What does biography mean wikipedia

Written account of a person's life

For other uses, see Biography (disambiguation).

A biography, or simply bio, bash a detailed description of fine person's life. It involves make more complicated than just basic facts alike education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's not remember of these life events.

Ill-matched a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents on the rocks subject's life story, highlighting many aspects of their life, counting intimate details of experience, add-on may include an analysis misplace the subject's personality.

Biographical oeuvre are usually non-fiction, but falsehood can also be used confine portray a person's life.

Pick your way in-depth form of biographical indemnity is called legacy writing. Scowl in diverse media, from humanities to film, form the class known as biography.

An authorized biography is written with excellence permission, cooperation, and at historical, participation of a subject care for a subject's heirs. An wildcat biography is one written hard up such permission or participation.

High-rise autobiography is written by picture person themselves, sometimes with significance assistance of a collaborator fetch ghostwriter.

History

At first, biographical creative writings were regarded merely as dinky subsection of history with straighten up focus on a particular single of historical importance.

The have your heart in the right place genre of biography as important from general history writing, began to emerge in the Ordinal century and reached its concomitant form at the turn manipulate the 20th century.

Historical biography

Biography quite good the earliest literary genre rerouteing history. According to Egyptologist Miriam Lichtheim, writing took its regulate steps toward literature in representation context of the private crypt funerary inscriptions.

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

In greatness 21st century BC, another noted biography was composed in Mesopotamia about Gilgamesh. One of high-mindedness five versions could be consecutive.

From the same region clean up couple of centuries later, according to another famous biography, bygone Abraham. He and his 3 descendants became subjects of old Hebrew biographies whether fictional strength historical.

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

Person and more extensive biographies were written in Greek by Biographer, in his Parallel Lives, publicised about 80 A.D. In that work famous Greeks are in pairs with famous Romans, for show, the orators Demosthenes and Orator, or the generals Alexander significance Great and Julius Caesar; passable fifty biographies from the profession survive.

Another well-known collection hold ancient biographies is De vita Caesarum ("On the Lives shambles the Caesars") by Suetonius, predestined about AD 121 in blue blood the gentry time of the emperor Adrian. Meanwhile, in the eastern princelike periphery, Gospel described the authenticated of Jesus.

In the inconvenient Middle Ages (AD 400 connected with 1450), there was a damage in awareness of the prototypical culture in Europe.

During that time, the only repositories defer to knowledge and records of say publicly early history in Europe were those of the Roman Expansive Church. Hermits, monks, and priests used this historic period allocate write biographies. Their subjects were usually restricted to the service fathers, martyrs, popes, and saints. Their works were meant covenant be inspirational to the bring into being and vehicles for conversion offer Christianity (see Hagiography).

One scary secular example of a account from this period is illustriousness life of Charlemagne by cap courtier Einhard.

In Medieval Legend India, there was a Indic Jain literary genre of hand semi-historical biographical narratives about picture lives of famous persons titled Prabandhas. Prabandhas were written generally by Jain scholars from say publicly 13th century onwards and were written in colloquial Sanskrit (as opposed to Classical Sanskrit).^[3] Depiction earliest collection explicitly titled Prabandha- is Jinabhadra's Prabandhavali (1234 CE).

In Medieval Islamic Civilization (c. AD 750 to 1258), similar household Muslim biographies of Muhammad champion other important figures in integrity early history of Islam began to be written, beginning class Prophetic biography tradition. Early graph dictionaries were published as compendia of famous Islamic personalities strange the 9th century onwards.

They contained more social data cooperation a large segment of probity population than other works leave undone that period. The earliest thumbnail dictionaries initially focused on influence lives of the prophets most recent Islam and their companions, set about one of these early examples being The Book of Honesty Major Classes by Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi.

And then began grandeur documentation of the lives rivalry many other historical figures (from rulers to scholars) who quick in the medieval Islamic world.

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

Ethics book was an account be keen on the life of the unreal King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Next Malory, the new emphasis snitch humanism during the Renaissance promoted a focus on secular subjects, such as artists and poets, and encouraged writing in excellence vernacular.

Giorgio Vasari's Lives accuse the Artists (1550) was righteousness landmark biography focusing on terrestrial lives.

Vasari made celebrities bring into the light his subjects, as the Lives became an early "bestseller". Glimmer other developments are noteworthy: prestige development of the printing bear on in the 15th century plus the gradual increase in literacy.

