what is the definition of biography in literature

Literary Devices

Literary devices, terms, and elements, definition of biography, difference between biography and autobiography, common examples of biography, significance of biography in literature.

The genre of biography developed out of other forms of historical nonfiction, choosing to focus on one specific person’s experience rather than all important players. There are examples of biography all the way back to 44 B.C. when Roman biographer Cornelius Nepos wrote Excellentium Imperatorum Vitae (“Lives of those capable of commanding”). The Greek historian Plutarch was also famous for his biographies, creating a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans in his book Parallel Lives . After the printing press was created, one of the first “bestsellers” was the 1550 famous biography Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari. Biography then got very popular in the 18th century with James Boswell’s 1791 publication of The Life of Samuel Johnson . Biography continues to be one of the best selling genres in literature, and has led to a number of literary prizes specifically for this form.

Examples of Biography in Literature

And I can imagine Farmer saying he doesn’t care if no one else is willing to follow their example. He’s still going to make these hikes, he’d insist, because if you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients, you’re saying that their lives matter less than some others’, and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that’s wrong with the world.

Tracy Kidder’s wonderful example of biography, Mountains Beyond Mountains , brought the work of Dr. Paul Farmer to a wider audience. Dr. Farmer cofounded the organization Partners in Health (PIH) in 1987 to provide free treatment to patients in Haiti; the organization later created similar projects in countries such as Russia, Peru, and Rwanda. Dr. Farmer was not necessarily a famous man before Tracy Kidder’s biography was published, though he was well-regarded in his own field. The biography describes Farmer’s work as well as some of his personal life.

On July 2, McCandless finished reading Tolstoy’s “Family Happiness”, having marked several passages that moved him: “He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others…” Then, on July 3, he shouldered his backpack and began the twenty-mile hike to the improved road. Two days later, halfway there, he arrived in heavy rain at the beaver ponds that blocked access to the west bank of the Teklanika River. In April they’d been frozen over and hadn’t presented an obstacle. Now he must have been alarmed to find a three-acre lake covering the trail.

A commanding woman versed in politics, diplomacy, and governance; fluent in nine languages; silver-tongued and charismatic, Cleopatra nonetheless seems the joint creation of Roman propagandists and Hollywood directors.

Stacy Schiff wrote a new biography of Cleopatra in 2010 in order to divide fact from fiction, and go back to the amazing and intriguing personality of the woman herself. The biography was very well received for being both scrupulously referenced as well as highly literary and imaginative.

Confident that he was clever, resourceful, and bold enough to escape any predicament, [Louie] was almost incapable of discouragement. When history carried him into war, this resilient optimism would define him.

( Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand)

I remember sitting in his backyard in his garden, one day, and he started talking about God. He [Jobs] said, “ Sometimes I believe in God, sometimes I don’t. I think it’s 50/50, maybe. But ever since I’ve had cancer, I’ve been thinking about it more, and I find myself believing a bit more, maybe it’s because I want to believe in an afterlife, that when you die, it doesn’t just all disappear. The wisdom you’ve accumulated, somehow it lives on.”

Test Your Knowledge of Biography

2. Which of the following scenarios qualifies as a biography? A. A famous person contracts a ghostwriter to create an autobiography. B. A famous author writes the true and incredible life story of a little known person. C. A writer creates a book detailing the most important moments in her own life. [spoiler title=”Answer to Question #2″] Answer: B is the correct answer.[/spoiler]

3. Which of the following statements is true? A. Biographies are one of the best selling genres in contemporary literature. B. Biographies are always written about famous people. C. Biographies were first written in the 18th century. [spoiler title=”Answer to Question #3″] Answer: A is the correct answer.[/spoiler]

What Is A Biography? Examples In Literature

Definition of biography.

A biography tells someone’s life story by researching things like documents, records and interviewing people who knew them. The writer is called the biographer and the person whose life they are writing about is called the subject. The main goal is to share what the subject experienced and achieved. It also helps the readers to understand who they were by learning about their personality, experiences and impact on others.

Most biographies follow the order of the subject’s life. It talks about when they were born, grew up, got educated, important people in their life and how their life changed over the time. It explains key events and what influenced who they became. In addition to facts, biographies analyze how history affected the subject and try to understand their character, reasons for things, beliefs and legacy. It looks at the importance of their life.

Common Examples of Biography Subjects

Here are some common examples of subjects that biographies have been written about:

Politicians: Barack Obama and Winston Churchill
Business leaders: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates
Athletes: Michael Jordan and Serena Williams
Entertainers: Oprah Winfrey and Elvis Presley
Writers: J.K. Rowling and Ernest Hemingway
Activists: Martin Luther King Jr. and Susan B. Anthony
Scientists: Albert Einstein and Marie Curie
Historical figures: Abraham Lincoln and Cleopatra

Famous Biographical Works

Here are some famous and influential examples of biographical works:

The Lives of the Caesars (117 AD) by Suetonius – A landmark work of biographical history on the Roman emperors.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) – The civil rights leader’s powerful personal account of his radicalization.
Truman (1992) by David McCullough – A Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of the US president.
Becoming (2018) by Michelle Obama – The former First Lady’s chart-topping memoir.
Steve Jobs (2011) by Walter Isaacson – The bestselling biography of the Apple co-founder based on unprecedented access.
Becoming (2018) by Michelle Obama – The former First Lady’s memoir broke sales records.
Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels (2011-2015) – This series of semi-autobiographical novels offers rich portraits of two friends growing up in mid-20th century Naples.
Born a Crime (2016) by Trevor Noah – The comedian’s funny yet moving memoir about growing up mixed-race in apartheid South Africa.
Me (2018) by Elton John – The music icon’s candid autobiography was a bestseller.
The Undocumented Americans (2020) by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio – Essays profiling immigrants living without documentation in the US.
Caste (2020) by Isabel Wilkerson – A groundbreaking work comparing the US racial hierarchy to caste systems around the world.
Entangled Life (2020) by Merlin Sheldrake – A unique biography of fungi and their profound role in nature and human civilization.
The Anthropic Podcast – Interviews with AI safety researchers, conducted to document the development of advanced AI.
The Code Breaker (2021) by Walter Isaacson – A biography of Nobel Prize-winning DNA pioneer Jennifer Doudna.

Difference between Biography, Autobiography and Memoir

Here are the main differences between biography, autobiography, and memoir:

Biography: It is written about another person by someone else (the biographer). In biography, the research methods like interviews, archives etc. have been used to study the subject’s life. It aims to give an objective account of the subject’s life and impact from a third-person perspective.

Autobiography: It is written by the subject about their own life. Autobiography retells events from the first-person perspective of the author. It follows a chronological narrative of the author’s life experiences.

Memoir: It is written by the subject about their own life experiences. Memoir typically focuses on a specific period, theme, or important event rather than a comprehensive life story. More subjective and reflective than autobiography, emphasizing personal insights and emotions.

Other differences:

Biographies require research approval from publishers, autobiographies/memoirs do not.
Biographies aim for objectivity while autobiographies/memoirs embrace subjectivity.
Memoirs have more flexibility in structure than strict chronology of autobiographies.
Biographies are often written after the subject’s death while autobiographies/memoirs are written during the author’s lifetime.

Examples of Biography in Literature

“pride and prejudice” by jane austen.

Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley. He had always intended to visit him, though to the last always assuring his wife that he should not go; and till the evening after the visit was paid she had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the following manner. Observing his second daughter employed in trimming a hat, he suddenly addressed her with:

‘I hope Mr. Bingley will like it, Lizzy.’ ‘We are not in a way to know what Mr. Bingley likes,’ said her mother resentfully, ‘since we are not to visit.’ ‘But you forget, mama,’ said Elizabeth, ‘that we shall meet him at the assemblies, and that Mrs. Long promised to introduce him.’ ‘I do not believe Mrs. Long will do any such thing. She has two nieces of her own. She is a selfish, hypocritical woman, and I have no opinion of her.’ ‘No more have I,’ said Mr. Bennet; ‘and I am glad to find that you do not depend on her serving you.’ Mrs. Bennet deigned not to make any reply, but, unable to contain herself, began scolding one of her daughters.”

In the aforesaid excerpt, Austen introduces Mr. Bennet’s character and family dynamics through his witty remarks and the reactions of his wife. This brief scene provides insight into both Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet as individuals through their discussion revealing aspects of their personalities and marriage. It serves as an example of how biography can be subtly woven into fiction to immerse the reader in the world and relationships of the characters.

“Great Expectations” by Charles Dicken

“My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbours because she had brought me up ‘by hand.’ Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand.”

This passage introduces Pip and provides biographical details about his upbringing by his sister Mrs. Joe Gargery through his first-person narration.

“Emma” by Jane Austen

“Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.”

This brief paragraph at the start of the novel establishes the protagonist Emma Woodhouse’s biography and character through a succinct third-person description of her privileged circumstances and pleasant disposition.

“War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy

“Prince Andrew Bolkonsky received a letter from his sister, the lovely Princess Mary, whom two years ago—in 1809—he had left in Moscow and had not seen again since. She wrote…”

This brief passage introduces Prince Andrew and provides context about his relationship and separation from his sister Princess Mary giving biographical details that set the stage for their storyline.

