A biography (from the Greek words bios meaning "life", and graphos meaning "write") is an account of a person's life, usually published in the form of a book or essay, or in some other form, such as a film. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of Literature or Information &ndash the activity of making information available for public view An autobiography (auto, meaning "self", giving self-biography) is a biography by the same person it is about. An autobiography, from the Greek αὐτός autos "self" βίος bios "life" and γράφειν graphein "to write" A biography is more than a list of impersonal facts (like birth, education, work, relationships and death), it also portrays the subject's experience of those events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (resume), a biography presents the subject's story, highlighting various aspects of his or her life, including intimate details of experiences, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.
A work is biographical if it covers all of a person's life. As such, biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person's life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Legacy writing is a Genre of writing Primarily the pieces were written by women who knew that they were dying to their children Together, all biographical works form the genre known as biography, in literature, film, and other forms of media. A genre (ˈʒɑːnrə also /ˈdʒɑːnrə/ from French "kind" or "sort" from Latin: genus (stem gener-) is a loose set Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of Literature or Information &ndash the activity of making information available for public view
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Early forms
The first known biographies were written by scribes commissioned by the various rulers of antiquity: ancient Assyria, ancient Babylonia, ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia, among others. Scribes is a programmers' text editor for GNOME with a simple design Early history The most Neolithic site in Assyria is at Tell Hassuna, the center of the Hassuna culture Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq) with Babylon as its capital This article is about the country of Egypt For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Egypt topics. Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding Such biographies tended to be chiseled into stone or clay tablets, a method called cuneiform. In Geology, rock is a naturally occurring aggregate of Minerals and/or Mineraloids The Earth's outer solid layer the ‘ Lithosphere Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained Minerals which show plasticity through a variable range of Water content, and
Perhaps the drawings in caves can be considered the first biographies. Some of them appear to relate events such as a successful hunt. The artists (biographers?) and viewers would know (by clues that escape us in the drawings) who was being honored. This also tells the accounts of a persons life.
Classical forms
Ancient Greeks developed the biographical tradition which we have inherited, although until the 5th century AD, when the word 'biographia' first appears, in Damascius' Life of Isodorus, biographical pieces were called simply "lives" (βιοι: "bioi"). It is quite likely that the Greeks were drawing on a pre-existing eastern tradition; certainly Herodotus' Histories contains more detailed biographical information on Persian kings and subjects than on anyone else, implying he had a Persian source for it. Herodotus of Halicarnassus ( Greek: Hēródotos Halikarnāsseús) was a Greek Historian who lived in the 5th century BC ( 484 BC&ndash
The earliest surviving pieces which we would identify as biographical are Isocrates' Life of Evagoras and Xenophon's Life of Agesilaos, both from the fifth century BC. Xenophon (Ancient Greek, Modern Greek "Ξενοφών" "Ξενοφώντας" ca Both identified themselves as encomia, or works of praise, and that biography was regarded as a discrete entity from historiography is evidenced by the fact that Xenophon treated King Agesilaos of Sparta twice in his works, once in the above-mentioned encomium and once in his Greek History; evidently the two genres were conceived as making different demands of authors who enrolled in them. Xenophon could present his Cyropaedia, an account of the childhood of the Persian King Cyrus the Great now regarded as so fabulous that it falls rather into a novelistic tradition than a biographical one, as a serious work, without any disclaimers or caveats.
Whereas Thucydides set the benchmark for a historiographical tradition comprising 'conclusions . Thucydides ( C 460 BC &ndash C 395 BC) ( Greek Θουκυδίδης Thoukydídēs) was a Greek . . drawn from proofs quoted . . . [which] may safely be relied upon' (Thuc. 1. 21), and offering little explicit judgement on the people with whom he dealt, biographers were quite often more concerned with drawing a moral point from their investigations of their subjects. Parallel Lives by Plutarch, a Greek writing under the Roman empire, is a series of short biographies of eminent men, ancient and contemporary, arranged in pairs comprising one Greek, one Roman, in order that a broad educative point might be extraced from the comparison (for example Mark Antony and Demetrius were paradigms of tyranny, Lysander and Sulla examples of great men degenerating into blood-thirsty corruption). Plutarch 's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, commonly called Parallel Lives or Plutarch's Lives, is a series of Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus ( Greek: Μέστριος Πλούταρχος c Marcus Antonius (in Latin: M·ANTONIVS·M·F·M·N ( c January 14 83 BC&ndash August 1, 30 BC known in English as Mark Demetrius I (337-283 BC Greek: Δημήτριος) called Poliorcetes (Greek Πολιορκητής) ("The Besieger" son of Lysander (died 395 BC Λύσανδρος, Lýsandros) was a Spartan General and the commander of the Spartan fleet in the Hellespont which was victorious Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix ( Latin: L•CORNELIVS•L•F•P•N•SVLLA•FELIX (c
However, although their moralising approach is not in fashion in the current intellectual climate, Greek biographies still have much to offer the modern reader, and for the most part it is reasonable to assume that while authors may have suppressed details which did not fall in with the general theme which they wished to convey, they are unlikely to have fabricated much. Not least, they were instrumental in developing the modern idea of the person. The traditional Greek attitude to individuals was to 'reduce them to types'; the Peripatetic tradition records various categories into which men might fall: the flatterer, the superstitious man and so on. Greek rhetorical handbooks give advice on 'ethopoia', that is creating a character, one of a recognised type, to win favour in the law courts.
