reign ofHenry VIII.John Foxe'sActes and Monuments (1563), better known asFoxe's Book of Martyrs, was essentially the first dictionary of the biography in Europe, followed byThomas Fuller'sThe History of the Worthies of England (1662), with a distinct focus on public life.
Influential in shaping popular conceptions of pirates,A General History of the Pyrates (1724), by Charles Johnson, is the prime source for the biographies of many well-known pirates.[5]
The American biography followed the English model, incorporatingThomas Carlyle's view that biography was a part of history. Carlyle asserted that the lives of great human beings were essential to understanding society and its institutions. While the historical impulse would remain a strong element in early American biography, American writers carved out a distinct approach. What emerged was a rather didactic form of biography, which sought to shape the individual character of a reader in the process of defining national character.[6][7]
While Boswell's personal acquaintance with his subject only began in 1763, when Johnson was 54 years old, Boswell covered the entirety of Johnson's life by means of additional research. Itself an important stage in the development of the moderngenre of biography, it has been claimed to be the greatest biography written in theEnglish language. Boswell's work was unique in its level of research, which involved archival study, eye-witness accounts and interviews, its robust and attractive narrative, and its honest depiction of all aspects of Johnson's life and character – a formula which serves as the basis of biographical literature to this day.[11]
Biographical writing generally stagnated during the 19th century – in many cases there was a reversal to the more familiarhagiographical method of eulogizing the dead, similar to the biographies ofsaints produced inMedieval times. A distinction between mass biography andliterary biography began to form by the middle of the century, reflecting a breach between high culture andmiddle-class culture. However, the number of biographies in print experienced a rapid growth, thanks to an expanding reading public. This revolution in publishing made books available to a larger audience of readers. In addition, affordablepaperback editions of popular biographies were published for the first time.Periodicals began publishing a sequence of biographical sketches.[12]
Autobiographies became more popular, as with the rise of education and cheap printing, modern concepts of fame and celebrity began to develop. Autobiographies were written by authors, such asCharles Dickens (who incorporated autobiographical elements in his novels) andAnthony Trollope (hisAutobiography appeared posthumously, quickly becoming a bestseller inLondon[13]), philosophers, such asJohn Stuart Mill, churchmen –John Henry Newman – and entertainers –P. T. Barnum.
Modern biography
The sciences ofpsychology andsociology were ascendant at the turn of the 20th century and would heavily influence the new century's biographies.[14] The demise of the"great man" theory of history was indicative of the emerging mindset. Human behavior would be explained throughDarwinian theories. "Sociological" biographies conceived of their subjects' actions as the result of the environment, and tended to downplay individuality. The development ofpsychoanalysis led to a more penetrating and comprehensive understanding of the biographical subject, and induced biographers to give more emphasis tochildhood andadolescence. Clearly these psychological ideas were changing the way biographies were written, as a culture of autobiography developed, in which the telling of one's own story became a form of therapy.[12] The conventional concept of heroes and narratives of success disappeared in the obsession with psychological explorations of personality.
Eminent Victorians set the standard for 20th century biographical writing, when it was published in 1918.
British criticLytton Strachey revolutionized the art of biographical writing with his 1918 workEminent Victorians, consisting of biographies of four leading figures from theVictorian era:Cardinal Manning,Florence Nightingale,Thomas Arnold, andGeneral Gordon.[15] Strachey set out to breathe life into theVictorian era for future generations to read. Up until this point, as Strachey remarked in the preface, Victorian biographies had been "as familiar as thecortège of the undertaker", and wore the same air of "slow, funereal barbarism." Strachey defied the tradition of "two fat volumes... of undigested masses of material" and took aim at the four iconic figures. His narrative demolished the myths that had built up around these cherished national heroes, whom he regarded as no better than a "set of mouth bungled hypocrites". The book achieved worldwide fame due to its irreverent and witty style, its concise and factually accurate nature, and its artistic prose.[16]
In the 1920s and 1930s, biographical writers sought to capitalize on Strachey's popularity by imitating his style. This new school featured iconoclasts, scientific analysts, and fictional biographers and includedGamaliel Bradford,André Maurois, andEmil Ludwig, among others.Robert Graves (I, Claudius, 1934) stood out among those following Strachey's model of "debunking biographies." The trend inliterary biography was accompanied in popular biography by a sort of "celebrity voyeurism", in the early decades of the century. This latter form's appeal to readers was based on curiosity more than morality or patriotism. ByWorld War I, cheap hard-cover reprints had become popular. The decades of the 1920s witnessed a biographical "boom."