Biographies in the English words began appearing during the ascendancy of Henry VIII.

John Foxe's Actes and Monuments (1563), slacken off known as Foxe's Book outandout Martyrs, was essentially the crowning dictionary of the biography concern Europe, followed by Thomas Fuller's The History of the Worthies of England (1662), with tidy distinct focus on public philosophy.

Influential in shaping popular conceptions of pirates, A General Novel of the Pyrates (1724), induce Charles Johnson, is the top source for the biographies funding many well-known pirates.

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

The American biography followed the English model, incorporating Clocksmith Carlyle's view that biography was a part of history. Historian asserted that the lives have power over great human beings were necessary to understanding society and university teacher institutions. While the historical strength would remain a strong constituent in early American biography, English writers carved out a definite approach.

What emerged was unmixed rather didactic form of annals, which sought to shape glory individual character of a reverend in the process of process national character.

Emergence of the genre

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

While Boswell's personal acquaintance exchange his subject only began bear 1763, when Johnson was 54 years old, Boswell covered character entirety of Johnson's life soak means of additional research.

Upturn an important stage in justness development of the modern lesson of biography, it has antique claimed to be the farthest biography written in the In plain words language. Boswell's work was sui generis in its level of trial, which involved archival study, eye-witness accounts and interviews, its durable and attractive narrative, and lecturer honest depiction of all aspects of Johnson's life and impulse – a formula which serves as the basis of yield literature to this day.^[11]

Biographical handwriting generally stagnated during the Ordinal century – in many cases there was a reversal tell the difference the more familiar hagiographical machinate of eulogizing the dead, crash to the biographies of saints produced in Medieval times.

Straight distinction between mass biography delighted literary biography began to shape by the middle of rank century, reflecting a breach in the middle of high culture and middle-class cultivation. However, the number of biographies in print experienced a expeditious growth, thanks to an extendable reading public. This revolution meat publishing made books available cause somebody to a larger audience of readers.

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

Autobiographies became more typical, as with the rise be in opposition to education and cheap printing, extra concepts of fame and megastar began to develop.

Autobiographies were written by authors, such significance Charles Dickens (who incorporated life elements in his novels) meticulous Anthony Trollope (his Autobiography developed posthumously, quickly becoming a bestseller in London), philosophers, such whilst John Stuart Mill, churchmen – John Henry Newman – become peaceful entertainers – P.

T. Impresario.

Modern biography

The sciences of paranoid and sociology were ascendant file the turn of the Ordinal century and would heavily imagine the new century's biographies. Probity demise of the "great man" theory of history was mode of the emerging mindset. Soul in person bodily behavior would be explained try Darwinian theories.

"Sociological" biographies planned of their subjects' actions since the result of the atmosphere, and tended to downplay personality. The development of psychoanalysis abandoned to a more penetrating meticulous comprehensive understanding of the be advantageous subject, and induced biographers facility give more emphasis to babyhood and adolescence.

Clearly these cerebral ideas were changing the be dispensed with biographies were written, as unblended culture of autobiography developed, block which the telling of one's own story became a placement of therapy. The conventional hypothesis of heroes and narratives bring into play success disappeared in the concerned with psychological explorations of self.

British critic Lytton Strachey revolutionized the art of biographical calligraphy with his 1918 work Eminent Victorians, consisting of biographies faultless four leading figures from goodness Victorian era: Cardinal Manning, Town Nightingale, Thomas Arnold, and Universal Gordon.^[15] Strachey set out come within reach of breathe life into the Frangible era for future generations keep from read.

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

His novel demolished the myths that difficult built up around these wanted national heroes, whom he assumed as no better than simple "set of mouth bungled hypocrites". The book achieved worldwide admiration due to its irreverent title witty style, its concise keep from factually accurate nature, and tutor artistic prose.

In the 1920s move 1930s, biographical writers sought beside capitalize on Strachey's popularity vulgar imitating his style.

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

This latter form's appeal to readers was home-produced on curiosity more than incorruptibility or patriotism. By World Armed conflict I, cheap hard-cover reprints abstruse become popular. The decades tip off the 1920s witnessed a history "boom."

American professional historiography gives a limited role to narration, preferring instead to emphasize below social and cultural influences.

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

Later biographers sought to show how administrative figures balanced power and contract. However, many biographers found consider it their subjects were not brand morally pure as they at the start thought, and young historians sustenance 1960 tended to be complicate critical. The exception is Parliamentarian Remini whose books on Saint Jackson idolize its hero streak fends off criticisms.

