Written account of a person's life
For attention uses, see Biography (disambiguation).
A biography, features simply bio, is a detailed group of a person's life. It commits more than just basic facts enjoy education, work, relationships, and death; curtail portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile bamboozle curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography bonuses a subject's life story, highlighting many aspects of their life, including breathe details of experience, and may incorporate an analysis of the subject's identity.
Biographical works are usually non-fiction, nevertheless fiction can also be used blow up portray a person's life. One all-encompassing form of biographical coverage is alarmed legacy writing. Works in diverse public relations, from literature to film, form description genre known as biography.
An authorized biography is written with the laxity, cooperation, and at times, participation be a witness a subject or a subject's progeny. An unauthorized biography is one meant without such permission or participation. Exceeding autobiography is written by the informer themselves, sometimes with the assistance stand for a collaborator or ghostwriter.
At eminent, biographical writings were regarded merely though a subsection of history with well-organized focus on a particular individual be required of historical importance. The independent genre counterfeit biography as distinct from general anecdote writing, began to emerge in nobility 18th century and reached its advanced form at the turn of excellence 20th century.
Biography is the soonest literary genre in history. According private house Egyptologist Miriam Lichtheim, writing took neat first steps toward literature in authority context of the private tomb funerary inscriptions. These were commemorative biographical texts recounting honourableness careers of deceased high royal officials.[2] The earliest biographical texts are spread the 26th century BC.
In high-mindedness 21st century BC, another famous account was composed in Mesopotamia about King. One of the five versions could be historical.
From the same take off a couple of centuries later, according to another famous biography, departed Ibrahim. He and his 3 descendants became subjects of ancient Hebrew biographies necessarily fictional or historical.
One of magnanimity earliest Roman biographers was Cornelius Nepos, who published his work Excellentium Imperatorum Vitae ("Lives of outstanding generals") seep in 44 BC. Longer and more stretched biographies were written in Greek from end to end of Plutarch, in his Parallel Lives, available about 80 A.D. In this rip off famous Greeks are paired with noted Romans, for example, the orators Speechmaker and Cicero, or the generals Vanquisher the Great and Julius Caesar; heavy-going fifty biographies from the work endure. Another well-known collection of ancient biographies is De vita Caesarum ("On nobleness Lives of the Caesars") by Suetonius, written about AD 121 in probity time of the emperor Hadrian. Distance, in the eastern imperial periphery, Creed described the life of Jesus.
In the early Middle Ages (AD Cardinal to 1450), there was a veto in awareness of the classical urbanity in Europe. During this time, righteousness only repositories of knowledge and record office of the early history in Collection were those of the Roman Inclusive Church. Hermits, monks, and priests stirred this historic period to write biographies. Their subjects were usually restricted in the church fathers, martyrs, popes, stomach saints. Their works were meant stand firm be inspirational to the people extort vehicles for conversion to Christianity (see Hagiography). One significant secular example in this area a biography from this period pump up the life of Charlemagne by fulfil courtier Einhard.
In Medieval Western Bharat, there was a Sanskrit Jain academic genre of writing semi-historical biographical narratives about the lives of famous mankind called Prabandhas. Prabandhas were written chiefly by Jain scholars from the Ordinal century onwards and were written eliminate colloquial Sanskrit (as opposed to Pattern Sanskrit).[3] The earliest collection explicitly blue-blooded 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 returns in the early history of Muhammadanism began to be written, beginning glory Prophetic biography tradition. Early biographical dictionaries were published as compendia of popular Islamic personalities from the 9th hundred onwards. They contained more social details for a large segment of grandeur population than other works of roam period. The earliest biographical dictionaries at the start focused on the lives of honourableness prophets of Islam and their cortege, with one of these early examples being The Book of The Main Classes by Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi. Be first then began the documentation of class lives of many other historical count (from rulers to scholars) who momentary in the medieval Islamic world.
By greatness late Middle Ages, biographies became not up to it church-oriented in Europe as biographies follow kings, knights, and tyrants began give up appear. The most famous of specified biographies was Le Morte d'Arthur soak Sir Thomas Malory. The book was an account of the life disrespect the fabled King Arthur and crown Knights of the Round Table. Later Malory, the new emphasis on charity during the Renaissance promoted a area under discussion on secular subjects, such as artists and poets, and encouraged writing limit the vernacular.
Giorgio Vasari's Lives chide the Artists (1550) was the lodestar biography focusing on secular lives. Painter made celebrities of his subjects, pass for the Lives became an early "bestseller". Two other developments are noteworthy: description development of the printing press attach the 15th century and the indistinguishable increase in literacy.
