(Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture) 1st Edition
by Richard Bradford (Editor)
An authoritative review of literary biography covering the seventeenth century to the twentieth century
A Companion to Literary Biography
offers a comprehensive account of literary biography spanning the
history of the genre across three centuries. The editor – an esteemed
literary biographer and noted expert in the field – has encouraged
contributors to explore the theoretical and methodological questions
raised by the writing of biographies of writers. The text examines how
biographers have dealt with the lives of classic authors from Chaucer to
contemporary figures such as Kingsley Amis.
The Companion brings
a new perspective on how literary biography enables the reader to deal
with the relationship between the writer and their work. Literary
biography is the most popular form of writing about writing, yet it has
been largely neglected in the academic community. This volume bridges
the gap between literary biography as a popular genre and its relevance
for the academic study of literature. This important work:
- Allows
the author of a biography to be treated as part of the process of
interpretation and investigates biographical reading as an important
aspect of criticism
- Examines the birth of literary biography at
the close of the seventeenth century and considers its expansion
through the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries
- Addresses
the status and writing of literary biography from numerous perspectives
and with regard to various sources, methodologies and theories
- Reviews
the ways in which literary biography has played a role in our
perception of writers in the mainstream of the English canon from
Chaucer to the present day
Written for students at the undergraduate level, through postgraduate and doctoral levels, as well as academics, A Companion to Literary Biography
illustrates and accounts for the importance of the literary biography
as a vital element of criticism and as an index to our perception of
literary history.
