British Biography: A ReaderiUniverse, 2005 M07 14 - 320 páginas Biography as a literary genre is largely the product of the eighteenth century and of one seminal work, James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson (1791). Boswell's innovations revolutionized the genre and made it the target of suppression and censorship. He sought not only to memorialize a great man but also to reveal his flaws. Boswell reported long stretches of Johnson's conversation, noted his mannerisms, and in general gave an intimate picture such as no biography had ever before dared to attempt. After Boswell, there was a retreat from his bolder innovations, which amounted to self-censorship on the biographer's part. When Thomas Carlyle's biographer, James Anthony Froude, braved this trend against truth and allowed his subject's dark side to show, he was vilified in the press. The tensions between discretion and candor have endured in British biography since Froude, a point Carl Rollyson makes in the reviews of contemporary British biographers he includes in British Biography, which also contains Johnson's full-length biography of Richard Savage, excerpts from Boswell's Life of Johnson as well selections from and commentaries on Southey's biography of Nelson, Mrs. Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Bront, and the revolutionary work of Froude and Strachey. |
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... persons.” Thisiswhy he claims that“no species of writing” is“more worthyof cultivation than biography.” Everylife, Johnson emphasizes, is bound by certain universals: “We are all prompted bythesame motives, all deceived by thesame ...
... persons; and thereforeno species ofwriting seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since none can bemore delightful or more useful, none can more certainly enchain the heartby irresistible interest,or more widely diffuse ...
... persons are barren and useless. If alife be delayed till interest andenvy areatan end, we mayhope for impartiality, but must expect little intelligence; for the incidents whichgive excellence to biography are ofavolatile and evanescent ...
... person six thousand pounds, which he had in his will bequeathed to Savage. [16] The same cruelty which incited hismother to intercept this provision which had been intended him prompted her in a short time toanother project, a project ...
... persons eminent for their rank, their virtue, and their wit. [58] Of this play,acted, printed, and dedicated, the accumulated profits arose toan hundred pounds, which he thought atthat time a very large sum, having been never master of ...
Contenido
READINGS THE RAMBLER NO 60 JOHNSONS LIFE OF SAVAGE 1744 | |
EXCEPT FROM ROBERT SOUTHEYS LIFE OF NELSON | |
EXCERPTS FROM ELIZABETH GASKELLS LIFEOF | |
EXCERPT FROM FROUDES LIFE OF CARLYLE | |
LYTTON STRACHEY EMINENT VICTORIANS 1918 | |
REVIEWS | |
JOHN FOWLES | |