Literary Biography - An Introduction

Literary Biography: An Introduction illustrates and accounts for the literary genre that merges verifiable historical facts with the familiar conventions of narrative. It also reveals how the biographical context can enrich our understanding and appreciation of canonical authors. Thematically linked chapters trace the genre's development, define its primary characteristics, and illuminate its connections with fiction and portraiture. Further insights are gained by approaching literary biography from historical, comparative, inferential and autobiographical perspectives. Examples are drawn from the mainstream literary canon and include a variety of classical and contemporary authors ranging from Shakespeare, Dickens, Blake and Wordsworth to the Brontës, Hardy, Plath and Larkin. Biographical writers discussed feature both seminal figures such as Johnson, Boswell and Woolf to distinguished present-day biographers including Hermione Lee, Richard Holmes, Peter Ackroyd, Claire Tomalin and Michael Holroyd.
 
Literary Biography: An Introduction offers an erudite and insightful introduction into the history, theory and practice of the increasingly popular literary genre of life-writing.

List of contents

List of Illustrations xi
 
Acknowledgements xii
 
Introduction xiii
 
1 Literary Biography Now and Then 1
 
The Cinderella of Literary Studies 1
 
The Rise and Rise of Literary Biography 4
 
Dr Johnson: Biographer, Theorist and Subject 7
 
Virginia Woolf: Time, Memory and Identity 12
 
2 Life [Hi]Stories: Telling Tales 18
 
Aspects of Narrative 18
 
(i) Beginnings: Charlotte Brontë 19
 
(ii) Middles: Thomas Hardy 21
 
(iii) Endings: Jane Austen 25
 
The Naked Biographer 28
 
Inventing the Truth 30
 
3 Reading Biography 35
 
Biographer, Biography and the Reader 35
 
Imagining Blake 38
 
Problems of a Hybrid Form 42
 
Reading Lessons 45
 
4 Literary Biomythography 47
 
Biomythography 47
 
Myth-Making: The Brontë Paradigm 48
 
(i) Facts: Selection and 'Spin' 49
 
(ii) Fact into Fiction 50
 
(iii) Fiction into Myth 50
 
(iv) Myth into 'Faction' 51
 
(v) Demythologising the Brontës 52
 
Variations on the Theme 53
 
(i) Byron 54
 
(ii) Dickens 55
 
(iii) Sylvia Plath 58
 
Conclusions 63
 
5 Inferential Biography: Shakespeare the Invisible Man 67
 
Virtual Shakespeares 68
 
(i) The Facts 68
 
(ii) The Theatrical Context 69
 
(iii) The Social Context 71
 
(iv) The Shakespeare Mythos 72
 
(v) The Shakespeare Canon 73
 
The Implied Author: Inferential Biography 74
 
(i) The Art of Love: The Sonnets 75
 
(ii) Prejudice, Discrimination and the Law: The Merchant of Venice 77
 
(iii) War and the Politics of Nationhood: Henry V 79
 
(iv) Language and Thinking: Hamlet 82
 
(v) Art and Artifice: The Tempest 85
 
The Limits of Imagination 87
 
6 Literary Biography and Portraiture 92
 
Sister Arts 92
 
(i) Biography and Portraiture: Reynolds's Portrait of Dr Johnson 94
 
(ii) Reading the Image: Cassandra Austen's Sketch of Jane Austen 96
 
(iii) Visual Myth-Making: Henry Weekes's Shelley Monument 98
 
(iv) Celebrity Image: Thomas Phillips's Portrait of Byron in Albanian Dress 100
 
(v) Visual Memoir: Joseph Severn's Portrait of John Keats 102
 
(vi) Bardography: The Chandos Portrait of Shakespeare 104
 
(vii) The Inner Life: R. W. Buss's Dickens's Dream 106
 
(viii) Sisters' Arts: Vanessa Bell's Portrait of Virginia Woolf 108
 
(ix) 'To prepare a face ...': Patrick Heron's Portrait of T. S. Eliot 110
 
(x) Branwell's Ghost: Branwell Brontë's Portrait of his Three Sisters 112
 
Art to Order 114
 
7 Comparative Biography: Dickens's 'Lives' 117
 
The Victorian Dickens 118
 
The Modern Dickens 121
 
The Post-Modern Dickens 125
 
Lives and Times 130
 
8 Literary Auto/Biography 132
 
Acts of Self-Creation in Wordsworth and Joyce 132
 
Wordsworth's 'biographic verse' 134
 
Joyce's 'artist, like the God of creation' 143
 
Masks and Metaphors 149
 
9 Biography in Practice 152
 
An Interview with Dominic Hibberd, author of Wilfred Owen: A New Biography 152
 
Living with the Subject 153
 
Imagining Wilfred 157
 
Matters of Life and Death 166
 
10 Authorised Lives 171
 
The Life of Graham Greene by Norman Sherry 172
 
Bernard Shaw by Michael Holroyd 176
 
T. S. Eliot by Peter Ackroyd 181
 
Orwell: The Life by D. J. Taylor 186
 
Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life by Andrew Motion 192
 
Co

About the author

Michael Benton is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Southampton. His publications include the highly influential Teaching Literature 9-14 (with Geoff Fox, 1985) and several widely used anthologies of poetry, most notably the Touchstones series (with Peter Benton, various editions 1968-2008). His most recent book was Studies in the Spectator Role: Literature, Painting and Pedagogy (2000).

Report

"Provides tutors and students with a useful means of entry to a complex and rapidly developing area of debate."--(Dinah Birch, University of Liverpool)
 
"I found this book both highly enjoyable and informative. It is simply excellent - very well written, elegant in structure and individual phrasing, a fascinating topic and a provocative introduction to a range of biographies."--(Geoff Fox, Exeter University)
 
"Last year I was sent Michael Benton's Literary Biography: An Introduction prior to publication, and was happy to supply a recommendation for the dust jacket. I described it then as an "elegant. introduction which is likely to appeal to both established scholars and to the growing number of university students who study the subject at all levels." Having read the book again for the purposes of this review, I am happy to stand by my initial response. Indeed, I would add that the book is sufficiently rich and thoughtful to provide an even more enjoyable and informative reading experience the second time around."--(Katherine Hughes, Biography) "Brisk and readable ... lucid and intelligent"--(Claire Harman, Times Literary Supplement)

Product details

• Authors: Michael J Benton, Michael J. Benton, Michael J. (University of Southampton Benton, Benton Michael J.
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 17.07.2015
• EAN: 9781119060116
• ISBN: 978-1-119-06011-6
• No. of pages: 288
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Non-fiction book > Dictionaries, reference works > Foreign-language dictionaries; Literatur, Literaturwissenschaft, Literature, Allg. Literaturwissenschaft