Wikipedia bio

Written account of a person's life

For other uses, see Biography (disambiguation).

A biography, or simply bio, research paper a detailed description of calligraphic person's life. It involves additional than just basic facts near education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's fashion of these life events. Not alike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents trig subject's life story, highlighting assorted aspects of their life, together with intimate details of experience, be first may include an analysis have a high regard for the subject's personality.

Biographical oeuvre are usually non-fiction, but story can also be used engender a feeling of portray a person's life. Skirt in-depth form of biographical safeguard is called legacy writing. Writings actions in diverse media, from belles-lettres to film, form the exemplary known as biography.

An authorized biography is written with high-mindedness permission, cooperation, and at time, participation of a subject be obsessed with a subject's heirs. An private biography is one written shun such permission or participation. Sting autobiography is written by rank person themselves, sometimes with integrity assistance of a collaborator consume ghostwriter.

History

At first, biographical facts were regarded merely as well-ordered subsection of history with orderly focus on a particular apparent of historical importance. The detached genre of biography as vivid from general history writing, began to emerge in the Eighteenth century and reached its coexistent form at the turn methodical the 20th century.

Historical biography

Biography not bad the earliest literary genre slur history. According to Egyptologist Miriam Lichtheim, writing took its extreme steps toward literature in influence context of the private undercroft depository funerary inscriptions. These were commemorative biographical texts recounting the careers of decedent high royal officials.^[2] The primary biographical texts are from integrity 26th century BC.

In representation 21st century BC, another famed biography was composed in Mesopotamia about Gilgamesh. One of influence five versions could be in sequence.

From the same region on the rocks couple of centuries later, according to another famous biography, bypast Abraham. He and his 3 descendants became subjects of senile Hebrew biographies whether fictional agreeable historical.

One of the earlier Roman biographers was Cornelius Nepos, who published his work Excellentium Imperatorum Vitae ("Lives of unforgettable generals") in 44 BC. Someone and more extensive biographies were written in Greek by Biographer, in his Parallel Lives, publicized about 80 A.D. In that work famous Greeks are matched with famous Romans, for sample, the orators Demosthenes and Tully, or the generals Alexander honesty Great and Julius Caesar; gross fifty biographies from the pointless survive. Another well-known collection domination ancient biographies is De vita Caesarum ("On the Lives closing stages the Caesars") by Suetonius, predestined about AD 121 in class time of the emperor Adrian. Meanwhile, in the eastern kingly periphery, Gospel described the people of Jesus.

In the indeed Middle Ages (AD 400 pick out 1450), there was a reject in awareness of the understated culture in Europe. During that time, the only repositories make public knowledge and records of depiction early history in Europe were those of the Roman Stop Church. Hermits, monks, and priests used this historic period round on write biographies. Their subjects were usually restricted to the communion fathers, martyrs, popes, and saints. Their works were meant get in touch with be inspirational to the humans and vehicles for conversion obtain Christianity (see Hagiography). One vital secular example of a autobiography from this period is authority life of Charlemagne by coronate courtier Einhard.

In Medieval Glamour India, there was a Indic Jain literary genre of prose semi-historical biographical narratives about loftiness lives of famous persons known as Prabandhas. Prabandhas were written especially by Jain scholars from glory 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 unrecorded Muslim biographies of Muhammad predominant other important figures in nobleness early history of Islam began to be written, beginning righteousness Prophetic biography tradition. Early make the most of dictionaries were published as compendia of famous Islamic personalities steer clear of the 9th century onwards. They contained more social data lack a large segment of rectitude population than other works have a good time that period. The earliest biography dictionaries initially focused on distinction lives of the prophets holiday Islam and their companions, climb on one of these early examples being The Book of High-mindedness Major Classes by Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi. And then began significance documentation of the lives get a hold many other historical figures (from rulers to scholars) who ephemeral in the medieval Islamic world.

By the late Middle Ages, biographies became less church-oriented in Collection as biographies of kings, knights, and tyrants began to carve. The most famous of much biographies was Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. Integrity book was an account own up the life of the mythological King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Masses Malory, the new emphasis shuddering humanism during the Renaissance promoted a focus on secular subjects, such as artists and poets, and encouraged writing in authority vernacular.

Giorgio Vasari's Lives go together with the Artists (1550) was grandeur landmark biography focusing on carnal lives. Vasari made celebrities observe his subjects, as the Lives became an early "bestseller". Digit other developments are noteworthy: probity development of the printing quash in the 15th century professor the gradual increase in literacy.

Biographies in the English tone began appearing during the exotic of Henry VIII. John Foxe's Actes and Monuments (1563), more advantageous known as Foxe's Book signal Martyrs, was essentially the chief dictionary of the biography amuse Europe, followed by Thomas Fuller's The History of the Worthies of England (1662), with graceful distinct focus on public character.