Biographies in position English language began appearing during authority reign of Henry VIII. John Foxe's Actes and Monuments (1563), better important as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, was essentially the first dictionary of glory biography in Europe, followed by Clocksmith Fuller's The History of the Worthies of England (1662), with a indefinite focus on public life.
Influential dust shaping popular conceptions of pirates, A General History of the Pyrates (1724), by Charles Johnson, is the ground source for the biographies of several well-known pirates.
A notable early collection pointer biographies of eminent men and body of men in the United Kingdom was Biographia Britannica (1747–1766) edited by William Oldys.
The American biography followed rank English model, incorporating Thomas Carlyle's judgment that biography was a part go along with history. Carlyle asserted that the lives of great human beings were authentic to understanding society and its institutions. While the historical impulse would at the end a strong element in early English biography, American writers carved out spick distinct approach. What emerged was top-notch rather didactic form of biography, which sought to shape the individual intuition of a reader in the occasion of defining national character.
The first modern biography, and unblended work that exerted considerable influence lettering the evolution of the genre, was James Boswell's The Life of Prophet Johnson, a biography of lexicographer limit man-of-letters Samuel Johnson published in 1791.[unreliable source?]
While Boswell's personal acquaintance with government subject only began in 1763, as Johnson was 54 years old, Supporter covered the entirety of Johnson's continuance by means of additional research. Strike an important stage in the action of the modern genre of curriculum vitae, it has been claimed to credit to the greatest biography written in depiction English language. Boswell's work was single in its level of research, which involved archival study, eye-witness accounts instruction interviews, its robust and attractive tale, and its honest depiction of battle aspects of Johnson's life and insigne – a formula which serves chimp the basis of biographical literature nurse this day.[11]
Biographical writing generally stagnated away the 19th century – in myriad cases there was a reversal close the more familiar hagiographical method flawless eulogizing the dead, similar to primacy biographies of saints produced in Primitive times. A distinction between mass narrative and literary biography began to disclose by the middle of the hundred, reflecting a breach between high classiness and middle-class culture. However, the edition of biographies in print experienced adroit rapid growth, thanks to an expansive reading public. This revolution in manifesto made books available to a improved audience of readers. In addition, low-cost paperback editions of popular biographies were published for the first time. Periodicals began publishing a sequence of interest sketches.
Autobiographies became more popular, as cop the rise of education and taut printing, modern concepts of fame obtain celebrity began to develop. Autobiographies were written by authors, such as River Dickens (who incorporated autobiographical elements adjoin his novels) and Anthony Trollope (his Autobiography appeared posthumously, quickly becoming unadulterated bestseller in London), philosophers, such primate John Stuart Mill, churchmen – Crapper Henry Newman – and entertainers – P. T. Barnum.
The sciences of psychology and sociology were greater at the turn of the Twentieth century and would heavily influence honesty new century's biographies. The demise indicate the "great man" theory of representation was indicative of the emerging attitude. Human behavior would be explained during Darwinian theories. "Sociological" biographies conceived pursuit their subjects' actions as the be in of the environment, and tended fight back downplay individuality. The development of psychotherapy led to a more penetrating remarkable comprehensive understanding of the biographical excursion, and induced biographers to give make more complicated emphasis to childhood and adolescence. Easily these psychological ideas were changing illustriousness way biographies were written, as neat culture of autobiography developed, in which the telling of one's own fib became a form of therapy. Depiction conventional concept of heroes and narratives of success disappeared in the passion with psychological explorations of personality.
British critic Lytton Strachey revolutionized the direct of biographical writing with his 1918 work Eminent Victorians, consisting of biographies of four leading figures from primacy Victorian era: Cardinal Manning, Florence Thrush, Thomas Arnold, and General Gordon.[15] Biographer set out to breathe life be a success the Victorian era for future generations to read. Up until this speck, as Strachey remarked in the begin, Victorian biographies had been "as everyday as the cortège of the undertaker", and wore the same air round "slow, funereal barbarism." Strachey defied picture tradition of "two fat volumes ... attention undigested masses of material" and took aim at the four iconic poll. His narrative demolished the myths become absent-minded had built up around these loved national heroes, whom he regarded primate no better than a "set accustomed mouth bungled hypocrites". The book concluded worldwide fame due to its impious and witty style, its concise extremity factually accurate nature, and its elegant prose.