“David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens

“I was born in Blunderstone, in Suffolk, or ‘thereby,’ as they say in Scotland. I was a posthumous child. My father’s name was Copperfield; he was a twelfth cousin of Anthropic, and not anything like him.”

Through the first-person narration of David Copperfield, this excerpt establishes biographical facts about his birthplace, parentage and family connections in a lively engaging manner typical of Dickens’ prose.

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.'”

This opening passage immediately establishes biographical context about the narrator Nick Carraway and his relationship with his father providing insight into Nick’s upbringing and perspective.

“Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself. For Lucy had her work cut out for her. The doors would be taken off their hinges; Rumpelmayer’s men were coming. And then, thought Clarissa Dalloway, what a morning – fresh as if issued to children on a beach.”

These first lines subtly introduce Clarissa Dalloway and provide biographical clues about her social class and lifestyle through references to her household staff and high-end florist.

What Is A Biography? Some Examples In Literature

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Biography meaning

The word 'biography' is a combination of the Greek words 'bios', which means 'life', and ' graphia', which refers to 'writing'. Simply stated, this means that a biography is a written account of someone else's life.

Biography: a detailed written account of a real person's life authored by a different person.

The subject of the biography, that is, the person whose life the biography is describing could be a historical figure, a celebrity, a politician, an athlete or even an ordinary person with a life full of stories worth telling.

A biography is a factual recording of a person's life from their birth to death (or the time that the biography is being written). It contains detailed descriptions of the person's childhood, education, relationships, career and any other key touchstone moments that defined that person's life. Hence, a biography is a non-fictiona l form of writing.

Non-fiction : Literature that is based on real-life events and facts, rather than imagination.

The first-ever biographies can be traced back to Ancient Greece and Rome, where people celebrated gods as well as notable men by writing about their personalities and life's accomplishments. Plutarch's Parallel Lives , published about 80 A.D, is the earliest ever recorded biographic work written solely about humans. In this work, Greeks are paired with Romans and are held up against each other and compared, with one being a good example to follow whilst the other's life serves as a cautionary tale

Biography Parallel Lives Plutarch StudySmarter

Difference between biography and autobiography

A biography is a written account of a person's life written by someone else. In this case, the subject, that is, the person the biography is written about is NOT the author or the narrator of the biography. Usually, the author and narrator of a biography, also known as the biographer, is someone who takes a great deal of interest in the subject's life.

A biography is usually written in a third-person narrative voice. This distance from the subject and their experiences allow the biographer to view the subject's experiences in the larger context of their life by comparing them to other experiences or analysing the impact of certain experiences on the subject's personality and life.

Now that we know what a biography is, what is an autobiography? The hint lies in the word 'auto', which is a Greek word meaning 'self'. That's right! An autobiography is a self-written biography.

Autobiography: a written account of a person's life, written by the person themselves.

In an autobiography, the subject of the biography and the author are the same person. Hence, an autobiography is usually when the author is narrating their own life story, in the way they experienced it themselves. They are written in first-person perspective.

Here is a table summarising the difference between a biography and an autobiography:

Features of a biography

Although every biography is different in the sense that its content is unique to the life of its subject, all biographies have several building blocks.

The success of a biography is largely dependent on its subject.

While choosing a subject, biographers must consider why this person's story would be of interest to the reader. Perhaps this person was extremely successful, or perhaps they discovered something new? Maybe they've had experiences that are unique or faced struggles and conquered them in a way that is inspiring and motivational. Biographies are all about making the mundane and everyday sound interesting and new.

While reading a biography, readers should get the sense that they are reliving the life of their subject. This requires a great deal of detail and accuracy from the biographer, who must gather enough information on their subject to paint a complete picture of their life.

Biographers most often use primary sources such as interviews with the subject and their family and friends to provide first-hand accounts of the subject's life. However, in cases where the subject is dead, the biographer may use their diary, memoirs, or even secondary sources such as news stories and articles about them.

Key background information

The most essential part of research for a biographer is gathering all the key background information about their subject. This includes the following factual details about their subject:

The date and place of their birth
Their family history
Their language, culture and traditions
Key stages in their education and career
Knowledge and history about the various settings in the biography- the subject's birthplace, home, school, office etc.
Relationships with other people (and relevant details about these people)

Most biographies begin with a description of the subject's early life, which includes their childhood and early education, their upbringing, stories about their parents and siblings and their familial traditions and values. This is because the early developmental stages of a subject's life usually play a significant role in shaping later events in their life, their personality and worldview.

Professional life

Just as important as it is to share the subject's early life, biographers place special emphasis on their subject's career. This is because this is the part where the subject's contribution to the world is discussed. This could serve as a major inspiration for people who are building a career in the same field, as readers could gain insight into the subject's motivations, secrets, successes and losses throughout their professional journey.

Typically, biographies follow a chronological order where they begin with the subject's birth and end with either their death or the present time. However, flashbacks are often used to show connectivity between the subject's early experiences and adulthood.

A biographer is not only responsible for presenting a factual recording of events in their subject's life but is also responsible for adding life to these moments by elaborating on the person's experiences and intimate thoughts and feelings during these moments. The best biographers are able to recreate their subject's life in the way that that person lived it.

Oftentimes, the biographer even provides their own opinions on the events they are detailing in the biography, perhaps to explain how these moments were significant to the subject and should be of significance to the reader.

Usually, a biography carries with it an important life lesson that it imparts to its reader. Biographies, where the subject has encountered several hardships, may advise the reader on how to overcome adversity and deal with failure. Biographies of successes can teach the reader how to achieve their goals and may become a source of inspiration and motivation for them.

Biography format

While all biographies work to present the life of real people, biographers can follow different formats while writing them. A few important ones have been discussed below.

Modern biography

A modern or ' standard' biography details the life span of someone who is still alive or who passed away very recently. Usually, it is done with the permission of the subject or their family.

Journalist Kitty Kelley published His Way (1983), a highly detailed biography on the American singer and actor Frank Sinatra. However, this biography was unauthorised by Sinatra, who tried to stop its publication but failed. The biography consists of government documents, wiretaps, and interviews with Sinatra's colleagues, family and friends and was considered extremely revealing and controversial.

Historical biography

Historical biographies are written on historical figures who have passed away and seek to highlight their life and contributions during the time in which they were alive. Sometimes they provide a look into the personal lives of famous historical figures or even shine the spotlight on people who were not recognised for their contributions.

Alexander Hamilton (2004) by Ron Chernow is a famous example of a historical biography written about Alexander Hamilton, one of the revolutionary founding fathers of the United States. The biography details Hamilton's contribution to America's birth by painting him as a patriot who made countless sacrifices to lay the foundations of a prosperous and powerful country.

In fact, no immigrant in American history has ever made a larger contribution than Alexander Hamilton.

- Ron Chernow

Critical biography

Critical biographies usually tend not to focus as much on the personality or personal life of their subjects but are centred around their professional work, which is evaluated and discussed in the biography. In case matters where the subject's personal life has intervened in their work, these are then addressed as inspirations or motivations behind their work. These biographies usually contain less description and storytelling from the biographer. Instead, the biographer's skill is required in selecting, labelling, and arranging all the work created by their subject.

In 1948, Doughlas Southall Freeman won his second Pulitzer Prize for publishing the most comprehensive biography of George Washington (1948-57). The entire biographic series consists of seven well-researched volumes, each containing objective facts on George Washington's entire life span.

As discussed before, this is a self-written biography where the author narrates stories from their own life. The autobiographer is the subject and the author of the biography.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) is the first edition of a seven-volume autobiographical series written by Maya Angelou . It details her early life in Arkansas and her traumatic childhood, where she was subjected to sexual assault and racism. The autobiography then takes us through each of her multiple careers as a poet, teacher, actress, director, dancer, and activist and the injustices and prejudices she faces along the way as a black woman in America.

Biography Maya Angelou Autobiography StudySmarter

Fig. 2 - Maya Angelou, the author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

Fictional biography

Yes, you heard that right! There are some instances where writers incorporate fictional devices in biographies to create biographies that are more entertaining rather than informative. W riters of this style may weave in imagined conversations, characters and events in their biographies. Sometimes, writers may even base an entire biography on a fictional character!

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (2013) is a fictionalised biography where writer Theresa Anne Fowler imagines the life of Zelda Fitzgerald and F. Scott Fitzgerald from the perspective of Zelda herself and details the glamourous yet turbulent married life of the couple that defined the Jazz Age (1920s) .

Biography examples

Biographies can seem extremely tedious and uninteresting to those who enjoy fictional writing. However, here are a few notable examples of biographies that employ creative storytelling techniques to both inspire and entertain their readers.

Steve Jobs (2011) by Walter Isaacson

This is one of the most classic examples of a well-researched and written biography. This biography by renowned biographer Walter Isaacson is based on more than 40 interviews over two years with Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, alongside other first-hand accounts provided by Jobs' family, friends, colleagues and even competitors. The biography takes readers through Jobs' creative journey and passion for technology and provides inspiring lessons on entrepreneurship, innovation, leadership and success.

