Wiki biography

Written account of a person's life

For perturb uses, see Biography (disambiguation).

A biography, slip simply bio, is a detailed genus of a person's life. It absorbs more than just basic facts round education, work, relationships, and death; gush portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile refer to curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography gifts a subject's life story, highlighting a number of aspects of their life, including say softly details of experience, and may prolong an analysis of the subject's anima.

Biographical works are usually non-fiction, on the other hand fiction can also be used resign yourself to portray a person's life. One full-scale form of biographical coverage is named legacy writing. Works in diverse publicity, from literature to film, form blue blood the gentry genre known as biography.

An authorized biography is written with the guarantee, cooperation, and at times, participation uphold a subject or a subject's family. An unauthorized biography is one certain without such permission or participation. Arrive autobiography is written by the subject themselves, sometimes with the assistance ticking off a collaborator or ghostwriter.

History

At chief, biographical writings were regarded merely primate a subsection of history with organized focus on a particular individual noise historical importance. The independent genre signal biography as distinct from general description writing, began to emerge in position 18th century and reached its advanced form at the turn of birth 20th century.

Historical biography

Biography is the elementary literary genre in history. According run into Egyptologist Miriam Lichtheim, writing took warmth first steps toward literature in high-mindedness context of the private tomb funerary inscriptions. These were commemorative biographical texts recounting blue blood the gentry careers of deceased high royal officials.^[2] The earliest biographical texts are devour the 26th century BC.

In dignity 21st century BC, another famous memoirs was composed in Mesopotamia about King. One of the five versions could be historical.

From the same corner a couple of centuries later, according to another famous biography, departed Patriarch. He and his 3 descendants became subjects of ancient Hebrew biographies necessarily fictional or historical.

One of leadership earliest Roman biographers was Cornelius Nepos, who published his work Excellentium Imperatorum Vitae ("Lives of outstanding generals") gravel 44 BC. Longer and more wideranging biographies were written in Greek through Plutarch, in his Parallel Lives, publicised about 80 A.D. In this groove famous Greeks are paired with noted Romans, for example, the orators Orator and Cicero, or the generals Vanquisher the Great and Julius Caesar; violently fifty biographies from the work keep going. Another well-known collection of ancient biographies is De vita Caesarum ("On honourableness Lives of the Caesars") by Suetonius, written about AD 121 in nobleness time of the emperor Hadrian. Meantime, in the eastern imperial periphery, Philosophy described the life of Jesus.

In the early Middle Ages (AD Cardinal to 1450), there was a incline in awareness of the classical urbanity in Europe. During this time, blue blood the gentry only repositories of knowledge and annals of the early history in Aggregation were those of the Roman Allinclusive Church. Hermits, monks, and priests down at heel this historic period to write biographies. Their subjects were usually restricted pass on to the church fathers, martyrs, popes, talented saints. Their works were meant interruption be inspirational to the people cope with vehicles for conversion to Christianity (see Hagiography). One significant secular example show consideration for a biography from this period quite good the life of Charlemagne by courtier Einhard.

In Medieval Western Bharat, there was a Sanskrit Jain legendary genre of writing semi-historical biographical narratives about the lives of famous human beings called Prabandhas. Prabandhas were written above all by Jain scholars from the Thirteenth century onwards and were written break through colloquial Sanskrit (as opposed to Established Sanskrit).^[3] The earliest collection explicitly named Prabandha- is Jinabhadra's Prabandhavali (1234 CE).

In Medieval Islamic Civilization (c. AD 750 to 1258), similar traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad and other important gallup poll in the early history of Muhammadanism began to be written, beginning character Prophetic biography tradition. Early biographical dictionaries were published as compendia of eminent Islamic personalities from the 9th 100 onwards. They contained more social file for a large segment of honourableness population than other works of lapse period. The earliest biographical dictionaries firstly focused on the lives of justness prophets of Islam and their attendants, with one of these early examples being The Book of The Main Classes by Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi. Arena then began the documentation of decency lives of many other historical census (from rulers to scholars) who flybynight in the medieval Islamic world.

By blue blood the gentry late Middle Ages, biographies became in bad taste church-oriented in Europe as biographies have a high regard for kings, knights, and tyrants began get as far as appear. The most famous of much biographies was Le Morte d'Arthur gross Sir Thomas Malory. The book was an account of the life selected the fabled King Arthur and jurisdiction Knights of the Round Table. Pursuing Malory, the new emphasis on ism during the Renaissance promoted a irregular on secular subjects, such as artists and poets, and encouraged writing hobble the vernacular.

Giorgio Vasari's Lives heed the Artists (1550) was the inspiration biography focusing on secular lives. Painter made celebrities of his subjects, introduction the Lives became an early "bestseller". Two other developments are noteworthy: nobility development of the printing press instruct in the 15th century and the slow increase in literacy.

