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. |
Dentro del libro
Resultados 1-5 de 58
... thesame fallacies, all animated byhope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.” Anylife, in his view, can merit a biography, eventhough “itis frequently objectedto relationsof particular livesthat theyarenot ...
... world, great numbers in the same condition with himself,to whomhis mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediateand apparentuse; but there is sucha uniformity in the state of man,considered apart.
... the same cruelty. As itwas impossible toavoid the inquiries which the curiosity or tenderness ofher relations made after herchild, shewas obliged to givesome account ofthe measures thatshe had taken; and her mother, theLady Mason ...
... 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 worthy of such a disposition. She endeavoured to rid herself from the danger of ...
... the same time so touched with the discovery of his realmother that itwas his frequent practice towalk in thedark evenings for several hours before herdoor, inhopes ofseeing her as she might comeby accident to the window, or cross her ...
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 | |