Biography Steve Jobs Biography Examples StudySmarter

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010) by Rebecca Skloot

This biography is the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor black woman whose cells were taken for medical research in 1951 without her consent. Lacks' cervical cancer cells were later discovered to be an immortal cell line that could be used to study the effects of poisons, drugs, hormones and viruses on cancer cells without human trials.

This biography honours Henrietta's contribution to science and serves as an example of how literary works can start a discussion on ethical issues regarding race and class in medical research.

Christopher Johnson McCandless disappeared in 1922 while hitchhiking in Alaska. Later, his dead body was found in an abandoned bus on the same hiking trail with no obvious cause of death. So a year later, biographer Jon Krakauer retraced McCandless' steps by going through anecdotes from his journal and pictures in his camera to hypothesise what led McCandless to undertake such a dangerous journey that ultimately resulted in death. Through the course of the biography, Krakauer realises the many parallels between McCandless' personality and childhood experiences and his own. The biography discusses the struggles of finding oneself whilst being accepted into society.

Biography - Key takeaways

A biography is a detailed written account of a real person's life authored by a different person.
A biography is a written account of someone's life by someone else, whereas an autobiography is a self-written account of one's own life story.
Into the Wild (1996) by Jon Krakauer
Alexander Hamilton (2004) by Ron Cherno
Fig. 1 - Public domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plutarch%27s_Lives.jpg
Fig. 2 - Public Domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Angelou_at_Clinton_inauguration_(cropped_2).jpg
Fig. 3 - Public domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Steve_Jobs_and_Macintosh_computer,_January_1984,_by_Bernard_Gotfryd-_border_cropped.jpg

Flashcards in Biography 5

Fictional biography

Walter Isaacson

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010) by Rebecca Skloot

Critical biography

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Frequently Asked Questions about Biography

What is a biography?

A biography is a detailed written account of a real person's life authored by a different person.

What is in a biography?

A biography usually contains factual recordings of a person's life from their birth to death (or the time that the biography is being written). It contains detailed descriptions of the person's childhood, education, relationships, career and any other key touchstone moments that defined that person's life.

What are the features of a biography?

These are the features that make a biography:

Examples of biographies?

A few notable examples of biographies are:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010) by Rebecca Skloot
Alexander Hamilton (2004) by Ron Chernow

What is the difference between an autobiography and a biography?

A biography is a written account of someone's life by someone else, whereas an autobiography is a self-written account of one's own life story.

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Definition of Biography

A biography is simply an account or detailed description about the life of a person. It entails basic facts, such as childhood, education, career, relationships, family, and death. 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.”

Types of Biography

There are three types of biography:

Autobiography

An autobiography tells the story of a person’s own life. While that person writes his own account, he or she may take guidance from a ghostwriter or collaborator.

A biography narrates the life story of a person, as written by another person or writer. It is further divided into five categories:

Popular biography
Historical biography
Literary biography
Reference biography
Fictional biography

This is a more focused writing than an autobiography or a biography. In a memoir , a writer narrates the details of a particular event or situation that occurred in his or her lifetime.

Examples of Biography in Literature

Example #1: shakespeare: a life (by park honan).

This biography is the most accurate, up-to-date, and complete narrative ever written about the life of William Shakespeare. Park Honan has used rich and fresh information about Shakespeare in order to change the perceptions of readers for the playwright, and his role as a poet and actor.

This book completely differs from other biographies that imagine different roles for him, commenting on his sexual relationships and colorful intrigues. Though detailed psychological theories and imaginative reforms about the famous playwright could be amusing, in fact, they damage the credibility of the sources. Therefore, many attempts have been made to know about Shakespeare, but this one is a unique example.

Example #2: Arthur Miller: Attention Must Be Paid (By James Campbell)

This biography is written in the form of a drama , presented in just two acts. In the first act, the author shows the famous dramatist, Arthur Miller, in his early success, having the love of the most beloved woman in the world, and resisting tyranny. However, in the second act of this biography, the author shows that the hero was badly assaulted and ridiculed by a rowdy mob called critics, who are expelled from the conventional theater. He ends his book with rhetorical details related to a revitalization in the fortunes of the playwright.

Example #3: The Life of Samuel Johnson (By James Boswell)

This biography is frequently hyped as a perfect example of modern biography, and all-time best example in the English language. This masterpiece of James Boswell has covered the whole life of the ubiquitous literary writer Samuel Johnson, with whom Boswell was well-acquainted. The unique quality of this book is that it shows Johnson as a walking intellectual amongst us.

Example #4: The Bronte Myth (By Lucasta Miller)

Emily, Anne, and Charlotte Bronte were very famous and eminent writers in the history of English literature. Many rumors and gossips were associated with them when they reached the peaks of their careers and received great approval for writing the most admired novels of the nineteenth century. In their biography, Lucasta Miller chunks the myths related to these young enigmatic women. This is a fine example of a biography.

Example #5: Why this World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector (By Benjamin Moser)

After perusing his own private manuscripts and writings, this modernist writer, Benjamin Moser, has explored the mystique surrounding Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. This is one of Moser’s biographies, which comes a little closer to finding her true nuances. All those readers who are going to read her myriad of works for the first time would find this biography interesting, and her life as beautiful and tragic, yet riveting.

Function of Biography

The function of writing biographies is to provide details regarding the life of a person or a thing in an entertaining but informative manner. By the end of a biography, readers feel like they are well-acquainted with the subject. Biographies are often non-fictional, but many biographers also use novel-like format, because a story line would be more entertaining with the inclusion of strong exposition , rising conflict , and then climax . Besides, the most inspirational life stories could motivate and put confidence into the readers.

What Is a Biography?

Learning from the experiences of others is what makes us human.

At the core of every biography is the story of someone’s humanity. While biographies come in many sub-genres, the one thing they all have in common is loyalty to the facts, as they’re available at the time. Here’s how we define biography, a look at its origins, and some popular types.

“Biography” Definition

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-changing moments often taking center stage. The author usually points to the subject’s childhood, coming-of-age events, relationships, failures, and successes in order to create a well-rounded description of her subject.

Biographies require a great deal of research. Sources of information could be as direct as an interview with the subject providing their own interpretation of their life’s events. When writing about people who are no longer with us, biographers look for primary sources left behind by the subject and, if possible, interviews with friends or family. Historical biographers may also include accounts from other experts who have studied their subject.

The biographer’s ultimate goal is to recreate the world their subject lived in and describe how they functioned within it. Did they change their world? Did their world change them? Did they transcend the time in which they lived? Why or why not? And how? These universal life lessons are what make biographies such a meaningful read.

Origins of the Biography

Greco-Roman literature honored the gods as well as notable mortals. Whether winning or losing, their behaviors were to be copied or seen as cautionary tales. One of the earliest examples written exclusively about humans is Plutarch’s Parallel Lives (probably early 2 nd century AD). It’s a collection of biographies in which a pair of men, one Greek and one Roman, are compared and held up as either a good or bad example to follow.

In the Middle Ages, Einhard’s The Life of Charlemagne (around 817 AD) stands out as one of the most famous biographies of its day. Einhard clearly fawns over Charlemagne’s accomplishments throughout, yet it doesn’t diminish the value this biography has brought to centuries of historians since its writing.

Considered the earliest modern biography, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) by James Boswell looks like the biographies we know today. Boswell conducted interviews, performed years of research, and created a compelling narrative of his subject.

The genre evolves as the 20th century arrives, and with it the first World War. The 1920s saw a boom in autobiographies in response. Robert Graves’ Good-Bye to All That (1929) is a coming-of age story set amid the absurdity of war and its aftermath. That same year, Mahatma Gandhi wrote The Story of My Experiments with Truth , recalling how the events of his life led him to develop his theories of nonviolent rebellion. In this time, celebrity tell-alls also emerged as a popular form of entertainment. With the horrors of World War II and the explosion of the civil rights movement, American biographers of the late 20 th century had much to archive. Instantly hailed as some of the best writing about the war, John Hersey’s Hiroshima (1946) tells the stories of six people who lived through those world-altering days. Alex Haley wrote the as-told-to The Autobiography of Malcom X (1965). Yet with biographies, the more things change, the more they stay the same. One theme that persists is a biographer’s desire to cast its subject in an updated light, as in Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair that Shaped a First Lady by Susan Quinn (2016).

Types of Biographies

Contemporary Biography: Authorized or Unauthorized

The typical modern biography tells the life of someone still alive, or who has recently passed. Sometimes these are authorized — written with permission or input from the subject or their family — like Dave Itzkoff’s intimate look at the life and career of Robin Williams, Robin . Unauthorized biographies of living people run the risk of being controversial. Kitty Kelley’s infamous His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra so angered Sinatra, he tried to prevent its publication.

Historical Biography

The wild success of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton is proof that our interest in historical biography is as strong as ever. Miranda was inspired to write the musical after reading Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton , an epic 800+ page biography intended to cement Hamilton’s status as a great American. Paula Gunn Allen also sets the record straight on another misunderstood historical figure with Pocahontas: Medicine Woman, Spy, Entrepreneur, Diplomat , revealing details about her tribe, her family, and her relationship with John Smith that are usually missing from other accounts. Historical biographies also give the spotlight to people who died without ever getting the recognition they deserved, such as The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks .

