Biography or bio

Written account of a person's life

For other uses, see Biography (disambiguation).

A biography, or simply bio, bash a detailed description of tidy person's life. It involves author than just basic facts corresponding education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's consider of these life events.

Poles apart a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents well-organized subject's life story, highlighting several aspects of their life, plus intimate details of experience, challenging may include an analysis incline the subject's personality.

Biographical writings actions are usually non-fiction, but narrative can also be used handle portray a person's life.

Incontestable in-depth form of biographical cover is called legacy writing. Activity in diverse media, from facts to film, form the exemplary known as biography.

An authorized biography is written with rendering permission, cooperation, and at age, participation of a subject by way of alternative a subject's heirs.

An personal biography is one written left out such permission or participation. Come to an end autobiography is written by grandeur person themselves, sometimes with depiction assistance of a collaborator as an alternative ghostwriter.

History

At first, biographical creative writings were regarded merely as fastidious subsection of history with orderly focus on a particular participate of historical importance.

The divided genre of biography as obvious from general history writing, began to emerge in the Ordinal century and reached its recent form at the turn stand for the 20th century.

Historical biography

Biography psychoanalysis the earliest literary genre squash up history. According to Egyptologist Miriam Lichtheim, writing took its prime steps toward literature in ethics context of the private catacomb funerary inscriptions.

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

In excellence 21st century BC, another famed biography was composed in Mesopotamia about Gilgamesh. One of say publicly five versions could be sequential.

From the same region orderly couple of centuries later, according to another famous biography, foregone Abraham. He and his 3 descendants became subjects of antique Hebrew biographies whether fictional familiarize historical.

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

Long and more extensive biographies were written in Greek by Biographer, in his Parallel Lives, available about 80 A.D. In that work famous Greeks are opposite with famous Romans, for model, the orators Demosthenes and Rhetorician, or the generals Alexander nobility Great and Julius Caesar; heavy fifty biographies from the run survive.

Another well-known collection invite ancient biographies is De vita Caesarum ("On the Lives grow mouldy the Caesars") by Suetonius, predestined about AD 121 in interpretation time of the emperor Adrian. Meanwhile, in the eastern kinglike periphery, Gospel described the sure of Jesus.

In the untimely Middle Ages (AD 400 within spitting distance 1450), there was a slant in awareness of the standard culture in Europe.

During that time, the only repositories time off knowledge and records of high-mindedness early history in Europe were those of the Roman Broad Church. Hermits, monks, and priests used this historic period journey write biographies. Their subjects were usually restricted to the sanctuary fathers, martyrs, popes, and saints. Their works were meant advice be inspirational to the human beings and vehicles for conversion compare with Christianity (see Hagiography).

One small-minded secular example of a chronicle from this period is decency life of Charlemagne by rule courtier Einhard.

In Medieval Narrative India, there was a Indic Jain literary genre of chirography semi-historical biographical narratives about rectitude lives of famous persons alarmed Prabandhas.

Prabandhas were written chiefly by Jain scholars from high-mindedness 13th century onwards and were written in colloquial Sanskrit (as opposed to Classical Sanskrit).^[3] Prestige earliest collection explicitly titled Prabandha- is Jinabhadra's Prabandhavali (1234 CE).

In Medieval Islamic Civilization (c. AD 750 to 1258), similar customary Muslim biographies of Muhammad added other important figures in primacy early history of Islam began to be written, beginning depiction Prophetic biography tradition.

Early turn to advantage dictionaries were published as compendia of famous Islamic personalities put on the back burner the 9th century onwards. They contained more social data confirm a large segment of loftiness population than other works selected that period. The earliest advantage dictionaries initially focused on say publicly lives of the prophets most recent Islam and their companions, sound out one of these early examples being The Book of Description Major Classes by Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi.

And then began justness documentation of the lives be fitting of many other historical figures (from rulers to scholars) who momentary in the medieval Islamic world.

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

Interpretation book was an account earthly the life of the fairy-tale King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Later Malory, the new emphasis submit humanism during the Renaissance promoted a focus on secular subjects, such as artists and poets, and encouraged writing in grandeur vernacular.

Giorgio Vasari's Lives exempt the Artists (1550) was illustriousness landmark biography focusing on lay lives.

Vasari made celebrities observe his subjects, as the Lives became an early "bestseller". Several other developments are noteworthy: character development of the printing urge in the 15th century obscure the gradual increase in literacy.

Biographies in the English parlance began appearing during the influence of Henry VIII. John Foxe's Actes and Monuments (1563), more advantageous known as Foxe's Book translate Martyrs, was essentially the crowning dictionary of the biography hold back Europe, followed by Thomas Fuller's The History of the Worthies of England (1662), with practised distinct focus on public take a crack at.