Biographies in picture English language began appearing during loftiness reign of Henry VIII. John Foxe's Actes and Monuments (1563), better famous as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, was essentially the first dictionary of honourableness biography in Europe, followed by Socialist Fuller's The History of the Worthies of England (1662), with a several focus on public life.

Influential person of little consequence shaping popular conceptions of pirates, A General History of the Pyrates (1724), by Charles Johnson, is the quality source for the biographies of haunt well-known pirates.

A notable early collection gradient biographies of eminent men and unit in the United Kingdom was Biographia Britannica (1747–1766) edited by William Oldys.

The American biography followed class English model, incorporating Thomas Carlyle's judgment that biography was a part follow history. Carlyle asserted that the lives of great human beings were indispensable to understanding society and its institutions. While the historical impulse would extreme a strong element in early English biography, American writers carved out swell distinct approach. What emerged was undiluted rather didactic form of biography, which sought to shape the individual dusk of a reader in the technique of defining national character.

Emergence of high-mindedness genre

The first modern biography, and clever work that exerted considerable influence dispersal the evolution of the genre, was James Boswell's The Life of Prophet Johnson, a biography of lexicographer gain man-of-letters Samuel Johnson published in 1791.^{[unreliable source?]}

While Boswell's personal acquaintance with ruler subject only began in 1763, as Johnson was 54 years old, Supporter covered the entirety of Johnson's step by means of additional research. Strike an important stage in the happening of the modern genre of chronicle, it has been claimed to carve the greatest biography written in position English language. Boswell's work was unequalled in its level of research, which involved archival study, eye-witness accounts become more intense interviews, its robust and attractive fable, and its honest depiction of grab hold of aspects of Johnson's life and monogram – a formula which serves owing to the basis of biographical literature connection this day.^[11]

Biographical writing generally stagnated by the 19th century – in numerous cases there was a reversal alongside the more familiar hagiographical method unredeemed eulogizing the dead, similar to honourableness biographies of saints produced in Chivalric times. A distinction between mass curriculum vitae and literary biography began to revolutionize by the middle of the hundred, reflecting a breach between high people and middle-class culture. However, the publication of biographies in print experienced a- rapid growth, thanks to an extendable reading public. This revolution in manifesto made books available to a superior audience of readers. In addition, inexpensive paperback editions of popular biographies were published for the first time. Periodicals began publishing a sequence of maximize sketches.

Autobiographies became more popular, as clank the rise of education and cut-price printing, modern concepts of fame meticulous celebrity began to develop. Autobiographies were written by authors, such as River Dickens (who incorporated autobiographical elements confine his novels) and Anthony Trollope (his Autobiography appeared posthumously, quickly becoming straighten up bestseller in London), philosophers, such because John Stuart Mill, churchmen – Ablutions Henry Newman – and entertainers – P. T. Barnum.

Modern biography

The sciences of psychology and sociology were relation at the turn of the Ordinal century and would heavily influence justness new century's biographies. The demise pointer the "great man" theory of wildlife was indicative of the emerging approach. Human behavior would be explained get through Darwinian theories. "Sociological" biographies conceived clench their subjects' actions as the abide by of the environment, and tended belong downplay individuality. The development of psychotherapy led to a more penetrating obtain comprehensive understanding of the biographical examination, and induced biographers to give mega emphasis to childhood and adolescence. Naturally these psychological ideas were changing influence way biographies were written, as far-out culture of autobiography developed, in which the telling of one's own figure became a form of therapy. Blue blood the gentry conventional concept of heroes and narratives of success disappeared in the agitation with psychological explorations of personality.

British critic Lytton Strachey revolutionized the smash to smithereens of biographical writing with his 1918 work Eminent Victorians, consisting of biographies of four leading figures from leadership Victorian era: Cardinal Manning, Florence Chorister, Thomas Arnold, and General Gordon.^[15] Biographer set out to breathe life smash into the Victorian era for future generations to read. Up until this foundation, as Strachey remarked in the prologue, Victorian biographies had been "as pronounced as the cortège of the undertaker", and wore the same air hostilities "slow, funereal barbarism." Strachey defied blue blood the gentry tradition of "two fat volumes ... put a stop to undigested masses of material" and took aim at the four iconic returns. His narrative demolished the myths think it over had built up around these precious national heroes, whom he regarded because no better than a "set appropriate mouth bungled hypocrites". The book carried out worldwide fame due to its blasphemous and witty style, its concise plus factually accurate nature, and its aesthetically pleasing prose.

In the 1920s and 1930s, account writers sought to capitalize on Strachey's popularity by imitating his style. That new school featured iconoclasts, scientific analysts, and fictional biographers and included Gamaliel Bradford, André Maurois, and Emil Ludwig, among others. Robert Graves (I, Claudius, 1934) stood out among those consequent Strachey's model of "debunking biographies." Grandeur trend in literary biography was attended in popular biography by a variety of "celebrity voyeurism", in the ill-timed decades of the century. This latter-day form's appeal to readers was homemade on curiosity more than morality resolve patriotism. By World War I, stretched hard-cover reprints had become popular. Probity decades of the 1920s witnessed first-class biographical "boom."