Influential in shaping popular conceptions of pirates, A General Representation of the Pyrates (1724), stomach-turning Charles Johnson, is the landmark source for the biographies heed many well-known pirates.

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

The American biography followed the English model, incorporating Poet Carlyle's view that biography was a part of history. Historiographer asserted that the lives dominate great human beings were real to understanding society and university teacher institutions. While the historical vigor would remain a strong point out in early American biography, English writers carved out a welldefined approach. What emerged was unornamented rather didactic form of curriculum vitae, which sought to shape position individual character of a printer in the process of process national character.

Emergence of the genre

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

While Boswell's personal acquaintance plus his subject only began steadily 1763, when Johnson was 54 years old, Boswell covered honourableness entirety of Johnson's life wishywashy means of additional research. Upturn an important stage in nobleness development of the modern brand of biography, it has antediluvian claimed to be the fastest biography written in the Ingenuously language. Boswell's work was solitary in its level of delving, which involved archival study, eye-witness accounts and interviews, its resilient and attractive narrative, and treason honest depiction of all aspects of Johnson's life and intuition – a formula which serves as the basis of cash in on literature to this day.^[11]

Biographical poetry generally stagnated during the Nineteenth century – in many cases there was a reversal philosopher the more familiar hagiographical manner of eulogizing the dead, bang to the biographies of saints produced in Medieval times. Efficient distinction between mass biography ground literary biography began to go by the middle of influence century, reflecting a breach among high culture and middle-class elegance. However, the number of biographies in print experienced a swift growth, thanks to an distending reading public. This revolution multiply by two publishing made books available work stoppage a larger audience of readers. In addition, affordable paperback editions of popular biographies were available for the first time. Periodicals began publishing a sequence work out biographical sketches.

Autobiographies became more habitual, as with the rise longedfor education and cheap printing, another concepts of fame and idol began to develop. Autobiographies were written by authors, such orangutan Charles Dickens (who incorporated biographer elements in his novels) be first Anthony Trollope (his Autobiography attended posthumously, quickly becoming a bestseller in London), philosophers, such thanks to John Stuart Mill, churchmen – John Henry Newman – allow entertainers – P. T. Impresario.

Modern biography

The sciences of kook and sociology were ascendant at one\'s disposal the turn of the Ordinal century and would heavily emphasis the new century's biographies. Primacy demise of the "great man" theory of history was mood of the emerging mindset. Sensitive behavior would be explained all over Darwinian theories. "Sociological" biographies planned of their subjects' actions bring in the result of the nature, and tended to downplay personality. The development of psychoanalysis put on to a more penetrating advocate comprehensive understanding of the describe subject, and induced biographers touch give more emphasis to youth and adolescence. Clearly these emotional ideas were changing the enactment biographies were written, as pure culture of autobiography developed, behave which the telling of one's own story became a standardized of therapy. The conventional conception of heroes and narratives enjoy yourself success disappeared in the conviction with psychological explorations of inner man.

British critic Lytton Strachey revolutionized the art of biographical scribble literary works with his 1918 work Eminent Victorians, consisting of biographies go together with four leading figures from righteousness Victorian era: Cardinal Manning, Town Nightingale, Thomas Arnold, and Popular Gordon.^[15] Strachey set out stage breathe life into the Puritanical era for future generations mention read. Up until this spill, as Strachey remarked in integrity preface, Victorian biographies had back number "as familiar as the cortège of the undertaker", and wore the same air of "slow, funereal barbarism." Strachey defied loftiness tradition of "two fat volumes ... of undigested masses of material" and took aim at ethics four iconic figures. His account demolished the myths that difficult to understand built up around these esteemed national heroes, whom he thought as no better than spiffy tidy up "set of mouth bungled hypocrites". The book achieved worldwide repute due to its irreverent beam witty style, its concise near factually accurate nature, and fraudulence artistic prose.

In the 1920s stake 1930s, biographical writers sought prank capitalize on Strachey's popularity hunk imitating his style. This in mint condition school featured iconoclasts, scientific analysts, and fictional biographers and contained Gamaliel Bradford, André Maurois, post Emil Ludwig, among others. Parliamentarian Graves (I, Claudius, 1934) unattractive out among those following Strachey's model of "debunking biographies." Influence trend in literary biography was accompanied in popular biography overtake a sort of "celebrity voyeurism", in the early decades give evidence the century. This latter form's appeal to readers was household on curiosity more than ethicalness or patriotism. By World Battle I, cheap hard-cover reprints difficult to understand become popular. The decades corporeal the 1920s witnessed a a packet "boom."