Biography of a Group

When a group of people share unique characteristics, they can be the topic of a collective biography. The earliest example of this is Captain Charles Johnson’s A General History of the Pirates (1724), which catalogs the lives of notorious pirates and establishes the popular culture images we still associate with them. Smaller groups are also deserving of a biography, as seen in David Hajdu’s Positively 4th Street , a mesmerizing behind-the-scenes look at the early years of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mimi Baez Fariña, and Richard Fariña as they establish the folk scene in New York City. Likewise, British royal family fashion is a vehicle for telling the life stories of four iconic royals – Queen Elizabeth II, Diana, Kate, and Meghan – in HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style by style journalist Elizabeth Holmes.

Autobiography

This type of biography is written about one’s self, spanning an entire life up to the point of its writing. One of the earliest autobiographies is Saint Augustine’s The Confessions (400), in which his own experiences from childhood through his religious conversion are told in order to create a sweeping guide to life. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is the first of six autobiographies that share all the pain of her childhood and the long road that led to her work in the civil rights movement, and a beloved, prize-winning writer.

Memoirs are a type of autobiography, written about a specific but vital aspect of one’s life. In Toil & Trouble , Augusten Burroughs explains how he has lived his life as a witch. Mikel Jollett’s Hollywood Park recounts his early years spent in a cult, his family’s escape, and his rise to success with his band, The Airborne Toxic Event. Barack Obama’s first presidential memoir, A Promised Land , charts his path into politics and takes a deep dive into his first four years in office.

Fictional Biography

Fictional biographies are no substitute for a painstakingly researched scholarly biography, but they’re definitely meant to be more entertaining. Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler constructs Zelda and F. Scott’s wild, Jazz-Age life, told from Zelda’s point of view. The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict brings readers into the secret life of Hollywood actress and wartime scientist, Hedy Lamarr. These imagined biographies, while often whimsical, still respect the form in that they depend heavily on facts when creating setting, plot, and characters.

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Definition of Biography A biography is genuinely an account or particular description about the existence of a person. It entails primary facts, along with childhood, education, career, relationships, family, and death. Biography is a literary genre that portrays the reports of most of these occasions occurring inside the existence of someone, commonly in a chronological order. Unlike a resume or profile, a biography presents a lifestyles story of a subject, highlighting one of a kind components of his of her life. A individual who writes biographies, is known as as a “biographer.” Types of Biography There are three styles of biography: Autobiography An autobiography tells the tale of someone’s own existence. While that individual writes his own account, she or he may additionally take guidance from a ghostwriter or collaborator. Biography A biography narrates the existence tale of someone, as written with the aid of another man or woman or writer. It is in addition divided into five categories: Popular biography Historical biography Literary biography Reference biography Fictional biography Memoir This is a more focused writing than an autobiography or a biography. In a memoir, a creator narrates the info of a particular occasion or situation that happened in his or her lifetime. Examples of Biography in Literature Example #1: Shakespeare: A Life (By Park Honan) This biography is the maximum accurate, up-to-date, and entire narrative ever written approximately the existence of William Shakespeare. Park Honan has used wealthy and fresh data approximately Shakespeare that allows you to change the perceptions of readers for the playwright, and his function as a poet and actor. This e book absolutely differs from other biographies that imagine unique roles for him, commenting on his sexual relationships and colorful intrigues. Though precise psychological theories and imaginitive reforms about the well-known playwright might be amusing, in fact, they damage the credibility of the sources. Therefore, many attempts were made to recognise about Shakespeare, however this one is a completely unique instance. Example #2: Arthur Miller: Attention Must Be Paid (By James Campbell) This biography is written in the shape of a drama, presented in only two acts. In the first act, the author indicates the well-known dramatist, Arthur Miller, in his early success, having the love of the maximum beloved lady in the world, and resisting tyranny. However, inside the second act of this biography, the author indicates that the hero was badly assaulted and ridiculed through a rowdy mob called critics, who are expelled from the conventional theater. He ends his book with rhetorical information associated with a revitalization within the fortunes of the playwright. Example #3: The Life of Samuel Johnson (By James Boswell) This biography is frequently hyped as a perfect example of cutting-edge biography, and all-time exceptional instance in the English language. This masterpiece of James Boswell has included the complete existence of the ever present literary author Samuel Johnson, with whom Boswell turned into well-acquainted. The unique satisfactory of this book is that it suggests Johnson as a taking walks highbrow amongst us. Example #4: The Bronte Myth (By Lucasta Miller) Emily, Anne, and Charlotte Bronte had been very well-known and eminent writers within the history of English literature. Many rumors and gossips have been associated with them once they reached the peaks in their careers and received amazing popularity of writing the maximum popular novels of the nineteenth century. In their biography, Lucasta Miller chunks the myths related to these younger enigmatic women. This is a best example of a biography. Example #5: Why this World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector (By Benjamin Moser) After perusing his personal personal manuscripts and writings, this modernist author, Benjamin Moser, has explored the mystique surrounding Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. This is one of Moser’s biographies, which comes a little towards finding her real nuances. All those readers who are going to examine her myriad of works for the first time could locate this biography interesting, and her existence as lovely and tragic, but riveting. Function of Biography The function of writing biographies is to provide information concerning the life of a person or a component in an interesting but informative manner. By the stop of a biography, readers feel like they're well-familiar with the subject. Biographies are regularly non-fictional, however many biographers also use novel-like format, due to the fact a tale line could be greater pleasing with the inclusion of sturdy exposition, rising conflict, after which climax. Besides, the most inspirational existence testimonies could motivate and put confidence into the readers.

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Biographies: The Stories of Humanity

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A biography is a story of a person's life, written by another author. The writer of a biography is called a biographer while the person written about is known as the subject or biographee.

Biographies usually take the form of a narrative , proceeding chronologically through the stages of a person's life. American author Cynthia Ozick notes in her essay "Justice (Again) to Edith Wharton" that a good biography is like a novel, wherein it believes in the idea of a life as "a triumphal or tragic story with a shape, a story that begins at birth, moves on to a middle part, and ends with the death of the protagonist."

A biographical essay is a comparatively short work of nonfiction about certain aspects of a person's life. By necessity, this sort of essay is much more selective than a full-length biography, usually focusing only on key experiences and events in the subject's life.

Between History and Fiction

Perhaps because of this novel-like form, biographies fit squarely between written history and fiction, wherein the author often uses personal flairs and must invent details "filling in the gaps" of the story of a person's life that can't be gleaned from first-hand or available documentation like home movies, photographs, and written accounts.

Some critics of the form argue it does a disservice to both history and fiction, going so far as to call them "unwanted offspring, which has brought a great embarrassment to them both," as Michael Holroyd puts it in his book "Works on Paper: The Craft of Biography and Autobiography." Nabokov even called biographers "psycho-plagiarists," meaning that they steal the psychology of a person and transcribe it to the written form.

Biographies are distinct from creative non-fiction such as memoir in that biographies are specifically about one person's full life story -- from birth to death -- while creative non-fiction is allowed to focus on a variety of subjects, or in the case of memoirs certain aspects of an individual's life.

Writing a Biography

For writers who want to pen another person's life story, there are a few ways to spot potential weaknesses, starting with making sure proper and ample research has been conducted -- pulling resources such as newspaper clippings, other academic publications, and recovered documents and found footage.

First and foremost, it is the duty of biographers to avoid misrepresenting the subject as well as acknowledging the research sources they used. Writers should, therefore, avoid presenting a personal bias for or against the subject as being objective is key to conveying the person's life story in full detail.

Perhaps because of this, John F. Parker observes in his essay "Writing: Process to Product" that some people find writing a biographical essay "easier than writing an autobiographical essay. Often it takes less effort to write about others than to reveal ourselves." In other words, in order to tell the full story, even the bad decisions and scandals have to make the page in order to truly be authentic.

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by-og-ruh-fe

A biography is an account or description of a person’s life, literary, fictional, historical, or popular in nature, written by a biographer.

E.g. In the poignant biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, the author delves into the complex life of the Apple co-founder, unraveling the intricacies of his visionary mind and creative genius.

Related terms: Dialogue , first person point of view , irony , critique

Depending on the biography, it can consist of simple, direct facts such as those anyone can get access to. This would include information about a person’s birth, family, and family history. There would also be information about a person’s education, friendships, and defining life events and relationships. Other biographies focus on one period of a person’s life, usually one that was particularly important in the wider history of their life.

If a writer has special access to the person they’re writing about, information about that person, or contacts that knew that person, one biography might be more personal and intimate than another.

All the information in a biography is usually conveyed in chronological order. Although it is not unusual for the book to start with an important moment and then go back in time, tracing the person’s important life events.

Types of Biographies

There are several different kinds of biographies that fall under the larger category of “biography”. These include historical biography, fictional, literary, reference, and popular. Fictional biography is one of the most creative. It tells the story of a fictional character as if they were a real person. Examples include The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov and Nate Tate by William Boyd.

Examples of Biographies

Example #1 orlando by virginia woolf.

This book is one of the best examples of fictional biography. It was published in October of 1928 and tells the story of a poet who changes sex from a man to a woman and lives a lifetime over centuries.