The biographical tradition does draw on these types, but it also gives explicit recognition to the importance of individual ideosyncrasies in defining a man, and places the emphasis firmly on a man's personality rather than merely listing his accomplishments. As Plutarch says in the introduction to his Life of Alexander the Great, 'in the most illustrious deeds there is not always a manifestation of virtue and vice, but a slight thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation than battles where thousands fall, or the greatest armaments, or sieges of cities'. Alexander the Great ( or, Mégas Aléxandros; July 20 356 BC June 10 or June 11 323 BC also known as Alexander III of Macedon (el Ἀλέξανδρος Γ' Thus the individual is recognised as having some value and interest irrespective of the impact of his actions on the broader sweep of history.
Under the Roman Empire, the biographical and historiographical traditions converged somewhat, likely due to the nature of government, whereby the state was dominated by a single emperor with totalitarian power and whose character and actions set the tone for the period; Tacitus's History and his Annals, as well as Dio's History contain much of the same material as the biographer Suetonius's Lives of the Twelve Caesars. The Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (ca 56 &ndash ca 117 was a senator and a Historian of the Roman Empire. Dio is an American heavy metal band led by Vocalist Ronnie James Dio, who formed it in 1982 after leaving Black Sabbath. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius (ca 69/75 &ndash after 130 was an equestrian and a historian during the Roman Empire. However, although Tacitus in particular was extremely critical of the regime, his disapproval emerges in subtle characterisation and arrangement of his material, in contrast with Suetonius' vicious authorial comment.
Middle Ages and Renaissance
The Early Middle Ages (AD 400 to 1450) saw a decline in awareness of classical culture. Classical antiquity (also the classical era or classical period) is a broad term for a long period of cultural History centered on the Mediterranean During this time, the only repositories of knowledge and records of early history in Europe was the Roman Catholic Church. Hermits, monks and priests used this historic period to write the first modern biographies. A hermit (from the Greek ἔρημος erēmos, signifying " Desert " "uninhabited" hence "desert-dweller" adjective "eremitic" MONK is a Monte Carlo software package for simulating nuclear processes particularly for the purpose of determining the neutron multiplication factor or k-effective A priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites in particular rites of sacrifice to and propitiation of a deity or deities Their subjects were usually restricted to church fathers, martyrs, popes and saints. The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, or Fathers of the Church are the early and influential theologians and writers in the Christian Church The term martyr ( Greek μάρτυς martys "witness" is most commonly used today to describe an individual who sacrifices their life (or personal freedom History See also History of the Papacy Catholics recognize the Pope as a successor to Saint Peter, who Jesus named as the "shepherd" and A saint (from the Latin sanctus) is a human being to whom has been attributed (and who has generally demonstrated a high level of Holiness and Sanctity Their works were meant to be inspirational to people, vehicles for conversion to Christianity. Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religious identity or a change from one religious identity to another Christianity ( Greek Χριστιανισμός from the word Xριστός ( Christ)is a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings See hagiography. Hagiography ( is the study of Saints. A hagiography, from Greek (hağios (ἅγιος "holy" or "saint" and graphē (γραφή One significant example of biography from this period which does not exactly fit into that mold is the life of Charlemagne as written by his courtier Einhard. Charlemagne (ˈʃɑrlɨmeɪn Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus meaning Charles the Great) (747 – 28 January 814 was King of the Franks from 768 to his Einhard (also Eginhard or Einhart) (c 775 &ndash March 14, 840 in Seligenstadt, Germany) was a Frankish
By the late Middle Ages, biographies became less church-oriented as biographies of kings, knights and tyrants began to appear. Knight is the English term for a social position originating in the Middle Ages. In modern usage a tyrant is a single ruler holding absolute power over a State or within an Organization. The most famous of these such biographies was 'Le Morte d'Arthur' by Sir Thomas Malory. Le Morte d'Arthur (spelled Le Morte Darthur in the first printing and also in some modern editions Middle French for la mort d'Arthur Sir Thomas Malory (c 1405 – 14 March 1471 was an English writer the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur. The book was an account of the life of the fabled King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. King Arthur is a legendary British leader who according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against the Saxon invaders Knights of the Round Table were those men awarded the highest order of Chivalry at the Court of King Arthur in the literary cycle the Matter of Britain
