Biography
A biography is a written account that narrates the life of an individual, detailing significant aspects such as upbringing, education, career achievements, and personal struggles. Typically authored by someone other than the subject, biographies provide an in-depth look at both well-known figures and ordinary individuals. These works can vary in style, with common types including informative biographies, which present life events in chronological order without interpretation; critical biographies, which analyze and research the subject's life; standard biographies, which blend factual accounts with some interpretation; and interpretive biographies, which rely heavily on opinion and analysis. The genre dates back to figures like Plutarch in ancient times and has evolved through the centuries to encompass multimedia formats in recent years. Biographies can be authorized, created with the subject's consent, or unauthorized, which may lead to controversy. Despite varying opinions on their historical value, biographies remain a significant and popular literary form, offering insights into both individual lives and broader cultural narratives.
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Biography
A biography is a written account of a person's life. It is a narrative, written by someone other than the subject of the book, which includes details about upbringing, schools attended, family and home life, career accomplishments, struggles, and other achievements and failures. It often includes intimate details about the person's life and is usually in the nonfiction genre. Biographies are written about people who are both living and deceased. Some biographies are written by authors based on personal relationships they have had with the subject, while others are based entirely on research, diaries and journals, notes, and other resources. Some biographies are a mix of both.
Overview
One of the earliest biographers was Plutarch, a Greek author. He lived around 45 to 125 C.E. His most famous book was Parallel Lives, in which he wrote a biography about the lives of Roman and Greek soldiers, orators, and others. In the Middle Ages, most biographies were written about kings and knights. At the beginning of the twentieth century, biographies started to tell the stories of the lives of famous people. In the 1960s and 1970s, biographies continued to be written about famous people, but some biographies about more ordinary people emerged as well.
The biography, like other forms of literature, has many different styles. Four of the most common types of biographies are informative, critical, standard, and interpretive. An informative biography mainly provides details about the events in a person's life in a chronological order. Informative biographies do not give any interpretation of the subject's life; they just seek to tell the subject's life story. Critical biographies offer analysis on the subject's life. They are carefully researched and provide multiple sources, appendixes, and personal viewpoints. The standard biography is a mix between the critical and informative styles, and offers a list of documented events but also provides some interpretation. An interpretive biography is based on some facts, many opinions, and much analysis of the subject's life. With the rise of technology in the late twentieth century, multimedia biographies became popular. These biographies can be watched digitally and may include pictures, artwork, quotes, and even music.
Biographies can be both authorized and unauthorized. Authorized biographies are written with the consent, cooperation, and often the participation of the person who is the subject of the book. Often the person's family members may be involved with the author of the biography if the subject is deceased. Unauthorized biographies are written without the consent of the person who is the subject of the book. On occasion, some of these types of biographies can be controversial in nature.
Many biographies provide detailed accounts of different periods in history; however, some historians still debate the value, authenticity, and role biographies should play when evaluating history. Despite this, the biography remains one of the oldest and most popular types of literary genre.
Bibliography
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Caine, Barbara. Biography and History. Palgrave, 2010.
Gill, N.S. "Plutarch Basics: Plutarch Profile." About.com, ancienthistory.about.com/od/plutarch/p/Plutarch.htm. Accessed 13 Dec. 2016.
Haslam Jonathan. "Biography and Its Importance to History." IHR Winter Conference 2017, 16 Oct. 2012, ERLINK "http://winterconference.history.ac.uk/2012/10/16/biography-and-its-importance-to-history/" winterconference.history.ac.uk/2012/10/16/biography-and-its-importance-to-history/. Accessed 13 Dec. 2016.
Lee, Hermione. Biography: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford UP, 2009.
Parke, Catherine N. Biography: Writing Lives. Routledge, 2002.
Richetti John. "Writing about Defoe: What Is a Critical Biography?" Literature Compass, 17 Jan. 2006, Wiley Online Library, doi: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2006.00302.x. Accessed 13 Dec. 2016.
Snowman Daniel. "Historical Biography." History Today, vol. 64, no. 11, Nov. 2014, www.historytoday.com/daniel-snowman/historical-biography. Accessed 13 Dec. 2016.