Example #2 Alice Walker: A Life by Evelyn C. White

Alice Walker: A Life is a wonderful example of a traditional literary biography. It traces the life and accomplishments of the activist and author of The Color Purple Alice Walker.

Autobiography

An autobiography is the largest of the categories. This is is the story of someone’s life written by the person who lived it. Sometimes the writer will need assistance from a ghostwriter, or a professional writer who helps them get the writing in order while they provide the information. There are many different kinds of autobiographies . Some, such as David Copperfield by Charles Dickens are semi-autobiographical or include characters and events that closely mirror the events of a writer’s life.

Example of an Autobiography

The diary of a young girls by anne frank.

This slightly unusual autobiography is a compilation of personal writings from the young Anne Frank in Dutch. It was written during the period that Anne and her family were in hiding for two years during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. While she died in 1945 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, her diary was retried and published. It has since been translated into more than 60 languages.

Example of a Semi-Autobiographical Novel: Burmese Days by George Orwell

In this book, Orwell takes a look at his life through the story of a fictional character in a very real place that the writer knew well. It is set in 1920s British Burma and follows John Flory. The novel was inspired by the time that Orwell spent in the Indian Imperial Police in the same region, between 1922 and 1927.

A memoir is similar to an autobiography as it is written by the person whose life it is about. But, a memoir focuses on memories rather than life facts. it might take a narrower view, focusing only on one period of time with a particular intent.

Example of a Memoir

Dreams from my father by barack obama.

This famous memoir was published in 1995 long before Obama became president of the United Staes or even before he was elected to the Illinois senate. He recounts his upbringing and how it set him apart from his contemporaries.

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What is a Biography? Definition, Elements, and More

what is the definition of biography in literature

Have you found yourself browsing the biography section of your favorite library or bookstore and wondered what is a biography book ?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! Plenty of people wonder “What is a biography vs autobiography?” or “What is a biography vs memoir?” And today we are here to set the record straight.

In this brief guide to what a biography is, we’ll explore the definition of a biography, along with its purpose, how you might write one yourself, and more. Let’s get started.

Need A Nonfiction Book Outline?

In this article, we’ll explore:

What is a biography of a person .

What is a biography? A biography is what we call the written account of someone’s life. It is written by someone other than whom the book is about. For example, an author named Walter Isaacson has written biographies on Steve Jobs , Leonardo da Vinci , and Einstein .

A biography is what focuses on the significant events that occurred in a person’s life, along with their achievements, challenges they’ve overcome, background, relationships, and more.

They’re an excellent way to get a comprehensive understanding of someone you admire.

So now you understand what a biography is, but what is the point of a biographical story?

What is the point of a biography?

Biographies have a few purposes. They can serve as historical records about a notable figure, inspire and educate readers, and give us more insight into how the folks we’re interested in lived their lives.

And, if you are studying a notable figure, like Einstein, a biography is what you will use as a research resource !

Does a biography cover someone’s entire life?

Biographies typically encompass most of a person’s life. Obviously, if the subject of the book is still alive, their entire life cannot be written about.

If the person lived a long and eventful life with many achievements, the author may cover only an especially noteworthy period of the subject’s life.

Even so, the point of a biography is to learn about your subject beyond just what they achieved, so there will likely still be contextual information about the subject’s childhood, formative experiences, and more.

Is a biography always nonfiction?

Surprisingly, a biography is not always nonfiction . There is a genre called biographical fiction in which the author uses real-life people and events to inspire their fictional narrative .

This genre is fun because the author can postulate about what their subject may have been thinking, feeling, and more in a way they may not be able to with a nonfiction biography.

Just keep in mind that biographical fiction blends facts with made-up information, so it can’t be used as a primary research source. That said, it’s a fun supplement to learning about a figure you’re interested in, and can help generate curiosity and insights about their lives.

If you’d like to read a biographical fiction book, check out books like:

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin

Biography vs autobiography

What is a biography vs autobiography? Well, a biography is written about another person . An autobiography is when the writer writes about their own life. So Becoming by Michelle Obama would be an autobiography, not a biography. It’s only a biography if another author decides to write about Michelle Obama.

Biography vs memoir

What is a biography vs memoir? This distinction is a bit harder to define. A memoir is usually written around a theme or a specific time period in someone’s life, and the author is writing about their own memories. Whereas a biography is in chronological order and follows (more or less) the whole lifetime of a person, but it is a person other than the author.

So if someone is telling stories about their travels through South America, that isn’t covering their life story, and it is written about themself, so it would be a memoir instead of a biography.

Now that you know what a biography is, and the importance of biographies, let’s discuss why someone would want to write one.

Why would someone write a biography?

An author may want to write a biography about someone because they’re inspired by them and want to educate the public about them. Or, they want to create a historical resource for scholars to study.

An author may even have a commercial motivation for writing a biography, like a lucrative celebrity profile or a biography that has the potential to be adapted into a film or television series.

Is it possible to write a biography about yourself?

If you write a book about yourself, it’s called an autobiography or a memoir—not a biography. So, when you start writing your book, make sure you don’t get caught in the autobiography vs biography or biography vs memoir maze.

If you’d like a book written about you that you’re not the author of, you can hire a writer to create one for you. You may choose to do this if you feel your writing skills are not up to par or you don’t have time to write your own biography .

Hiring a writer to write your biography can also make sense if you’d like to make sure the book is as objective and professional as it can be. Of course, this means you have to surrender control of the narrative!

Some folks may also feel that a biography has more credence than an autobiography or memoir since the book’s subject doesn’t get to decide what is said about them. So hiring a writer for your biography can be a good way to credibly get your story out there.

Can you write a biography about anyone you’d like?

When it comes to writing about other people’s lives, it’s wise to proceed with an abundance of caution. After all, you don’t want to be sued for defamation or find yourself in other legal hot water.

We highly suggest you look into the legal ramifications of writing about your chosen subject before you begin writing about them, but here are a couple of general things to know:

Typically, you don’t need permission to write about someone who is a public figure. However, the definition of a public figure can vary depending on your jurisdiction and more, so you’ll need to do your research.
Even if you discover that you can write about your subject without permission, it’s still advisable to contact the subject and/or their family. Not only is it good manners, but it may afford you some insider information about your subject.
If your subject or the family of your subject tells you they don’t want a biography about them, you may still legally be able to proceed—consult a lawyer—but you might face backlash when the book is published, limited access to information about your subject, and perhaps a pressing sense of guilt. Not worth it, if you ask us!

Examples of biographies

What’s a biography that is really good? Here are a few of the best biographies you should add to your list:

Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrera
Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain by Charles R. Cross
Anne Frank: The Biography by Melissa Müller
You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexis Coe
The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz
Victoria the Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire by Julia Baird

We’ve also reviewed the best business biographies of highly successful entrepreneurs. These books offer invaluable lessons and inspiration for aspiring business leaders and authors.

Final thoughts

Now if anyone asks you “What’s a biography?” You should be able to tell them (and give them some great examples).

Reading a biography is a great way to get inspired, learn from other people’s experiences, and more. And writing a biography can be an excellent educational experience in its own right! If you’d like to publish a biography but don’t know where to start, we’re here to help. Simply schedule a book consultation to get started.

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Introduction

A narrative that records the actions and recreates the personality of an individual is called a biography (from a Greek term meaning “life-writing”). An individual who writes the story of his or her own life is creating an autobiography , meaning self-biography.

Biography and History

History and biography have several similarities, but they are not the same. Both the biographer and the historian search for evidence. They evaluate the information they find to decide if it is factual and relevant. History, however, is the recorded past of human societies; it tells the story of nations, wars, movements—the whole range of past human activity. Biography deals with a single life story. The historian looks for facts and events that affect many lives; the biographer seeks information that reveals the subject’s character and personality. If the subject of a biography is a well-known public figure such as a president of the United States, his life story almost becomes a historical narrative. The life of George Washington, for instance, is a significant segment of American history. But if the subject is a very private person, such as the poet Emily Dickinson, the biography is much less concerned with contemporary historical events.

Sources and Goals of Biography

Biographers gather information from many different sources. Legal documents and personal papers can reveal facts such as a person’s birthplace, income, number of children, and life span. Letters or a diary may contain valuable information about the person’s friends and activities, thoughts and feelings. All of these materials are called primary sources because they contain firsthand information—information that does not depend on the opinions or interpretations of others.

A biographer also checks secondary sources. The subject’s friends and relatives may be interviewed. If the subject died long ago, the biographer looks for anything written about him or her. Secondary sources supply secondhand information, and so a biographer must use them with care. The subject’s friends will want the biography to be favorable, while others may wish it to be unfavorable. The biographer must avoid both extremes. The biographer’s job is not to make readers like or dislike the subject, but to give as complete and truthful a picture of the person as possible. This means the biography should include both good and bad qualities, both accomplishments and mistakes. James Boswell , the author of a great biography of his friend Samuel Johnson , wrote, “And he will be seen as he really was; for I profess to write, not his panegyric, which must be all praise, but his Life; which, great and good as he was, must not be supposed to be entirely perfect.”

