Biographical criticism

Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets (1779–81) was possibly the first thorough-going exercise in biographical criticism.[1]

Biographical criticism is a form of literary criticism which analyzes a writer's biography to show the relationship between the author's life and their literary works.[2] Biographical criticism is often associated with historical-biographical criticism,[3] a critical method that "sees a literary work chiefly, if not exclusively, as a reflection of its author's life and times".[4]

This longstanding critical method dates back at least to the Renaissance period,[5] and was employed extensively by Samuel Johnson in his Lives of the Poets (1779–81).[6]

Like any critical methodology, biographical criticism can be used with discretion and insight or employed as a superficial shortcut to understanding the literary work on its own terms through such strategies as Formalism. Hence 19th century biographical criticism came under disapproval by the so-called New Critics of the 1920s, who coined the term "biographical fallacy"[7][8] to describe criticism that neglected the imaginative genesis of literature.

Notwithstanding this critique, biographical criticism remained a significant mode of literary inquiry throughout the 20th century, particularly in studies of Charles Dickens and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among others. The method continues to be employed in the study of such authors as John Steinbeck,[2] Walt Whitman[3] and William Shakespeare.[9]

  1. ^ "Criticism".
  2. ^ a b Benson, Jackson J. (1989). "Steinbeck: A Defense of Biographical Criticism". College Literature. 16 (2): 107–116. JSTOR 25111810.
  3. ^ a b Knoper, Randall K. (2003). "Walt Whitman and New Biographical Criticism". College Literature. 30 (1): 161–168. doi:10.1353/lit.2003.0010. Project MUSE 39025.
  4. ^ Wilfred L. Guerin, A handbook of critical approaches to literature, Edition 5, 2005, page 51, 57-61; Oxford University Press, University of Michigan
  5. ^ Stuart, Duane Reed (1922). "Biographical Criticism of Vergil since the Renaissance". Studies in Philology. 19 (1): 1–30. JSTOR 4171815.
  6. ^ http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/criticism "Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets (1779–81) was the first thorough-going exercise in biographical criticism, the attempt to relate a writer's background and life to his works."
  7. ^ Lees, Francis Noel (1967) "The Keys Are at the Palace: A Note on Criticism and Biography" pp. 135-149 In Damon, Philip (editor) (1967) Literary Criticism and Historical Understanding: Selected Papers from the English Institute Columbia University Press, New York, OCLC 390148
  8. ^ Discussed extensively in Frye, Herman Northrop (1947) Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, page 326 and following, OCLC 560970612
  9. ^ Schiffer, James (ed), Shakespeare's Sonnets: Critical Essays (1999),pp. 19-27, 40-43, 45, 47, 395