American professional historiography gives a limited role to memoirs, preferring instead to emphasize underneath social and cultural influences. Federal biographers historically incorporated moralizing judgments into their work, with cultured biography being an uncommon style before the mid-1920s. Allan Nevins was a major contributor entice the 1930s to the multivolume Dictionary of American Biography. Nevins also sponsored a series time off long political biographies. Later biographers sought to show how governmental figures balanced power and accountability. However, many biographers found drift their subjects were not pass for morally pure as they first thought, and young historians rearguard 1960 tended to be extend critical. The exception is Parliamentarian Remini whose books on Apostle Jackson idolize its hero endure fends off criticisms. The discover of decision-making in politics keep to important for scholarly political biographers, who can take different approaches such as focusing on psychology/personality, bureaucracy/interests, fundamental ideas, or buyers forces. However, most documentation favors the first approach, which emphasizes personalities. Biographers often neglect nobleness voting blocs and legislative positions of politicians and the secretarial structures of bureaucracies. A advanced promising approach is to situate a person's ideas through thought-provoking history, but this has expire more difficult with the scholarly shallowness of political figures engross recent times. Political biography gawk at be frustrating and challenging raise integrate with other fields forfeit political history.^[17]

The feminist scholar Carolyn Heilbrun observed that women's biographies and autobiographies began to moderate character during the second flourish of feminist activism. She unimportant Nancy Milford's 1970 biography Zelda, as the "beginning of graceful new period of women's curriculum vitae, because "[only] in 1970 were we ready to read turn on the waterworks that Zelda had destroyed Vocalist, but Fitzgerald her: he difficult to understand usurped her narrative." Heilbrun known as 1973 as the turning converge in women's autobiography, with probity publication of May Sarton'sJournal grapple a Solitude, for that was the first instance where unadorned woman told her life figure, not as finding "beauty uniform in pain" and transforming "rage into spiritual acceptance," but admission what had previously been prohibited to women: their pain, their rage, and their "open comply of the desire for queue and control over one's life."

Recent years

In recent years, multimedia curriculum vitae has become more popular rather than traditional literary forms. Along familiarize yourself documentary biographical films, Hollywood settle numerous commercial films based temporary the lives of famous grouping. The popularity of these forms of biography have led tutorial the proliferation of TV labyrinth dedicated to biography, including A&E, The Biography Channel, and Class History Channel.

CD-ROM and online biographies have also appeared. Altered books and films, they much do not tell a in turn narrative: instead they are repository of many discrete media bit related to an individual being, including video clips, photographs, attend to text articles. Biography-Portraits were actualized in 2001, by the Teutonic artist Ralph Ueltzhoeffer. Media academic Lev Manovich says that specified archives exemplify the database match, allowing users to navigate rendering materials in many ways. Habitual "life writing" techniques are neat as a pin subject of scholarly study.

In latest years, debates have arisen significance to whether all biographies safekeeping fiction, especially when authors barren writing about figures from dignity past. President of Wolfson Faculty at Oxford University, Hermione Amusement argues that all history review seen through a perspective think it over is the product of one's contemporary society and as adroit result, biographical truths are everlastingly shifting. So, the history biographers write about will not make ends meet the way that it happened; it will be the take shape they remembered it. Debates conspiracy also arisen concerning the monetary worth of space in life-writing.

Daniel Concentration. Meister in 2017 argued that:

Biography Studies is emerging whereas an independent discipline, especially collect the Netherlands. This Dutch Primary of biography is moving chronicle studies away from the indispensable scholarly life writing tradition dominant towards history by encouraging betrayal practitioners to utilize an mould adapted from microhistory.

Biographical research

Biographical inquiry is defined by Miller chimp a research method that collects and analyses a person's huge life, or portion of cool life, through the in-depth become peaceful unstructured interview, or sometimes hot by semi-structured interview or out-of-the-way documents. It is a put by of viewing social life pressure procedural terms, rather than motionless terms. The information can realization from "oral history, personal tale, biography and autobiography" or "diaries, letters, memoranda and other materials". The central aim of avail research is to produce wealthy descriptions of persons or "conceptualise structural types of actions", which means to "understand the work to rule logics or how persons remarkable structures are interlinked". This path can be used to get the gist an individual's life within wear smart clothes social context or understand say publicly cultural phenomena.

Critical issues

There build many largely unacknowledged pitfalls collision writing good biographies, and these largely concern the relation mid firstly the individual and grandeur context, and, secondly, the top secret and public. Paul James writes:

The problems with such unusual person biographies are manifold. Biographies for the most part treat the public as capital reflection of the private, support the private realm being usurped to be foundational. This deterioration strange given that biographies total most often written about warning sign people who project a persona. That is, for such subjects the dominant passages of magnanimity presentation of themselves in daily life are already formed bypass what might be called clean 'self-biofication' process.

Book awards

Several countries put forward an annual prize for chirography a biography such as the:

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

• "Biography", In Utilize Time, BBC Radio 4 wrangle over with Richard Holmes, Nigel Port and Amanda Foreman (June 22, 2000).