Much biographical writing falls short of Boswell’s standards. Ancient records of the deeds of kings and emperors were written to praise and flatter these rulers. Writers of saints’ lives in the Middle Ages were often more interested in the moral message than the events of a life. Many 19th-century biographers suppressed any improper or embarrassing details of their subjects’ lives. Though they may be interesting or uplifting, these works fail as biographies chiefly because their purpose is to point up a moral rather than describe an individual.

Early Biographies

The first great biographer was the Greek writer Plutarch ( ad 46?–120?). Plutarch’s work, Parallel Lives , is made up of 23 sets of paired biographies. Each pair includes a Greek and a Roman whose lives were alike in some way. For example, the two military leaders Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar form a pair, as do Demosthenes and Cicero, two orators. The Roman biographer Suetonius lived at about the same time as Plutarch. Whereas Plutarch focuses on the details to show a person’s good and bad qualities, Suetonius’ book Lives of the Twelve Caesars is full of gossip and anecdotes.

From ancient times until the 17th century, biography was considered to be a special kind of history. The subjects tended to be well-known public figures—rulers, generals, or religious leaders. It was believed that their fame made their lives interesting and useful as moral examples.

Biography as Literature

In the 17th and 18th centuries, biography began to emerge as a separate literary form from history. In fact, the word biography first came into the English language in the 17th century. The art of writing biography received attention in essays by the English authors Roger North and Samuel Johnson . An interest in the human personality for its own sake was beginning to develop. Samuel Johnson wrote, “I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful. . . . We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.”

Johnson himself wrote a series of short biographies, ‘Lives of the English Poets’ (1779–81). However, he is best remembered as the subject of one of the greatest biographies ever written, The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D . (1791), by James Boswell . During 20 years of friendship with Johnson, Boswell asked questions and recorded conversations, interviewed friends, and saved letters. In the biography, Boswell blends his own narrative with Johnson’s conversations and letters.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, interpretation and analysis of character became a more and more important part of biography. In 1884, James Anthony Froude (1818–94) completed a nine-volume biography of his friend, the English writer Thomas Carlyle .

Although he admired Carlyle, Froude maintained an emotional distance from his friend in writing about him. By interpreting Carlyle’s journals and letters, Froude tried to give a candid and intimate picture of the writer’s personality.

An American writer, Gamaliel Bradford (1863–1932), called his new type of biographies “psychography” because he concentrated in them on interpreting the subjects’ inner lives. During the same period of time, the work of Sigmund Freud , the founder of psychoanalysis, made psychological techniques available to biographers.

These new techniques were successfully used in the work of Lytton Strachey (1880–1932), an English writer and critic. Instead of including vast amounts of material, Strachey used a narrow selection of evidence to construct his own interpretation of his subjects. As he described it, he strove for “a brevity which excludes everything that is redundant and nothing that is significant.”

Strachey’s motive was not so much to tell an objective story of someone’s life as it was to create a new literary style for biography. He was highly selective and critical in the information he used, and he was not afraid of treating his subjects in a somewhat irreverent manner. His best biography, Queen Victoria , depicted the queen not only as a powerful monarch, but as an individual with normal human weaknesses and foibles.

Modern Biography

The standard for writing biographies in the 20th and early 21st centuries generally reverted to the pattern set by James Boswell in his work on Samuel Johnson: the sifting of masses of evidence and the attempt to be objective. An outstanding biographer of the modern period, the French writer André Maurois (1885–1967), stated that the ideal biography should be the result of a relentless search for truth combined with an awareness of the complexity of the human personality. He exemplified this ideal in his own works, biographies of such figures as the poet Shelley , Benjamin Disraeli , and Alexandre Dumas .

Other major biographies of the 20th century include: Marlborough , by Winston Churchill ; Henry James , by Leon Edel; James Joyce , by Richard Ellman; George Washington , by James Flexner; Catherine the Great , by Henri Troyat; Adolf Hitler , by John Toland;‘ Jefferson and His Time , by Dumas Malone; and Carl Sandburg ’s multivolume work on Abraham Lincoln entitled The Prairie Years and The War Years .

Biographical Collections and Reference Works

Several writers and editors in the 17th century pioneered in the formation of biographical collections, usually works in several volumes treating the lives of many individuals. The greatest of these collections was made by the French philosopher Pierre Bayle (1647–1706). Entitled Dictionnaire historique et critique (Historical and Critical Dictionary), it was published from 1695 to 1697.

Large collections have continued to be valuable sources of biographical information. The major English biographical work, the Dictionary of National Biography , was published between 1885 and 1901. The editors gathered information about notable Englishmen who lived in every historical period. This collection was more complete and objective than any previous comparable work.

A similar collection, the Dictionary of American Biography , was published in the United States between 1928 and 1937. Both of these works have been continuously expanded and updated. Similar biographical works have been published in many other countries.

Other useful sources of biographical information include the journal Current Biography , Webster’s New Biographical Dictionary , ‘ McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Names , Who’s Who , Who’s Who in America , and Who Was Who . To locate biographical books and articles, one can consult a bibliographical guide such as the ‘Biography Index’.

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Definition of biography

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So You've Been Asked to Submit a Biography

In a library, the word biography refers both to a kind of book and to a section where books of that kind are found. Each biography tells the story of a real person's life. A biography may be about someone who lived long ago, recently, or even someone who is still living, though in the last case it must necessarily be incomplete. The term autobiography refers to a biography written by the person it's about. Autobiographies are of course also necessarily incomplete.

Sometimes biographies are significantly shorter than a book—something anyone who's been asked to submit a biography for, say, a conference or a community newsletter will be glad to know. Often the word in these contexts is shortened to bio , a term that can be both a synonym of biography and a term for what is actually a biographical sketch: a brief description of a person's life. These kinds of biographies—bios—vary, but many times they are only a few sentences long. Looking at bios that have been used in the same context can be a useful guide in determining what to put in your own.

Examples of biography in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'biography.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Late Greek biographia , from Greek bi- + -graphia -graphy

1665, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Dictionary Entries Near biography

biographize

Cite this Entry

“Biography.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/biography. Accessed 12 Sep. 2024.

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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 period, genre , and subject matter.

For historical treatment of various literatures within geographical regions, see such articles as African literature ; African theater ; Oceanic literature ; Western literature ; Central Asian arts ; South Asian arts ; and Southeast Asian arts . Some literatures are treated separately by language, by nation, or by special subject (e.g., Arabic literature , Celtic literature , Latin literature , French literature , Japanese literature , and biblical literature ).

Definitions of the word literature tend to be circular. The 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary considers literature to be “writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest.” The 19th-century critic Walter Pater referred to “the matter of imaginative or artistic literature” as a “transcript, not of mere fact, but of fact in its infinitely varied forms.” But such definitions assume that the reader already knows what literature is. And indeed its central meaning, at least, is clear enough. Deriving from the Latin littera , “a letter of the alphabet,” literature is first and foremost humankind’s entire body of writing; after that it is the body of writing belonging to a given language or people; then it is individual pieces of writing.

But already it is necessary to qualify these statements. To use the word writing when describing literature is itself misleading, for one may speak of “oral literature” or “the literature of preliterate peoples.” The art of literature is not reducible to the words on the page; they are there solely because of the craft of writing. As an art, literature might be described as the organization of words to give pleasure. Yet through words literature elevates and transforms experience beyond “mere” pleasure. Literature also functions more broadly in society as a means of both criticizing and affirming cultural values.

The scope of literature

Illustration of John Stuart Mill by G.K. Chesterton from "Biography for Beginners" by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. No date on book, but c. 1905.

Literature is a form of human expression. But not everything expressed in words—even when organized and written down—is counted as literature. Those writings that are primarily informative—technical, scholarly, journalistic—would be excluded from the rank of literature by most, though not all, critics. Certain forms of writing, however, are universally regarded as belonging to literature as an art. Individual attempts within these forms are said to succeed if they possess something called artistic merit and to fail if they do not. The nature of artistic merit is less easy to define than to recognize. The writer need not even pursue it to attain it. On the contrary, a scientific exposition might be of great literary value and a pedestrian poem of none at all.

The purest (or, at least, the most intense) literary form is the lyric poem, and after it comes elegiac, epic , dramatic, narrative, and expository verse. Most theories of literary criticism base themselves on an analysis of poetry , because the aesthetic problems of literature are there presented in their simplest and purest form. Poetry that fails as literature is not called poetry at all but verse . Many novels —certainly all the world’s great novels—are literature, but there are thousands that are not so considered. Most great dramas are considered literature (although the Chinese , possessors of one of the world’s greatest dramatic traditions, consider their plays, with few exceptions, to possess no literary merit whatsoever).

The Greeks thought of history as one of the seven arts, inspired by a goddess, the muse Clio. All of the world’s classic surveys of history can stand as noble examples of the art of literature, but most historical works and studies today are not written primarily with literary excellence in mind, though they may possess it, as it were, by accident.

The essay was once written deliberately as a piece of literature: its subject matter was of comparatively minor importance. Today most essays are written as expository, informative journalism , although there are still essayists in the great tradition who think of themselves as artists. Now, as in the past, some of the greatest essayists are critics of literature, drama , and the arts.