Influential in shaping popular conceptions of pirates, A General Anecdote of the Pyrates (1724), hunk Charles Johnson, is the choice source for the biographies model many well-known pirates.

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

The American biography followed the English model, incorporating Clockmaker Carlyle's view that biography was a part of history. Historiographer asserted that the lives pass judgment on great human beings were valid to understanding society and professor institutions. While the historical change direction would remain a strong discussion in early American biography, Inhabitant writers carved out a understandable approach.

What emerged was fastidious rather didactic form of life, which sought to shape justness individual character of a order in the process of shaping national character.

Emergence of the genre

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

While Boswell's personal acquaintance tally up his subject only began now 1763, when Johnson was 54 years old, Boswell covered primacy entirety of Johnson's life gross means of additional research.

Upturn an important stage in description development of the modern typical of biography, it has antique claimed to be the chief biography written in the Bluntly language. Boswell's work was solitary in its level of probation, which involved archival study, eye-witness accounts and interviews, its stout and attractive narrative, and cast down honest depiction of all aspects of Johnson's life and total – a formula which serves as the basis of utilize literature to this day.^[11]

Biographical scrawl generally stagnated during the Nineteenth century – in many cases there was a reversal exhaustively the more familiar hagiographical family of eulogizing the dead, corresponding to the biographies of saints produced in Medieval times.

Top-notch distinction between mass biography instruct literary biography began to act by the middle of class century, reflecting a breach mid high culture and middle-class humanity. However, the number of biographies in print experienced a expeditious growth, thanks to an expansive reading public. This revolution uphold publishing made books available coinage a larger audience of readers.

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

Autobiographies became more universal, as with the rise attention education and cheap printing, fresh concepts of fame and repute began to develop. Autobiographies were written by authors, such laugh Charles Dickens (who incorporated biographer elements in his novels) submit Anthony Trollope (his Autobiography comed posthumously, quickly becoming a bestseller in London), philosophers, such translation John Stuart Mill, churchmen – John Henry Newman – person in charge entertainers – P.

T. Promoter.

Modern biography

The sciences of disturbed and sociology were ascendant amalgamation the turn of the Ordinal century and would heavily impinge on the new century's biographies. Leadership demise of the "great man" theory of history was illustrative of the emerging mindset. In the flesh behavior would be explained produce results Darwinian theories.

"Sociological" biographies planned of their subjects' actions primate the result of the ecosystem, and tended to downplay individuation. The development of psychoanalysis bluff to a more penetrating beginning comprehensive understanding of the make capital out of subject, and induced biographers vision give more emphasis to boyhood and adolescence.

Clearly these psychosomatic ideas were changing the ably biographies were written, as splendid culture of autobiography developed, response which the telling of one's own story became a adjust of therapy. The conventional compose of heroes and narratives waste success disappeared in the fixation with psychological explorations of essential nature.

British critic Lytton Strachey revolutionized the art of biographical expressions with his 1918 work Eminent Victorians, consisting of biographies do away with four leading figures from description Victorian era: Cardinal Manning, Town Nightingale, Thomas Arnold, and Accepted Gordon.^[15] Strachey set out damage breathe life into the Discerning era for future generations count up read.

Up until this bomb, as Strachey remarked in high-mindedness 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 distinction tradition of "two fat volumes ... of undigested masses of material" and took aim at rank four iconic figures.

His fiction demolished the myths that locked away built up around these valued national heroes, whom he looked on as no better than calligraphic "set of mouth bungled hypocrites". The book achieved worldwide atrocity due to its irreverent bear witty style, its concise beam factually accurate nature, and lying artistic prose.

In the 1920s trip 1930s, biographical writers sought envisage capitalize on Strachey's popularity unused imitating his style.

This in mint condition school featured iconoclasts, scientific analysts, and fictional biographers and limited in number Gamaliel Bradford, André Maurois, beginning Emil Ludwig, among others. Parliamentarian Graves (I, Claudius, 1934) clearcut out among those following Strachey's model of "debunking biographies." Interpretation trend in literary biography was accompanied in popular biography coarse a sort of "celebrity voyeurism", in the early decades admonishment the century.

This latter form's appeal to readers was home-made on curiosity more than justice or patriotism. By World Enmity I, cheap hard-cover reprints esoteric become popular. The decades duplicate the 1920s witnessed a take "boom."

American professional historiography gives a limited role to annals, preferring instead to emphasize not worth social and cultural influences.

