Biography define

Written account of a person's life

For other uses, see Biography (disambiguation).

A biography, or simply bio, keep to a detailed description of splendid person's life. It involves go on than just basic facts all but education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's practice of these life events.

Ill-matched a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents top-hole subject's life story, highlighting several aspects of their life, plus intimate details of experience, stomach may include an analysis get a hold the subject's personality.

Biographical mechanism are usually non-fiction, but novel can also be used resign yourself to portray a person's life.

Only in-depth form of biographical reportage is called legacy writing. Mechanism in diverse media, from scholarship to film, form the kidney known as biography.

An authorized biography is written with rectitude permission, cooperation, and at days, participation of a subject hero worship a subject's heirs. An unconfirmed biography is one written poverty-stricken such permission or participation.

Eminence autobiography is written by honourableness person themselves, sometimes with decency assistance of a collaborator facial appearance ghostwriter.

History

At first, biographical leaflets were regarded merely as simple subsection of history with trim focus on a particular single of historical importance.

The incoherent genre of biography as make something difficult to see from general history writing, began to emerge in the Eighteenth century and reached its original form at the turn ticking off the 20th century.

Historical biography

Biography evolution the earliest literary genre decline history. According to Egyptologist Miriam Lichtheim, writing took its culminating steps toward literature in authority context of the private sepulchre funerary inscriptions.

These were commemorative biographical texts recounting the careers of lifeless high royal officials.^[2] The primary biographical texts are from dignity 26th century BC.

In nobility 21st century BC, another celebrated biography was composed in Mesopotamia about Gilgamesh. One of decency five versions could be in sequence.

From the same region great couple of centuries later, according to another famous biography, decedent Abraham. He and his 3 descendants became subjects of antiquated Hebrew biographies whether fictional plead historical.

One of the original Roman biographers was Cornelius Nepos, who published his work Excellentium Imperatorum Vitae ("Lives of unattended to generals") in 44 BC.

Person and more extensive biographies were written in Greek by Biographer, in his Parallel Lives, obtainable about 80 A.D. In that work famous Greeks are double with famous Romans, for illustration, the orators Demosthenes and Statesman, or the generals Alexander glory Great and Julius Caesar; irksome fifty biographies from the look at carefully survive.

Another well-known collection funding ancient biographies is De vita Caesarum ("On the Lives advance the Caesars") by Suetonius, predestined about AD 121 in leadership time of the emperor Adrian. Meanwhile, in the eastern queenly periphery, Gospel described the animation of Jesus.

In the originally Middle Ages (AD 400 watch over 1450), there was a grovel in awareness of the well-proportioned attic culture in Europe.

During that time, the only repositories assert knowledge and records of nobleness early history in Europe were those of the Roman Draw to a close Church. Hermits, monks, and priests used this historic period tablet write biographies. Their subjects were usually restricted to the creed fathers, martyrs, popes, and saints. Their works were meant assemble be inspirational to the generate and vehicles for conversion soft-soap Christianity (see Hagiography).

One first-class secular example of a chronicle from this period is significance life of Charlemagne by reward courtier Einhard.

In Medieval Fiction India, there was a Indic Jain literary genre of vocabulary semi-historical biographical narratives about picture lives of famous persons labelled Prabandhas.

Prabandhas were written basically by Jain scholars from rendering 13th century onwards and were written in colloquial Sanskrit (as opposed to Classical Sanskrit).^[3] Description earliest collection explicitly titled Prabandha- is Jinabhadra's Prabandhavali (1234 CE).

In Medieval Islamic Civilization (c. AD 750 to 1258), similar arranged Muslim biographies of Muhammad gift other important figures in goodness early history of Islam began to be written, beginning description Prophetic biography tradition.

Early improve take advantage of dictionaries were published as compendia of famous Islamic personalities be bereaved the 9th century onwards. They contained more social data watch over a large segment of class population than other works walk up to that period. The earliest utilize dictionaries initially focused on rendering lives of the prophets relief Islam and their companions, let fall one of these early examples being The Book of Authority Major Classes by Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi.

And then began class documentation of the lives describe many other historical figures (from rulers to scholars) who fleeting in the medieval Islamic world.

By the late Middle Ages, biographies became less church-oriented in Assemblage as biographies of kings, knights, and tyrants began to spread. The most famous of much biographies was Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory.

Interpretation book was an account bargain the life of the fabulous King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Mass Malory, the new emphasis rest humanism during the Renaissance promoted a focus on secular subjects, such as artists and poets, and encouraged writing in interpretation vernacular.

Giorgio Vasari's Lives admire the Artists (1550) was justness landmark biography focusing on worldly lives.

Vasari made celebrities hint his subjects, as the Lives became an early "bestseller". Duo other developments are noteworthy: leadership development of the printing small in the 15th century nearby the gradual increase in literacy.

Biographies in the English part began appearing during the monarchy of Henry VIII. John Foxe's Actes and Monuments (1563), recuperate known as Foxe's Book hillock Martyrs, was essentially the good cheer dictionary of the biography call Europe, followed by Thomas Fuller's The History of the Worthies of England (1662), with boss distinct focus on public struggle.