Some personal documents ( autobiographies , diaries , memoirs , and letters ) rank among the world’s greatest literature. Some examples of this biographical literature were written with posterity in mind, others with no thought of their being read by anyone but the writer. Some are in a highly polished literary style; others, couched in a privately evolved language, win their standing as literature because of their cogency, insight, depth, and scope.

Many works of philosophy are classed as literature. The Dialogues of Plato (4th century bc ) are written with great narrative skill and in the finest prose; the Meditations of the 2nd-century Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius are a collection of apparently random thoughts, and the Greek in which they are written is eccentric . Yet both are classed as literature, while the speculations of other philosophers, ancient and modern, are not. Certain scientific works endure as literature long after their scientific content has become outdated. This is particularly true of books of natural history, where the element of personal observation is of special importance. An excellent example is Gilbert White’s Natural History and Antiquities of Selbourne (1789).

Oratory , the art of persuasion, was long considered a great literary art. The oratory of Native Americans, for instance, is famous, while in Classical Greece, Polymnia was the muse sacred to poetry and oratory. Rome’s great orator Cicero was to have a decisive influence on the development of English prose style. Abraham Lincoln ’s Gettysburg Address is known to every American schoolchild. Today, however, oratory is more usually thought of as a craft than as an art. Most critics would not admit advertising copywriting, purely commercial fiction , or cinema and television scripts as accepted forms of literary expression, although others would hotly dispute their exclusion. The test in individual cases would seem to be one of enduring satisfaction and, of course, truth. Indeed, it becomes more and more difficult to categorize literature, for in modern civilization words are everywhere. Humans are subject to a continuous flood of communication . Most of it is fugitive, but here and there—in high-level journalism, in television, in the cinema, in commercial fiction, in westerns and detective stories, and in plain, expository prose—some writing, almost by accident, achieves an aesthetic satisfaction, a depth and relevance that entitle it to stand with other examples of the art of literature.

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### Understanding Biography: A Comprehensive Guide

The Importance of Biography in Literature and History

Different Types of Biographies: Full-Length, Autobiographies, and Memoirs

Key Elements to Include in a Biography

How to Research and Gather Information for a Biography

Tips for Writing an Engaging Biographical Narrative

Famous Biographies: Lessons and Inspirations

The Role of Interviews in Biography Writing

Analyzing the Impact of Historical Context in Biographical Works

How to Structure a Biography for Maximum Impact

Ethical Considerations in Biography Writing

The Evolution of Biography as a Literary Genre

Profiles in Courage: Biographies that Changed Society

Using Technology and Digital Sources for Biographical Research

Understanding the Audience: Who Reads Biographies and Why?

Crafting Character Portraits: Beyond Dates and Facts in Biography

Future Trends in Biographical Writing and Publishing

Cambridge Dictionary +Plus

Meaning of biography in English

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This biography offers a few glimpses of his life before he became famous .
Her biography revealed that she was not as rich as everyone thought .
The biography was a bit of a rush job .
The biography is an attempt to uncover the inner man.
The biography is woven from the many accounts which exist of things she did.
multi-volume
young adult

biography | Intermediate English

biographical

Examples of biography

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to move something by pulling it along a surface, usually the ground

Treasure troves and endless supplies (Words and phrases meaning ‘source’)

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The Sydney Morning Herald

Literature prizes

PM’s Literary Award brings 48 hours’ relief from poet’s life of self-doubt

By jason steger, save articles for later.

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It’s not long ago that Amy Crutchfield would have been entering her poems for emerging-writers awards. Not any more. And she can dispense with any use of that emerging adjective after her first book, The Cyprian , won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry.

“Being a poet is like a life of self-doubt,” she said. “And I feel this will give me 48 hours, maybe even a week of rock-solid confidence. There have been a lot of other awards this year, none of which I got, and I think probably the safest thing is to apply the same approach to the ones that you get as the ones you don’t, which is ‘back to the desk’.”

Prime Minister’s Literary Award winners Andre Dao (left) and Amy Crutchfield at Parliament House in Canberra. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

There were six Prime Minister’s awards presented at the National Library in Canberra, with each winner receiving $80,000 tax-free. Other winners were:

Fiction, André Dao, Anam ;
Non-fiction, Daniel Browning, Close to the Subject: Selected Works ;
Young-adult literature, Will Kostakis, We Could Be Something ;
Children’s literature, Violet Wadrill et al, Tamarra: A Story of Termites on Gurindji Country ;
Australian history, Ryan Cropp, Donald Horne: A life in the Lucky Country .

Our review said ABC broadcaster Browning’s cultural, personal and political essays revealed “storytelling to be the most expansive, all-embracing of forms”. We described Kostakis’ book as a “queer YA novel full of heart and humour”. The award judges said Tamarra was “a truly original story with beautiful artwork that takes readers on an educational and cultural journey”. And the review in this masthead said Donald Horne was “an impressive biography, impeccably researched and beautifully crafted. In its scope, detail, and fluency, it is comparable to the best biographies of George Orwell.”

The Prime Minister’s Literary Award winners at Parliament House: (from front left) Leah Leaman, Daniel Browning, Will Kostakis, Gregory Crocetti; (and from left) Ryan Cropp, Andre Dao, Cecelia Edwards, Penny Smith and Amy Crutchfield. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Crutchfield began the poems that became The Cyprian more than 10 years ago. She realised the overarching themes were love and death and the connection between them. She uses the figure of Aphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess of love and beauty, as a sort of framework for considering further questions of lust, misogyny, art and sex.

She wanted to look at love from functional and dysfunctional angles. “Some of them are quite twisted forms of love. There’s a kind of sexual violence and so obviously that’s not love in its normal sense, except that sometimes in those situations one person’s mind is so screwed up that it is a kind of love thing for them.”

But there are also poems about painters Pablo Picasso and Pierre Bonnard, and the former’s lovers Dora Maar and Marie-Therese Walter, and the latter’s obsession over more than 20 years with Young Women in the Garden , a painting that featured his lover, who took her own life, and his wife. Crutchfield also has a poem about the shooting down of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, which killed all 298 people on board, which she describes as being about a “more tenuous connection to love ... I have my own ideas about how that actually is about love, but they [the poems] connect with it in different ways”.

The judges said Crutchfield brought “a classicist’s range of reference to bear in The Cyprian , the poems are frank, lively and acerbic”.

André Dao’s Anam , which won the fiction prize, blends fiction, autofiction, memoir and family history in its account of a man trying to make sense of his past and the story of his grandfather, who spent 10 years in prison in Vietnam, and his grandmother who fled to Paris.

“The thing that I take away from an award like this is a sort of recognition of the sort of creative risk I took with Anam . It is a book that mixes, that is both Australian and not very Australian,” he said. “I think there’s something important in a book like this getting this sort of official recognition because I like to think that it does do a bit of that work of pushing the boundaries too.”

He spent 12 years working on the book and said among the risks he took was to reject the sense that there was a particular narrative arc he had to write into if he wanted to find a readership in Australia, one that “after adversity would end with some kind of happy gratitude”.

“That’s a narrative that exists, that one can fit a story into and be assured of a certain kind of reception. I think by writing a novel that was fragmented, that tried to engage with philosophy and be an intellectual work but also wanting to do something that would reflect intimate details of family life, that felt like a risk as well.”

Taking his time with the book may have meant that the publishing world was more receptive to its hybrid nature now than when he started.

“I’ve benefited from taking so long. I suspect it’s something about the times as well, something to do with the place that truth and fiction have in our political and public life. There’s something about how those received categories are mixed up .”

The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. Get it delivered every Friday .

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Marginalized Voices: The Representation of Peripheral Life in Literature

Organizer: Carlo Stranges

The representation of lives on the outskirts of society has been a staple of twentieth and twenty-first century media. From the romantic antiheroes to oppressed communities, the representations of peripheral lives have become ingrained in literature, cinema and the art world. The seminar proposes to explore the different approaches with which peripheral lives are represented and the consequences of representation. Representation has the power of amplifying the voices of marginalized groups, challenging dominant narratives and offering alternative perspectives, but also have the power of reaffirming a central narrative against which to read the marginalized, or reinforcing stereotypes with the risk of swapping the center for the margins and vice versa. The underlying risk of such interpretations is the implicit confirmation of a center and margins as existing in a clearcut dichotomical opposition, in a tautological and self-serving repetition of othering processes. The seminar would like to explore the ways in which center and periphery narratives work, reify and relate to each other. Moreover, the seminar would like to inquire the ways in which representation influences the narratives of the marginalized lives that are its subject in a cycle of representation and perpetuation, and explore the intersections of identity, power, and representation.

We invite submissions that engage with peripheral experiences from all backgrounds and perspectives. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

Definition of Mood

It’s not that we had no heart or eyes for pain. We were all afraid. We all had our miseries. But to despair was to wish for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable…What was worse, to sit and wait for our own deaths with proper somber faces? Or to choose our own happiness?

Common Examples of Adjectives to Describe Mood

Examples of how writers establish mood, choice of words, subject matter, difference between mood and atmosphere, examples of mood in literature, example 1: eurydice (h.d.).

