Mapping Lives: The Uses of Biography
Peter France and William St Clair
Abstract
Why biography? This collection of chapters on the problems and functions of biography, and particularly the biography of writers, thinkers, and artists, investigates a subject of enduring importance for those interested in culture and society. In the last century, it has been a controversial subject, as old models of biographical writing were attacked and superseded, while critics and theorists questioned the once self-evident value of the biography of writers. Yet the genre continues to attract notable authors and is unfailingly popular with readers. The present volume, while containing chapt ... More
Why biography? This collection of chapters on the problems and functions of biography, and particularly the biography of writers, thinkers, and artists, investigates a subject of enduring importance for those interested in culture and society. In the last century, it has been a controversial subject, as old models of biographical writing were attacked and superseded, while critics and theorists questioned the once self-evident value of the biography of writers. Yet the genre continues to attract notable authors and is unfailingly popular with readers. The present volume, while containing chapters by practising biographers, is intended primarily as a stimulus to critical thinking. It focuses on the diverse functions assumed by life-writing in different European countries at different periods, challenging both the notion of a genre with constant characteristics and aims and the view of modern biography as the happy culmination of centuries of progress.
Keywords:
biography,
writers' biographies,
thinkers' biographies,
artists' biographies,
biographical writing,
critical thinking,
European life-writing,
modern biography
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2004 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780197263181 |
| Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: January 2012 |
DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197263181.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Peter France, editor
Professor of French, University of Edinburgh; Fellow of the British Academy
William St Clair, editor
Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge; Fellow of the British Academy
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