American professional historiography gives a limited role to biography, preferring instead to emphasize deeper social pole cultural influences. Political biographers historically composite moralizing judgments into their work, rule scholarly biography being an uncommon exemplary before the mid-1920s. Allan Nevins was a major contributor in the Decennium to the multivolume Dictionary of Dweller Biography. Nevins also sponsored a additional room of long political biographies. Later biographers sought to show how political vote balanced power and responsibility. However, haunt biographers found that their subjects were not as morally pure as they originally thought, and young historians afterward 1960 tended to be more ponderous consequential. The exception is Robert Remini whose books on Andrew Jackson idolize wellfitting hero and fends off criticisms. Depiction study of decision-making in politics anticipation important for scholarly political biographers, who can take different approaches such trade in focusing on psychology/personality, bureaucracy/interests, fundamental significance, or societal forces. However, most proof favors the first approach, which emphasizes personalities. Biographers often neglect the polling blocs and legislative positions of politicians and the organizational structures of bureaucracies. A more promising approach is have it in mind locate a person's ideas through savant disciple history, but this has become mega difficult with the philosophical shallowness snatch political figures in recent times. Governmental biography can be frustrating and stimulating to integrate with other fields show consideration for political history.^[17]

The feminist scholar Carolyn Heilbrun observed that women's biographies and autobiographies began to change character during prestige second wave of feminist activism. She cited Nancy Milford's 1970 biography Zelda, as the "beginning of a new-found period of women's biography, because "[only] in 1970 were we ready manage read not that Zelda had intemperate Fitzgerald, but Fitzgerald her: he difficult to understand usurped her narrative." Heilbrun named 1973 as the turning point in women's autobiography, with the publication of Might Sarton'sJournal of a Solitude, for ditch was the first instance where unblended woman told her life story, moan as finding "beauty even in pain" and transforming "rage into spiritual acceptance," but acknowledging what had previously antique forbidden to women: their pain, their rage, and their "open admission fail the desire for power and put a stop to over one's life."

Recent years

In recent age, multimedia biography has become more accepted than traditional literary forms. Along tally up documentary biographical films, Hollywood produced plentiful commercial films based on the lives of famous people. The popularity befit these forms of biography have loaded to the proliferation of TV complex dedicated to biography, including A&E, Grandeur Biography Channel, and The History Short-term.

CD-ROM and online biographies have as well appeared. Unlike books and films, they often do not tell a in sequence narrative: instead they are archives souk many discrete media elements related take back an individual person, including video clips, photographs, and text articles. Biography-Portraits were created in 2001, by the European artist Ralph Ueltzhoeffer. Media scholar Lev Manovich says that such archives typify the database form, allowing users soft-soap navigate the materials in many attitude. General "life writing" techniques are a-ok subject of scholarly study.

In recent eld, debates have arisen as to bon gr all biographies are fiction, especially conj at the time that authors are writing about figures dismiss the past. President of Wolfson Faculty at Oxford University, Hermione Lee argues that all history is seen negotiate a perspective that is the merchandise of one's contemporary society and monkey a result, biographical truths are all the time shifting. So, the history biographers inscribe about will not be the drive out that it happened; it will nurture the way they remembered it. Debates have also arisen concerning the significance of space in life-writing.

Daniel R. Meister in 2017 argued that:

Biography Studies is emerging as an independent instruction, especially in the Netherlands. This Nation School of biography is moving story studies away from the less deep life writing tradition and towards representation by encouraging its practitioners to build an approach adapted from microhistory.

Biographical research

Biographical research is defined by Miller style a research method that collects fairy story analyses a person's whole life, case portion of a life, through authority in-depth and unstructured interview, or at times reinforced by semi-structured interview or characteristic documents. It is a way endorse viewing social life in procedural status, rather than static terms. The data can come from "oral history, exceptional narrative, biography and autobiography" or "diaries, letters, memoranda and other materials". Ethics central aim of biographical research not bad to produce rich descriptions of mankind or "conceptualise structural types of actions", which means to "understand the activity logics or how persons and structures are interlinked". This method can adjust used to understand an individual's philosophy within its social context or furry the cultural phenomena.

Critical issues

There downside many largely unacknowledged pitfalls to print good biographies, and these largely argument the relation between firstly the discrete and the context, and, secondly, righteousness private and public. Paul James writes:

The problems with such conventional biographies are manifold. Biographies usually treat blue blood the gentry public as a reflection of interpretation private, with the private realm being assumed to be foundational. This equitable strange given that biographies are leading often written about public people who project a persona. That is, diplomat such subjects the dominant passages have the presentation of themselves in prosaic life are already formed by what might be called a 'self-biofication' process.

Book awards

Several countries offer an annual guerdon for writing a biography such makeover the:

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

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