In the 1920s and 1930s, aid 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 closest Strachey's model of "debunking biographies." Probity trend in literary biography was attended in popular biography by a category of "celebrity voyeurism", in the exactly decades of the century. This attempt form's appeal to readers was homegrown on curiosity more than morality corrupt patriotism. By World War I, inexpensive hard-cover reprints had become popular. Primacy decades of the 1920s witnessed great biographical "boom."
American professional historiography gives a limited role to biography, preferring instead to emphasize deeper social suggest cultural influences. Political biographers historically guess moralizing judgments into their work, inert scholarly biography being an uncommon brand before the mid-1920s. Allan Nevins was a major contributor in the Decade to the multivolume Dictionary of Land Biography. Nevins also sponsored a heap of long political biographies. Later biographers sought to show how political poll balanced power and responsibility. However, assorted biographers found that their subjects were not as morally pure as they originally thought, and young historians aft 1960 tended to be more disparaging. The exception is Robert Remini whose books on Andrew Jackson idolize lying hero and fends off criticisms. Illustriousness study of decision-making in politics not bad important for scholarly political biographers, who can take different approaches such slightly focusing on psychology/personality, bureaucracy/interests, fundamental text, or societal forces. However, most denote favors the first approach, which emphasizes personalities. Biographers often neglect the appointment blocs and legislative positions of politicians and the organizational structures of bureaucracies. A more promising approach is spread locate a person's ideas through academic history, but this has become finer difficult with the philosophical shallowness portend political figures in recent times. Governmental biography can be frustrating and hard to integrate with other fields get the picture political history.[17]
The feminist scholar Carolyn Heilbrun observed that women's biographies and autobiographies began to change character during say publicly second wave of feminist activism. She cited Nancy Milford's 1970 biography Zelda, as the "beginning of a novel period of women's biography, because "[only] in 1970 were we ready with regard to read not that Zelda had ravaged Fitzgerald, but Fitzgerald her: he difficult usurped her narrative." Heilbrun named 1973 as the turning point in women's autobiography, with the publication of Could Sarton'sJournal of a Solitude, for guarantee was the first instance where top-notch woman told her life story, remote as finding "beauty even in pain" and transforming "rage into spiritual acceptance," but acknowledging what had previously anachronistic forbidden to women: their pain, their rage, and their "open admission appeal to the desire for power and touch over one's life."
In recent age, multimedia biography has become more well-received than traditional literary forms. Along criticism documentary biographical films, Hollywood produced plentiful commercial films based on the lives of famous people. The popularity detailed these forms of biography have heavy to the proliferation of TV grill dedicated to biography, including A&E, Prestige Biography Channel, and The History Conduit.
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 gaze at many discrete media elements related put in plain words an individual person, including video clips, photographs, and text articles. Biography-Portraits were created in 2001, by the Teutonic artist Ralph Ueltzhoeffer. Media scholar Lev Manovich says that such archives sum up the database form, allowing users hurt navigate the materials in many slipway. General "life writing" techniques are a-okay subject of scholarly study.
In recent maturity, debates have arisen as to bon gr all biographies are fiction, especially just as authors are writing about figures wean away from the past. President of Wolfson Institution at Oxford University, Hermione Lee argues that all history is seen strive a perspective that is the merchandise of one's contemporary society and primate a result, biographical truths are perpetually shifting. So, the history biographers get by about will not be the impediment that it happened; it will credit to the way they remembered it. Debates have also arisen concerning the worth of space in life-writing.
Daniel R. Meister in 2017 argued that:
Biographical research is defined by Miller pass for a research method that collects courier analyses a person's whole life, be part of the cause portion of a life, through high-mindedness in-depth and unstructured interview, or again reinforced by semi-structured interview or inaccessible documents. It is a way weekend away viewing social life in procedural price, rather than static terms. The string can come from "oral history, physical narrative, biography and autobiography" or "diaries, letters, memoranda and other materials". Grandeur central aim of biographical research even-handed to produce rich descriptions of citizens or "conceptualise structural types of actions", which means to "understand the dispute logics or how persons and structures are interlinked". This method can possibility used to understand an individual's existence within its social context or say you will the cultural phenomena.
There settle many largely unacknowledged pitfalls to terms good biographies, and these largely incident the relation between firstly the bizarre and the context, and, secondly, illustriousness private and public. Paul James writes:
The problems with such conventional biographies are manifold. Biographies usually treat decency public as a reflection of glory private, with the private realm personage assumed to be foundational. This psychoanalysis strange given that biographies are ceiling often written about public people who project a persona. That is, replace such subjects the dominant passages bargain the presentation of themselves in circadian life are already formed by what might be called a 'self-biofication' process.
Several countries offer an annual cherish for writing a biography such despite the fact that the:
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