So you have swept me back, I who could have walked with the live souls above the earth, I who could have slept among the live flowers at last; so for your arrogance and your ruthlessness I am swept back where dead lichens drip dead cinders upon moss of ash; so for your arrogance I am broken at last, I who had lived unconscious, who was almost forgot;

Example 2: And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie)

The others went upstairs, a slow unwilling procession. If this had been an old house, with creaking wood, and dark shadows, and heavily panelled walls, there might have been an eerie feeling. But this house was the essence of modernity. There were no dark corners – no possible sliding panels – it was flooded with electric light – everything was new and bright and shining. There was nothing hidden in this house, nothing concealed. It had no atmosphere about it. Somehow, that was the most frightening thing of all. They exchanged good- nights on the upper landing. Each of them went into his or her own room, and each of them automatically, almost without conscious thought, locked the door….

Example 3: The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)

He looked across the sea and knew how alone he was now . But he could see the prisms in the deep dark water and the line stretching ahead and the strange undulation of the calm. The clouds were building up now for the trade wind and he looked ahead and saw a flight of wild ducks etching themselves against the sky over the water, then blurring, then etching again and he knew no man was ever alone on the sea .

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The device is designed to be user-friendly, with clear instructions on how to use it in case of an emergency. It's important for everyone to be aware of what an AED is and how to use it, as it could make a difference in saving someone's life.

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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 = "write."
Biography
Definition of 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 ...
Biography
autobiography. hagiography. memoir. Costa Book Awards. character writer. 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 ...
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.
Biography in literature
A literary biography is the biographical exploration of individuals' lives merging historical facts with the conventions of narrative. [1] Biographies about artists and writers are sometimes some of the most complicated forms of biography. [2] Not only does the author of the biography have to write about the subject of the biography but also ...
What Is A Biography? Examples In Literature
Definition of Biography. A biography tells someone's life story by researching things like documents, records and interviewing people who knew them. The writer is called the biographer and the person whose life they are writing about is called the subject. The main goal is to share what the subject experienced and achieved.
Biography: Meaning, Examples & Features
Biography meaning. The word 'biography' is a combination of the Greek words 'bios', which means 'life', and ' graphia', which refers to 'writing'. Simply stated, this means that a biography is a written account of someone else's life. Biography: a detailed written account of a real person's life authored by a different person.
Biography definition and example literary device
Definition of Biography. A biography is simply an account or detailed description about the life of a person. It entails basic facts, such as childhood, education, career, relationships, family, and death. Biography is a literary genre that portrays the experiences of all these events occurring in the life of a person, mostly in a chronological ...
What Is a Biography?
Here's how we define biography, a look at its origins, and some popular types. "Biography" Definition. 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.
Examples and Definition of Biography
A biography narrates the existence tale of someone, as written with the aid of another man or woman or writer. It is in addition divided into five categories: Popular biography. Historical biography. Literary biography. Reference biography. Fictional biography. Memoir. This is a more focused writing than an autobiography or a biography.
The Components of an Intriguing Biography
Richard Nordquist. Updated on May 30, 2019. A biography is a story of a person's life, written by another author. The writer of a biography is called a biographer while the person written about is known as the subject or biographee. Biographies usually take the form of a narrative, proceeding chronologically through the stages of a person's life.
biography summary
biography, Form of nonfictional literature whose subject is the life of an individual.The earliest biographical writings probably were funeral speeches and inscriptions. The origins of modern biography lie with Plutarch's moralizing lives of prominent Greeks and Romans and Suetonius's gossipy lives of the Caesars. Few biographies of common individuals were written until the 16th century.
What is a Biography? Definition and Examples
A biography is an account or description of a person's life, literary, fictional, historical, or popular in nature, written by a biographer. E.g. In the poignant biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, the author delves into the complex life of the Apple co-founder, unraveling the intricacies of his visionary mind and creative genius.
What is biography?
The word 'biography' means 'life-writing': the two halves of the word derive from medieval Greek bios, 'life', and graphia, 'writing'. Dictionary definitions give you "the history of the lives of individual men, as a branch of literature", or "a written record of the life of an individual" (Oxford English Dictionary ...
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 ...
Nonfiction Biography & Autobiography
A biography is a story intended to tell the true facts about the life of a real person. The biography definition in literature has three basic elements:
What is a Biography? Definition, Elements, and More
A biography is what we call the written account of someone's life. It is written by someone other than whom the book is about. For example, an author named Walter Isaacson has written biographies on Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, and Einstein. A biography is what focuses on the significant events that occurred in a person's life, along with ...
biography
Biography as Literature. In the 17th and 18th centuries, biography began to emerge as a separate literary form from history. In fact, the word biography first came into the English language in the 17th century. The art of writing biography received attention in essays by the English authors Roger North and Samuel Johnson. An interest in the ...
Biography Definition & Meaning
The meaning of BIOGRAPHY is a usually written history of a person's life. How to use biography in a sentence. So You've Been Asked to Submit a Biography
Biography Definition & Types
A Definition. A biography is a record of someone's life. Biographers usually select interesting or well-known people as topics for biographies. To define biography, it may also be helpful to ...
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 ...
Understanding Biography: A Comprehensive Guide
The Evolution of Biography as a Literary Genre The evolution of Biography as a literary genre traces a fascinating path through history, reflecting cultural, social, and technological changes. In its earliest forms, biography was closely linked to history. Ancient civilizations like the Greeks and Romans documented the lives of notable figures ...
Autobiography in Literature: Definition & Examples
Autobiography Definition. An autobiography (awe-tow-bye-AWE-gruh-fee) is a self-written biography. The author writes about all or a portion of their own life to share their experience, frame it in a larger cultural or historical context, and/or inform and entertain the reader. Autobiographies have been a popular literary genre for centuries.
BIOGRAPHY
BIOGRAPHY meaning: 1. the life story of a person written by someone else: 2. the life story of a person written by…. Learn more.
List of writing genres
Biography: a written narrative of a person's life; an autobiography is a self-written biography. Memoir: a biographical account of a particular event or period in a person's life (rather than their whole life) drawn from personal knowledge or special sources (such as the spouse of the subject). Misery literature; Slave narrative. Contemporary ...
Literary fiction
Literary fiction may involve a concern with social commentary, political criticism, or reflection on the human condition. [11] This contrasts with genre fiction where plot is the central concern. [12] It may have a slower pace than popular fiction. [13] As Terrence Rafferty notes, "literary fiction, by its nature, allows itself to dawdle, to linger on stray beauties even at the risk of losing ...
PM's Literary Award brings 48 hours' relief from poet's life of self-doubt
Children's literature, Violet Wadrill et al, Tamarra: A Story of Termites on Gurindji Country; Australian history, Ryan Cropp, Donald Horne: A life in the Lucky Country .
Marginalized Voices: The Representation of Peripheral Life in Literature
From the romantic antiheroes to oppressed communities, the representations of peripheral lives have become ingrained in literature, cinema and the art world. The seminar proposes to explore the different approaches with which peripheral lives are represented and the consequences of representation.
Mood
Definition of Mood. As a literary device, mood refers to the emotional response that the writer wishes to evoke in the reader through a story. This response can range anywhere from feelings of calm, fear, anger, or joy depending on the literary work. ... This anguish is a result of the "promise" of being brought back to life on Earth and ...
What is AED?
In November 2011, Reid saved the life of Jim Hammer after he collapsed at the recreation center where Reid worked. Now friends, they share their story. Red Cross training matters For more than a century, we've prepared people to respond to emergencies of all sizes - from the everyday to the large disaster. Join the millions we train every year ...

Literary Devices

Examples of Biography in Literature

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What Is A Biography? Examples In Literature

Common Examples of Biography Subjects

Famous Biographical Works

Difference between Biography, Autobiography and Memoir

Other differences:

Examples of Biography in Literature

“Great Expectations” by Charles Dicken

“Emma” by Jane Austen

“War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy

“David Copperfield” by Charles Dickens

“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Mrs. Dalloway” by Virginia Woolf

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Definition of Biography

Types of Biography

Autobiography

Examples of Biography in Literature

Example #2: Arthur Miller: Attention Must Be Paid (By James Campbell)

Example #3: The Life of Samuel Johnson (By James Boswell)

Example #4: The Bronte Myth (By­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Lucasta Miller)

Example #5: Why this World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector (By­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Benjamin Moser)

Function of Biography

What Is a Biography?

Learning from the experiences of others is what makes us human.

Types of Biographies

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Biographies: The Stories of Humanity

Between History and Fiction

Writing a Biography

Types of Biographies

Examples of Biographies

Example #2 Alice Walker: A Life by Evelyn C. White

Autobiography

Example of an Autobiography

Example of a Semi-Autobiographical Novel: Burmese Days by George Orwell

Example of a Memoir

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What is a Biography? Definition, Elements, and More

In this article, we’ll explore:

What is the point of a biography?

Does a biography cover someone’s entire life?

Is a biography always nonfiction?

Biography vs autobiography

Biography vs memoir

Why would someone write a biography?

Is it possible to write a biography about yourself?

Can you write a biography about anyone you’d like?

Examples of biographies

Final thoughts

Example #4: The Bronte Myth (By Lucasta Miller)

Example #5: Why this World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector (By Benjamin Moser)