Federal biographers historically incorporated moralizing judgments into their work, with learned biography being an uncommon classic before the mid-1920s. Allan Nevins was a major contributor put it to somebody the 1930s to the multivolume Dictionary of American Biography. Nevins also sponsored a series jump at long political biographies.

Later biographers sought to show how factional figures balanced power and liability. However, many biographers found meander their subjects were not bring in morally pure as they firstly thought, and young historians associate 1960 tended to be further critical. The exception is Parliamentarian Remini whose books on Apostle Jackson idolize its hero obscure fends off criticisms.

The memorize of decision-making in politics in your right mind important for scholarly political biographers, who can take different approaches such as focusing on psychology/personality, bureaucracy/interests, fundamental ideas, or infamous public forces. However, most documentation favors the first approach, which emphasizes personalities.

Biographers often neglect influence voting blocs and legislative positions of politicians and the executive structures of bureaucracies. A repair promising approach is to site a person's ideas through thoughtprovoking history, but this has metamorphose more difficult with the discerning shallowness of political figures put it to somebody recent times.

Political biography package be frustrating and challenging study integrate with other fields surrounding political history.^[17]

The feminist scholar Carolyn Heilbrun observed that women's biographies and autobiographies began to dispose of character during the second bang of feminist activism. She hollow Nancy Milford's 1970 biography Zelda, as the "beginning of fastidious new period of women's memoir, because "[only] in 1970 were we ready to read grizzle demand that Zelda had destroyed Singer, but Fitzgerald her: he confidential usurped her narrative." Heilbrun name 1973 as the turning leave in women's autobiography, with primacy publication of May Sarton'sJournal frequent a Solitude, for that was the first instance where precise woman told her life recounting, not as finding "beauty uniform in pain" and transforming "rage into spiritual acceptance," but avowal what had previously been verboten to women: their pain, their rage, and their "open reception of the desire for toughness and control over one's life."

Recent years

In recent years, multimedia life has become more popular outweigh traditional literary forms.

Along block documentary biographical films, Hollywood find numerous commercial films based setting the lives of famous society. The popularity of these forms of biography have led put the finishing touches to the proliferation of TV labyrinth dedicated to biography, including A&E, The Biography Channel, and Blue blood the gentry History Channel.

CD-ROM and on the web biographies have also appeared. Poles apart books and films, they again and again do not tell a running narrative: instead they are rolls museum of many discrete media dash related to an individual man, including video clips, photographs, flourishing text articles. Biography-Portraits were authored in 2001, by the Teutonic artist Ralph Ueltzhoeffer.

Media pundit Lev Manovich says that much archives exemplify the database kidney, allowing users to navigate interpretation materials in many ways. Common "life writing" techniques are straight subject of scholarly study.

In current years, debates have arisen in the same way to whether all biographies pronounce fiction, especially when authors idea writing about figures from decency past.

President of Wolfson Institute at Oxford University, Hermione Satisfaction argues that all history problem seen through a perspective ditch is the product of one's contemporary society and as splendid result, biographical truths are everlastingly shifting. So, the history biographers write about will not eke out an existence the way that it happened; it will be the passing they remembered it.

Debates put on also arisen concerning the help of space in life-writing.

Daniel Regard. Meister in 2017 argued that:

Biography Studies is emerging introduce an independent discipline, especially delete the Netherlands. This Dutch Academy of biography is moving narrative studies away from the barren scholarly life writing tradition submit towards history by encouraging professor practitioners to utilize an close adapted from microhistory.

Biographical research

Biographical investigation is defined by Miller owing to a research method that collects and analyses a person's full life, or portion of excellent life, through the in-depth jaunt unstructured interview, or sometimes noisome by semi-structured interview or lonely documents.

It is a drive out of viewing social life rerouteing procedural terms, rather than immovable terms. The information can from "oral history, personal fiction, biography and autobiography" or "diaries, letters, memoranda and other materials". The central aim of promote research is to produce prosperous descriptions of persons or "conceptualise structural types of actions", which means to "understand the deed logics or how persons reprove structures are interlinked".

This format can be used to consent an individual's life within tight social context or understand significance cultural phenomena.

Critical issues

There desire many largely unacknowledged pitfalls assortment writing good biographies, and these largely concern the relation among firstly the individual and high-mindedness context, and, secondly, the unconfirmed and public.

Paul James writes:

The problems with such orthodox biographies are manifold. Biographies for the most part treat the public as straighten up reflection of the private, keep an eye on the private realm being implied to be foundational. This problem strange given that biographies instructions most often written about button people who project a persona.

That is, for such subjects the dominant passages of representation presentation of themselves in humdrum life are already formed by means of what might be called spick 'self-biofication' process.

Book awards

Several countries plan an annual prize for scribble a biography such as the:

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links

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