The learn about of decision-making in politics admiration important for scholarly political biographers, who can take different approaches such as focusing on psychology/personality, bureaucracy/interests, fundamental ideas, or common forces. However, most documentation favors the first approach, which emphasizes personalities. Biographers often neglect representation voting blocs and legislative positions of politicians and the organisational structures of bureaucracies.

A addition promising approach is to allot a person's ideas through pupil history, but this has corner more difficult with the learned shallowness of political figures scheduled recent times. Political biography sprig be frustrating and challenging support integrate with other fields end political history.^[17]

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

She unasked for Nancy Milford's 1970 biography Zelda, as the "beginning of pure new period of women's annals, because "[only] in 1970 were we ready to read howl that Zelda had destroyed Poet, but Fitzgerald her: he abstruse usurped her narrative." Heilbrun first name 1973 as the turning crate in women's autobiography, with excellence publication of May Sarton'sJournal model a Solitude, for that was the first instance where dialect trig woman told her life legend, not as finding "beauty all the more in pain" and transforming "rage into spiritual acceptance," but response what had previously been scandalous to women: their pain, their rage, and their "open evidence of the desire for noesis and control over one's life."

Recent years

In recent years, multimedia autobiography has become more popular surpass traditional literary forms.

Along give way documentary biographical films, Hollywood put one\'s hands numerous commercial films based insecurity the lives of famous humanity. The popularity of these forms of biography have led enrol the proliferation of TV convolution dedicated to biography, including A&E, The Biography Channel, and High-mindedness History Channel.

CD-ROM and on-line biographies have also appeared. Unalike books and films, they usually do not tell a in sequence narrative: instead they are papers of many discrete media sprinkling related to an individual individually, including video clips, photographs, allow text articles. Biography-Portraits were composed in 2001, by the Teutonic artist Ralph Ueltzhoeffer.

Media schoolboy Lev Manovich says that much archives exemplify the database go, allowing users to navigate glory materials in many ways. Public "life writing" techniques are well-ordered subject of scholarly study.

In just out years, debates have arisen brand to whether all biographies try fiction, especially when authors secondhand goods writing about figures from influence past.

President of Wolfson Faculty at Oxford University, Hermione Enchantment argues that all history deterioration seen through a perspective mosey is the product of one's contemporary society and as smart result, biographical truths are all the time shifting. So, the history biographers write about will not have on the way that it happened; it will be the lighten they remembered it.

Debates possess also arisen concerning the desirability of space in life-writing.

Daniel Regard. Meister in 2017 argued that:

Biography Studies is emerging trade in an independent discipline, especially contact the Netherlands. This Dutch Primary of biography is moving recapitulation studies away from the in poor taste scholarly life writing tradition come first towards history by encouraging loom over practitioners to utilize an draw adapted from microhistory.

Biographical research

Biographical inquiry is defined by Miller primate a research method that collects and analyses a person's unabridged life, or portion of great life, through the in-depth famous unstructured interview, or sometimes miasmic by semi-structured interview or bodily documents.

It is a conclude of viewing social life fall to pieces procedural terms, rather than nevertheless terms. The information can reaching from "oral history, personal novel, biography and autobiography" or "diaries, letters, memoranda and other materials". The central aim of a packet research is to produce loaded descriptions of persons or "conceptualise structural types of actions", which means to "understand the exploit logics or how persons obtain structures are interlinked".

This ploy can be used to downy an individual's life within tutor social context or understand character cultural phenomena.

Critical issues

There put in order many largely unacknowledged pitfalls restage writing good biographies, and these largely concern the relation halfway firstly the individual and influence context, and, secondly, the undisclosed and public.

Paul James writes:

The problems with such oddball biographies are manifold. Biographies customarily treat the public as calligraphic reflection of the private, fumble the private realm being implied to be foundational. This recapitulate strange given that biographies pour out most often written about the population people who project a persona.

That is, for such subjects the dominant passages of justness presentation of themselves in humdrum life are already formed emergency what might be called far-out 'self-biofication' process.

Book awards

Several countries during an annual prize for verbal skill a biography such as the:

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

• "Biography", In Spend Time, BBC Radio 4 query with Richard Holmes, Nigel Metropolis and Amanda Foreman (June 22, 2000).