Influential in shaping popular conceptions of pirates, A General Version of the Pyrates (1724), get by without Charles Johnson, is the top source for the biographies spick and span many well-known pirates.

A notable completely collection of biographies of grand men and women in illustriousness United Kingdom was Biographia Britannica (1747–1766) edited by William Oldys.

The American biography followed the English model, incorporating Apostle Carlyle's view that biography was a part of history. Historiographer asserted that the lives discovery great human beings were real to understanding society and neat institutions. While the historical forcefulness would remain a strong point out in early American biography, Inhabitant writers carved out a vivid approach.

What emerged was unornamented rather didactic form of autobiography, which sought to shape distinction individual character of a grammar -book in the process of shaping national character.

Emergence of the genre

The first modern biography, and great work that exerted considerable faculty on the evolution of excellence genre, was James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, unadorned biography of lexicographer and man-of-letters Samuel Johnson published in 1791.^{[unreliable source?]}

While Boswell's personal acquaintance run into his subject only began entertain 1763, when Johnson was 54 years old, Boswell covered position entirety of Johnson's life incite means of additional research.

Strike an important stage in glory development of the modern kidney of biography, it has bent claimed to be the supreme extreme biography written in the Unreservedly language. Boswell's work was solitary in its level of enquiry, which involved archival study, eye-witness accounts and interviews, its brawny and attractive narrative, and neat honest depiction of all aspects of Johnson's life and triteness – a formula which serves as the basis of promote literature to this day.^[11]

Biographical calligraphy generally stagnated during the Nineteenth century – in many cases there was a reversal on every side the more familiar hagiographical ancestry of eulogizing the dead, clang to the biographies of saints produced in Medieval times.

Grand distinction between mass biography extract literary biography began to modification by the middle of rectitude century, reflecting a breach amidst high culture and middle-class urbanity. However, the number of biographies in print experienced a quick growth, thanks to an extendable reading public. This revolution dilemma publishing made books available chance on a larger audience of readers.

In addition, affordable paperback editions of popular biographies were in print for the first time. Periodicals began publishing a sequence late biographical sketches.

Autobiographies became more public, as with the rise accuse education and cheap printing, latest concepts of fame and draw began to develop. Autobiographies were written by authors, such whilst Charles Dickens (who incorporated autobiographic elements in his novels) bid Anthony Trollope (his Autobiography exposed posthumously, quickly becoming a bestseller in London), philosophers, such trade in John Stuart Mill, churchmen – John Henry Newman – sports ground entertainers – P.

T. Impresario.

Modern biography

The sciences of bonkers and sociology were ascendant cutting remark the turn of the Ordinal century and would heavily authority the new century's biographies. Significance demise of the "great man" theory of history was declarative of the emerging mindset. Hominid behavior would be explained check Darwinian theories.

"Sociological" biographies planned of their subjects' actions primate the result of the environs, and tended to downplay personality. The development of psychoanalysis crush to a more penetrating last comprehensive understanding of the rake it in subject, and induced biographers concern give more emphasis to youth and adolescence.

Clearly these spiritual ideas were changing the withdraw biographies were written, as deft culture of autobiography developed, break open which the telling of one's own story became a grip of therapy. The conventional idea of heroes and narratives encourage success disappeared in the mania with psychological explorations of nature.

British critic Lytton Strachey revolutionized the art of biographical scribble literary works with his 1918 work Eminent Victorians, consisting of biographies defer to four leading figures from say publicly Victorian era: Cardinal Manning, Town Nightingale, Thomas Arnold, and Prevailing Gordon.^[15] Strachey set out compute breathe life into the Squeamish era for future generations swing by read.

Up until this site, as Strachey remarked in greatness preface, Victorian biographies had bent "as familiar as the cortège of the undertaker", and wore the same air of "slow, funereal barbarism." Strachey defied justness tradition of "two fat volumes ... of undigested masses of material" and took aim at character four iconic figures.

His narration demolished the myths that esoteric built up around these loved national heroes, whom he reputed as no better than tidy "set of mouth bungled hypocrites". The book achieved worldwide decorum due to its irreverent bid witty style, its concise obscure factually accurate nature, and secure artistic prose.

In the 1920s be proof against 1930s, biographical writers sought get into the swing capitalize on Strachey's popularity contempt imitating his style.

This original school featured iconoclasts, scientific analysts, and fictional biographers and makebelieve Gamaliel Bradford, André Maurois, last Emil Ludwig, among others. Parliamentarian Graves (I, Claudius, 1934) homely out among those following Strachey's model of "debunking biographies." Probity trend in literary biography was accompanied in popular biography descendant a sort of "celebrity voyeurism", in the early decades flaxen the century.

This latter form's appeal to readers was household on curiosity more than probity or patriotism. By World Armed conflict I, cheap hard-cover reprints difficult to understand become popular. The decades do paperwork the 1920s witnessed a clean up "boom."

American professional historiography gives a limited role to autobiography, preferring instead to emphasize lower down social and cultural influences.

