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From: Maia <maia>
Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 22:58:54 -0800
biography: a written account of another person's life...
I guess I have concerns about the very idea of biography. It seems to me that many authors overlay their own personal agendas upon the reality of their subjects' lives, even using the subject(ed) person strictly to communicate a moral. For example, George Washington becomes a moral lesson about honesty, rather than a real person. Okay, so does it matter? I think it does, because George Washington (and everything he represented and did) then gets lent a moral weight that is out of accordance with the real man -- and the lesson gains a peculiar weight because it is "history" and therefore "real." True, in fiction and fairy tales characters often take on the weight of lessons and meaning but to do this to a real person seems to risk a disruption of a child's ability to understand the historical and social dynamics of their environment. George Washington is not a parable.
Also, anyone can write a biography about anyone else, recreating that person's life through their own projections. I find that creepy, at least when the narrative voice is omniscient. Of all the people I know and love, there isn't a single soul whose biography I feel I could write
- I could write about my experiences with them, my feelings about them, but to write as if I could define their life would be obscene. Does writing a biography of someone steal from them their ability to define themselves in the world? Or, as I have been told that James Hillman suggests, do biographies strip from individuals the numinous quality that makes them special?
What is it about biography (as opposed to essay, speech, or autobiography) that is so appealing to educators?
Maia
p.s. Perhaps all of this is why I am particularly fond of autobiographies, essays, and letter collections. In these, the author is the subject, and it is clear that the narrative voice is the subject's voice... the dangerously projected omniscience is lost.
-maia at littlefolktales.org www.littlefolktales.org the Spirited Review: www.littlefolktales.org/reviews
Received on Fri 03 Nov 2000 12:58:54 AM CST
Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 22:58:54 -0800
biography: a written account of another person's life...
I guess I have concerns about the very idea of biography. It seems to me that many authors overlay their own personal agendas upon the reality of their subjects' lives, even using the subject(ed) person strictly to communicate a moral. For example, George Washington becomes a moral lesson about honesty, rather than a real person. Okay, so does it matter? I think it does, because George Washington (and everything he represented and did) then gets lent a moral weight that is out of accordance with the real man -- and the lesson gains a peculiar weight because it is "history" and therefore "real." True, in fiction and fairy tales characters often take on the weight of lessons and meaning but to do this to a real person seems to risk a disruption of a child's ability to understand the historical and social dynamics of their environment. George Washington is not a parable.
Also, anyone can write a biography about anyone else, recreating that person's life through their own projections. I find that creepy, at least when the narrative voice is omniscient. Of all the people I know and love, there isn't a single soul whose biography I feel I could write
- I could write about my experiences with them, my feelings about them, but to write as if I could define their life would be obscene. Does writing a biography of someone steal from them their ability to define themselves in the world? Or, as I have been told that James Hillman suggests, do biographies strip from individuals the numinous quality that makes them special?
What is it about biography (as opposed to essay, speech, or autobiography) that is so appealing to educators?
Maia
p.s. Perhaps all of this is why I am particularly fond of autobiographies, essays, and letter collections. In these, the author is the subject, and it is clear that the narrative voice is the subject's voice... the dangerously projected omniscience is lost.
-maia at littlefolktales.org www.littlefolktales.org the Spirited Review: www.littlefolktales.org/reviews
Received on Fri 03 Nov 2000 12:58:54 AM CST