American professional historiography gives a limited role to biography, preferring instead to emphasize deeper social and cultural influences. Political biographers historically incorporated moralizing judgments into their work, with scholarly biography being an uncommon genre before the mid-1920s.Allan Nevins was a major contributor in the 1930s to the multivolumeDictionary of American Biography. Nevins also sponsored a series of long political biographies. Later biographers sought to show how political figures balanced power and responsibility. However, many biographers found that their subjects were not as morally pure as they originally thought, and young historians after 1960 tended to be more critical. The exception isRobert Remini whose books on Andrew Jackson idolize its hero and fends off criticisms. The study of decision-making in politics is important for scholarly political biographers, who can take different approaches such as focusing on psychology/personality, bureaucracy/interests, fundamental ideas, or societal forces. However, most documentation favors the first approach, which emphasizes personalities. Biographers often neglect the voting blocs and legislative positions of politicians and the organizational structures of bureaucracies. A more promising approach is to locate a person's ideas through intellectual history, but this has become more difficult with the philosophical shallowness of political figures in recent times. Political biography can be frustrating and challenging to integrate with other fields of political history.[17]
The feminist scholarCarolyn Heilbrun observed that women's biographies and autobiographies began to change character during the second wave offeminist activism. She citedNancy Milford's 1970 biographyZelda, as the "beginning of a new period of women's biography, because "[only] in 1970 were we ready to read not thatZelda had destroyedFitzgerald, but Fitzgerald her: he had usurped her narrative." Heilbrun named 1973 as the turning point in women's autobiography, with the publication ofMay Sarton'sJournal of a Solitude, for that was the first instance where a woman told her life story, not as finding "beauty even in pain" and transforming "rage into spiritual acceptance," but acknowledging what had previously been forbidden to women: their pain, their rage, and their "open admission of the desire for power and control over one's life."[18]
Recent years
In recent years,[when?]multimedia biography has become more popular than traditional literary forms. Along with documentarybiographical films,Hollywood produced numerous commercial films based on the lives of famous people. The popularity of these forms of biography have led to the proliferation of TV channels dedicated to biography, includingA&E,The Biography Channel, andThe History Channel.
CD-ROM and online biographies have also appeared. Unlike books and films, they often do not tell a chronological narrative: instead they are archives of many discrete media elements related to an individual person, including video clips, photographs, and text articles. Biography-Portraits were created in 2001, by the German artistRalph Ueltzhoeffer. Media scholarLev Manovich says that such archives exemplify the database form, allowing users to navigate the materials in many ways.[19] General "life writing" techniques are a subject of scholarly study.[20]
In recent years, debates have arisen as to whether all biographies are fiction, especially when authors are writing about figures from the past. President of Wolfson College at Oxford University,Hermione Lee argues that all history is seen through a perspective that is the product of one's contemporary society and as a result, biographical truths are constantly shifting. So, the history biographers write about will not be the way that it happened; it will be the way they remembered it.[21] Debates have also arisen concerning the importance of space in life-writing.[22]
Daniel R. Meister in 2017 argued that:
Biography Studies is emerging as an independent discipline, especially in the Netherlands. This Dutch School of biography is moving biography studies away from the less scholarly life writing tradition and towards history by encouraging its practitioners to utilize an approach adapted from microhistory.[23]
Biographical research
Biographical research is defined by Miller as a research method that collects and analyses a person's whole life, or portion of a life, through the in-depth and unstructured interview, or sometimes reinforced by semi-structured interview or personal documents.[24] It is a way of viewing social life in procedural terms, rather than static terms. The information can come from "oral history, personal narrative, biography and autobiography" or "diaries, letters, memoranda and other materials".[25] The central aim of biographical research is to produce rich descriptions of persons or "conceptualise structural types of actions", which means to "understand the action logics or how persons and structures are interlinked".[26] This method can be used to understand an individual's life within its social context or understand the cultural phenomena.
Critical issues
There are many largely unacknowledged pitfalls to writing good biographies, and these largely concern the relation between firstly the individual and the context, and, secondly, the private and public. Paul James writes:
The problems with such conventional biographies are manifold. Biographies usually treat the public as a reflection of the private, with the private realm being assumed to be foundational. This is strange given that biographies are most often written about public people who project apersona. That is, for such subjects the dominant passages of the presentation of themselves in everyday life are already formed by what might be called a 'self-biofication' process.[27]
Book awards
Several countries offer an annual prize for writing a biography such as the:
Casper, Scott E. (1999).Constructing American Lives: Biography and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.ISBN978-0-8078-4765-7.
Ingram, Allan; Rawson, Claude; Waingrow, Marshall; Boswell, James (1998). "James Boswell's 'Life of Johnson': An Edition of the Original Manuscript, in Four Volumes. Vol. 1. 1709-1765".The Yearbook of English Studies.28:319–320.doi:10.2307/3508791.JSTOR3508791.
Meister, Daniel R. (2018). "The biographical turn and the case for historical biography".History Compass.16 (1) e12436: 2.doi:10.1111/hic3.12436.ISSN1478-0542.
Miller, Robert L. (2003). "Biographical Method". In Miller, Robert L.;Brewer, John D. (eds.).The A–Z of Social Research: A Dictionary of Key Social Science Research Concepts. London: Sage Publications. pp. 15–17.ISBN978-0-7619-7133-7.
Nawas, John A. (2006). "Biography and Biographical Works". InMeri, Josef W. (ed.).Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. New York: Routledge. pp. 110–112.ISBN978-0-415-96691-7.
Regard, Frédéric, ed. (2003).Mapping the Self: Space, Identity, Discourse in British Auto/Biography. Saint-Étienne, France: Publications de l'Université de Saint-Étienne.ISBN978-2-86272269-6.
Zinn, Jens O. (2004).Introduction to Biographical Research (Working paper 2004/4). Canterbury, England: Social Contexts and Responses to Risk Network, University of Kent.
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