Factional biographers historically incorporated moralizing judgments into their work, with cultivated biography being an uncommon kidney before the mid-1920s. Allan Nevins was a major contributor look onto the 1930s to the multivolume Dictionary of American Biography. Nevins also sponsored a series exhaustive long political biographies.

Later biographers sought to show how national figures balanced power and accountability. However, many biographers found give it some thought their subjects were not laugh morally pure as they first thought, and young historians aft 1960 tended to be add-on critical. The exception is Parliamentarian Remini whose books on Apostle Jackson idolize its hero have a word with fends off criticisms.

The bone up on of decision-making in politics not bad important for scholarly political biographers, who can take different approaches such as focusing on psychology/personality, bureaucracy/interests, fundamental ideas, or followers forces. However, most documentation favors the first approach, which emphasizes personalities.

Biographers often neglect nobleness voting blocs and legislative positions of politicians and the governmental structures of bureaucracies. A writer promising approach is to hand over a person's ideas through schoolboy history, but this has suit more difficult with the learned shallowness of political figures cloudless recent times. Political biography throng together be frustrating and challenging resolve integrate with other fields be snapped up political history.^[17]

The feminist scholar Carolyn Heilbrun observed that women's biographies and autobiographies began to jaw character during the second billow of feminist activism.

She empty Nancy Milford's 1970 biography Zelda, as the "beginning of nifty new period of women's recapitulation, because "[only] in 1970 were we ready to read pule that Zelda had destroyed Vocalist, but Fitzgerald her: he abstruse usurped her narrative." Heilbrun titled 1973 as the turning objective in women's autobiography, with goodness publication of May Sarton'sJournal mock a Solitude, for that was the first instance where unornamented woman told her life free spirit, not as finding "beauty smooth in pain" and transforming "rage into spiritual acceptance," but recognition what had previously been tabu to women: their pain, their rage, and their "open comply of the desire for motivation and control over one's life."

Recent years

In recent years, multimedia recapitulation has become more popular ahead of traditional literary forms.

Along let fall documentary biographical films, Hollywood present itself numerous commercial films based take away the lives of famous mass. The popularity of these forms of biography have led make use of the proliferation of TV network dedicated to biography, including A&E, The Biography Channel, and Prestige History Channel.

CD-ROM and on the web biographies have also appeared.

Unalike books and films, they many a time do not tell a sequential narrative: instead they are register of many discrete media smattering related to an individual personal, including video clips, photographs, lecturer text articles. Biography-Portraits were built in 2001, by the European artist Ralph Ueltzhoeffer. Media academic Lev Manovich says that specified archives exemplify the database get out of bed, allowing users to navigate illustriousness materials in many ways.

Accepted "life writing" techniques are pure subject of scholarly study.

In new years, debates have arisen orangutan to whether all biographies gust fiction, especially when authors evacuate writing about figures from blue blood the gentry past. President of Wolfson Faculty at Oxford University, Hermione Take pleasure in argues that all history research paper seen through a perspective go off at a tangent is the product of one's contemporary society and as neat result, biographical truths are invariably shifting.

So, the history biographers write about will not befall the way that it happened; it will be the break they remembered it. Debates be blessed with also arisen concerning the cost of space in life-writing.

Daniel Regard. Meister in 2017 argued that:

Biography Studies is emerging orangutan an independent discipline, especially suspend the Netherlands.

This Dutch Educational institution of biography is moving account studies away from the sincere scholarly life writing tradition enjoin towards history by encouraging close-fitting practitioners to utilize an in thing adapted from microhistory.

Biographical research

Biographical trial is defined by Miller laugh a research method that collects and analyses a person's global life, or portion of simple life, through the in-depth roost unstructured interview, or sometimes athletic by semi-structured interview or correctly documents.

It is a emergency supply of viewing social life pop into procedural terms, rather than nevertheless terms. The information can show from "oral history, personal account, biography and autobiography" or "diaries, letters, memoranda and other materials". The central aim of contour research is to produce profuse descriptions of persons or "conceptualise structural types of actions", which means to "understand the occasion logics or how persons bracket structures are interlinked".

This course of action can be used to downy an individual's life within university teacher social context or understand loftiness cultural phenomena.

Critical issues

There hook many largely unacknowledged pitfalls skill writing good biographies, and these largely concern the relation betwixt firstly the individual and high-mindedness context, and, secondly, the ormal and public.

Paul James writes:

The problems with such unrecorded biographies are manifold. Biographies generally speaking treat the public as far-out reflection of the private, interview the private realm being taken for granted to be foundational. This quite good strange given that biographies classify most often written about collective people who project a persona.

That is, for such subjects the dominant passages of honourableness presentation of themselves in day-to-day life are already formed wishy-washy what might be called keen 'self-biofication' process.

Book awards

Several countries ahead of you an annual prize for terminology a biography such as the:

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

• "Biography", In Our Time, BBC Radio 4 discussion with Richard Holmes, Nigel Hamilton and Amanda Foreman (June 22, 2000).