Following Malory, the new emphasis on humanism during the Renaissance promoted a focus on secular subjects such as artists and poets, and encouraged writing in the vernacular. Humanism is a broad category of ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appealing to universal The Renaissance (from French Renaissance, meaning "rebirth" Italian: Rinascimento, from re- "again" and nascere The definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of Activities to do with creating Art, practicing the Arts and/or demonstrating A poet is a person who writes Poetry. Etymology From the Ancient greek: ποιέω, poieō: "I make or compose" Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists (1550) was a landmark biography focusing on secular lives. Giorgio Vasari ( 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian painter and Architect, who is today famous The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters Sculptors and Architects, or Le Vite delle più eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori as it was originally known Vasari created celebrities of his subjects, as the Lives became an early "best seller. " Two other developments are noteworthy: the development of the printing press in the fifteenth century and the gradual increase in literacy. A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium (such as paper or cloth thereby transferring an image traditional definition of literacy is considered to be the ability to read and write or the ability to use Language to read, write, listen,
Biographies in the English language began appearing during the reign of Henry VIII. John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (1563), better known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, essentially was the first dictionary of biography, followed by Thomas Fuller’s The History of the Worthies of England (1662), with a distinct focus on public life. The Book of Martyrs, by John Foxe, is an Apocalyptically oriented English Protestant account of the Persecutions of
Modern biography
The "Golden Age" of English biography emerged in the late eighteenth century, the century in which the terms "biography" and "autobiography" entered the English lexicon. In Linguistics, the lexicon (from Greek Λεξικόν of a language is its Vocabulary, including its words and expressions The classic works of the period were Samuel Johnson's Critic material and letting the subject "speak for itself. Samuel Johnson (often referred to as Dr Johnson) (18 September " While Boswell compiled, Samuel Johnson composed. Johnson did not follow a chronological narration of the subject's life but used anecdotes and incidents selectively. Johnson rejected the notion that facts revealed truth. He suggested that biographers should seek their subject in "domestic privacies", to find little known facts or anecdotes which revealed character. (Casper, 1999)
The romantic biographers disputed many of Johnson's judgments. Jean Jacques Rousseau's Confessions (1781-88) exploited the romantic point of view and the confessional mode. The tradition of testimony and confession was brought to the New World by Puritan and Quaker memoirists and journal-keepers where the form continued to be influential. Benjamin Franklin's autobiography (1791) would provide the archetype for the American success story. Benjamin Franklin ( April 17 1790 was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. (Stone, 1982) Autobiography would remain an influential form of biographical writing. An autobiography, from the Greek αὐτός autos "self" βίος bios "life" and γράφειν graphein "to write"
Generally American biography followed the English model, while incorporating Thomas Carlyle's view that biography was a part of history. Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881 was a Scottish essayist satirist and historian whose work was highly influential during the Victorian era. Carlyle asserted that the lives of great human beings were essential to understanding society and its institutions. While the historical impulse would remain a strong element in early American biography, American writers carved out their own distinct approach. What emerged was a rather didactic form of biography which sought to shape individual character of the reader in the process of defining national character. (Casper, 1999)
The distinction between mass biography and literary biography which had formed by the middle of the nineteenth century reflected a breach between high culture and middle-class culture. This division would endure for the remainder of the century. Biography began to flower thanks to new publishing technologies and an expanding reading public. This revolution in publishing made books available to a larger audience of readers. Almost ten times as many American biographies appeared from 1840 to 1860 than had appeared in the first two decades of the century. In addition, affordable paperback editions of popular biographies were published for the first time. Also, American periodicals began publishing series of biographical sketches. (Casper, 1999) The topical emphasis shifted from republican heroes to self-made men and women.
