COMMENTS

  1. Biography in Literature: Definition & Examples

    A biography (BYE-og-ruh-fee) is a written account of one person's life authored by another person. A biography includes all pertinent details from the subject's life, typically arranged in a chronological order. The word biography stems from the Latin biographia, which succinctly explains the word's definition: bios = "life" + graphia ...

  2. Biography

    A biography is the non- fiction, written history or account of a person's life. Biographies are intended to give an objective portrayal of a person, written in the third person. Biographers collect information from the subject (if he/she is available), acquaintances of the subject, or in researching other sources such as reference material ...

  3. Biography

    biography, form of literature, commonly considered nonfictional, the subject of which is the life of an individual.One of the oldest forms of literary expression, it seeks to re-create in words the life of a human being—as understood from the historical or personal perspective of the author—by drawing upon all available evidence, including that retained in memory as well as written, oral ...

  4. Biography Examples and Definition

    Definition of Biography. A biography is a description of a real person's life, including factual details as well as stories from the person's life. Biographies usually include information about the subject's personality and motivations, and other kinds of intimate details excluded in a general overview or profile of a person's life.

  5. Biography in literature

    Literary biography. A literary biography is the biographical exploration of individuals' lives merging historical facts with the conventions of narrative. Biographies about artists and writers are sometimes some of the most complicated forms of biography. Not only does the author of the biography have to write about the subject of the biography but also must incorporate discussion of the ...

  6. Biography

    Biography. A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae ( résumé ), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various ...

  7. What Is a Biography?

    A biography is simply the story of a real person's life. It could be about a person who is still alive, someone who lived centuries ago, someone who is globally famous, an unsung hero forgotten by history, or even a unique group of people. The facts of their life, from birth to death (or the present day of the author), are included with life ...

  8. When We Read Fiction, How Relevant Is the Author's Biography?

    Disagreement over the merits of literary biography will likely subside by default, as the form begins to extinguish itself. Even among those who like it, demand is bound to slacken: Novelists ...

  9. Biography definition and example literary device

    Biography is a literary genre that portrays the experiences of all these events occurring in the life of a person, mostly in a chronological order. Unlike a resume or profile, a biography provides a life story of a subject, highlighting different aspects of his of her life. A person who writes biographies, is called as a "biographer.".

  10. Life Writing

    Until the 1970s, "life writing" referred to "a particular branch of textual criticism" that subjected some biographies and autobiographies, and a scattering of letters and diaries, to the same literary-critical scrutiny commonly focused upon poetry, drama, or fiction.

  11. 50 Must-Read Literary Biographies

    Neruda: The Poet's Calling by Mark Eisner. A Biography of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda: "In this part of the story I am the one who. Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you, Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood. —from Pablo Neruda's "I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You".

  12. Top 10 literary biographies

    James Joyce by Richard Ellmann (1959) One of the best modern examples of literary biography, with its artfully chosen detail and narrative arc combining with a close reading of major texts. 3 ...

  13. The Art of Literary Biography

    In this revealing new work seventeen leading critics and professional biographers discuss a broad range of issues, including the relationships between biography and autobiography, the problems genre poses, and the literary biographer at work, together with authors, such as Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, Huxley, Conrad, and Rochester.

  14. Literary Biography

    Literary Biography: An Introduction illustrates and accounts for the literary genre that merges historical facts with the conventions of narrative while revealing how the biographical context can enrich the study of canonical authors. Provides up-to-date and comprehensive coverage of issues and controversies in life writing, a rapidly growing field of study Offers a valuable biographical and ...

  15. Dictionary of Literary Biography

    The Dictionary of Literary Biography is a specialist biographical dictionary dedicated to literature. Published by Gale, the 375-volume set covers a wide variety of literary topics, periods, and genres, with a focus on American and British literature. Purpose and scope. The series editors write that "Our purpose is to make literature and its ...

  16. Literary Biography: An Introduction

    Literary Biography: An Introduction illustrates and accounts for the literary genre that merges historical facts with the conventions of narrative while revealing how the biographical context can enrich the study of canonical authors. Provides up-to-date and comprehensive coverage of issues and controversies in life writing, a rapidly growing field of study Offers a valuable biographical and ...

  17. Why Does Literary Biography Matter?

    Biographies able if we know why we read them and how we plan to use the provide. The biography is there to help us understand the literature, what really matters, not the life itself. The converse is often the. Burrow has recently pointed out, "People are a lot more likely.

  18. 50 Essential Literary Biographies

    Literary biography is a hugely significant, if often overlooked, enterprise. Today, much of what we know about the authors we admire is filtered through an ocean of online mini-biographies, nearly ...

  19. Nonfiction Biography & Autobiography

    Two major forms of literary nonfiction are biography and autobiography. What is the difference between biography and autobiography? •A biography is a life story written by an author about a real ...

  20. The 30 Best Biographies of All Time

    16. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder. This gorgeously constructed biography follows Paul Farmer, a doctor who's worked for decades to eradicate infectious diseases around the globe, particularly in underprivileged areas.

  21. Biographical Dictionaries

    In Gale In Context: Biography (Available to Massachusetts residents via the State Library of Massachusetts) Dictionary of Literary Biography is a huge series of volumes offering biographical-critical essays on authors, including references for interviews, critical writings. Coverage is international, with emphasis on English and American.

  22. Biography Genre Explored

    Biographies may delve into a person's psychology and explore their emotional, intellectual, and spiritual lives. The biography is one of the oldest forms of literature. Since ancient times, writers have recorded the lives of great leaders and warriors. Some early biographies were viewed as a form of historical record, others took on ...

  23. Literature

    literature, a body of written works. The name has traditionally been applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose distinguished by the intentions of their authors and the perceived aesthetic excellence of their execution. Literature may be classified according to a variety of systems, including language, national origin, historical ...

  24. Alice Munro, a Literary Alchemist Who Made Great Fiction From Humble

    It mattered that Munro, who died on Monday night at the age of 92, hailed from rural southwestern Ontario, since so many of her stories, set in small towns on or around Lake Huron, were marked by ...

  25. Professor Brent Hayes Edwards has Won the JJA Book of the Year Award

    Brent Hayes Edwards, the Peng Family Professor of English and Comparative Literature, has won the Jazz Journalist Association's Book of the Year Award about Jazz: Biography or Autobiography for Easily Slip Into Another World: A Life in Music, written with Henry Threadgill (Penguin Random House). Read more information about the award here. ...

  26. Alice Munro, Nobel Prize-winning short-story 'master,' dies at 92

    9 min. 81. Alice Munro, a towering woman of letters for the past half-century whose works of short fiction illuminated the emotional terrain of seemingly ordinary lives, and who was honored at the ...