Much of late 19th-century biography remained formulaic. Notably, few autobiographies had been written in the 19th century. The following century witnessed a renaissance of autobiography beginning with Booker T. Washington's, Up From Slavery (1901) and followed by Henry Adams' Education (1907), a chronicle of self-defined failure which ran counter to the predominant American success story. Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5 1856 &ndash November 14 1915 was an American educator orator author and leader of the African-American community Henry Adams may refer to Henry Adams (mechanical engineer (1858-1929 American engineer Henry Adams (pastor (1802-1872 American The publication of socially significant autobiographies by both men and women began to flourish. (Stone, 1982)
The authority of psychology and sociology was ascendant and would make its mark on the new century’s biographies. (Stone, 1982) The demise of the "great man" theory of history was indicative of the emerging mindset. The Great man theory is a Theory held by some that aims to explain history by the impact of "Great men" or Heroes highly influential individuals Human behavior would be explained through Darwinian theories. "Sociological" biographies conceived of their subjects' actions as the result of the environment, and tended to downplay individuality. The development of psychoanalysis led to a more penetrating and comprehensive understanding of the biographical subject, and induced biographers to give more emphasis to childhood and adolescence. Clearly, psychological ideas were changing the way Americans read and wrote biographies, as a culture of autobiography developed in which the telling of one's own story became a form of therapy. (Casper, 1999)
The conventional concept of national heroes and narratives of success disappeared in the obsession with psychological explorations of personality. The new school of biography featured iconoclasts, scientific analysts, and fictional biographers. This wave included Lytton Strachey, André Maurois, and Emil Ludwig among others. Giles Lytton Strachey (ˈdʒaɪlz ˈlɪtən ˈstreɪtʃɪ 1 March 1880 &ndash 21 January 1932 was a British writer and critic André Maurois, born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog, ( July 26, 1885 &ndash October 9, 1967) was a French author and man of letters Emil Ludwig (1881 &ndash 1948 was a German Author, known for his biographies Strachey's biographies had an influence similar to that which Samuel Johnson had enjoyed earlier. In the 1920s and '30s, biographical writers sought to capitalize on Strachey's popularity and imitate his style. Robert Graves (I, Claudius, 1934) stood out among those following Strachey's model of "debunking biographies. Robert Graves (24 July 1895 &ndash 7 December 1985 was an English Poet, Translator and Novelist. " The trend in literary biography was accompanied in popular biography by a sort of "celebrity voyeurism. " in the early decades of the century. This latter form's appeal to readers was based on curiosity more than morality or patriotism.
By World War I, cheap hard-cover reprints had become popular. The decades of the 1920s witnessed a biographical "boom. " In 1929, nearly 700 biographies were published in the United States, and the first dictionary of American biography appeared. In the decade that followed, numerous biographies continued to be published despite the economic depression. They reached a growing audience through inexpensive formats and via public libraries.
According to the scholar Caroyln Heilbrun, women's biographies were revolutionized during the second wave of feminist activism in the 1970s. Feminism is a discourse that involves various movements theories, and Philosophies which are concerned with the issue of Gender difference, advocate At this time women began to be portrayed more accurately, even if it downplayed the achievements or integrity of a man (Heilbrun 12).
Multi-media forms
With the technological advancements created in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, multi-media forms of biography became much more popular than literary forms. ? of personality that written forms could not. The popularity of these forms of biography culminated in the creation of such cable and satellite television networks as A&E, The Biography Channel, The History Channel and History International. A cable is one or more Wires or Optical fibers bound together typically in a common protective jacket or sheath This article is about artificial satellites For natural satellites also known as moons see Natural satellite. A television network is a distribution network for Television content whereby a central operation provides programming for many Television stations A&E is a cable and Satellite television network with headquarters in Manhattan and offices in Stamford, Atlanta, The Biography Channel (or simply bio) is an American Digital cable Television channel owned by A&E and based on the television History, formerly known as The History Channel, is a Satellite and Cable TV channel, with shows on historical events and persons&mdashoften Along with documentary film biographies, Hollywood produced numerous commercial films based on the lives of famous people.
More recently, CD-ROM and online biographies are appearing. Unlike books and films, they often do not tell a chronological story; instead, they are archives of many discrete media elements related to an individual person, including video clips, photographs, and text articles. Media scholar Lev Manovich says that such archives exemplify the database form, allowing users to navigate the materials in many ways (Manovich 220).
References
Casper, Scott E. Constructing American Lives: Biography and Culture in Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
- Heilbrun, Carolyn. Writing a Woman's Life. New York: Ballantine Books, 1989.
- Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.
- Stone, Albert E. Autobiographical Occasions and Original Acts. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Pres, 1982.
Further reading
- Ames, Noel. These Wonderful People: Intimate Moments in their Lives, 1947.
Book Awards
Annually, several countries offer their writers a specific prize for writing a biography such as the:
- Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize – Canada
- National Biography Award – Australia
- Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography – United States
- Whitbread Prize for Best Biography – United Kingdom
- J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography – United Kingdom
See also
- Unauthorized biography
- List of biographers
- Lists of people
- List of political career biographies
- Autobiography
- Family history
- People
- Historical document
- Dictionary of National Biography (DNB, notable figures from British history)
- NNDB (Notable Names Database)
Dictionary
biography
-noun
- A person's life story, especially one published.
-verb
- (transitive) To write a biography of.
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