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autobiography

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What's driving coverage of autobiography right now?

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autobiography

Not who you're looking for? Others named autobiography: 1978 live album · autobiographical work by John Cowper Powys · autobiographical work by David Morrissey · 1965 album by Nat Adderley

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What's driving coverage of autobiography right now?

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autobiography across IJR

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Overview

An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written biography of one's own life. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English periodical The Monthly Review, when he suggested the word as a hybrid, but condemned it as "pedantic". However, its next recorded use was in its present sense, by Robert Southey in 1809. Despite only being named early in the nineteenth century, first-person autobiographical writing originates in antiquity. Roy Pascal differentiates autobiography from the periodic self-reflective mode of journal or diary writing by noting that "[autobiography] is a review of a life from a particular moment in time, while the diary, however reflective it may be, moves through a series of moments in time". Autobiography thus takes stock of the autobiographer's life from the moment of composition. While biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints, autobiography may be based entirely on the writer's memory. The memoir form is closely associated with autobiography but it tends, as Pascal claims, to focus less on the self and more on others during the autobiographer's review of their own life. Biography Life

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Notable quotes

“All fiction may be autobiography, but all autobiography is of course fiction.”
— Shirley Abbott, quoted in Mickey Pearlman, Listen to Their Voices (1993), ch. 12.
“A man's memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance with his present interests, and the most faithful autobiography is likely to mirror less what a man was than what he has become.”
— Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History (1945), ch. 19.
“An autobiography is only 'a sort of life' – it may contain less errors of fact than a biography, but it is of necessity even more selective: it begins later and it ends prematurely.”
— Graham Greene, A Sort of Life, opening words.
“I write fiction and I'm told it's autobiography, I write autobiography and I'm told it's fiction, so since I'm so dim and they're so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn't.”
— Philip Roth, Deception: A Novel (1990).
“Don't give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can't express them. Don't analyse yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.”
— Evelyn Waugh, Tablet (London, 5 May 1951), review of Stephen Spender's autobiography, World Within World.
“I dislike modern memoirs. They are generally written by people who have either entirely lost their memories, or have never done anything worth remembering, which, however, is, no doubt, the true explanation of their popularity, as the English public always feels perfectly at its ease when a mediocrity is talking to it.”
— Oscar Wilde, (1891), pt. 1.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Notable quotes

“All fiction may be autobiography, but all autobiography is of course fiction.”
— Shirley Abbott, quoted in Mickey Pearlman, Listen to Their Voices (1993), ch. 12.
“A man's memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance with his present interests, and the most faithful autobiography is likely to mirror less what a man was than what he has become.”
— Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History (1945), ch. 19.
“An autobiography is only 'a sort of life' – it may contain less errors of fact than a biography, but it is of necessity even more selective: it begins later and it ends prematurely.”
— Graham Greene, A Sort of Life, opening words.
“I write fiction and I'm told it's autobiography, I write autobiography and I'm told it's fiction, so since I'm so dim and they're so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn't.”
— Philip Roth, Deception: A Novel (1990).
“Don't give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can't express them. Don't analyse yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.”
— Evelyn Waugh, Tablet (London, 5 May 1951), review of Stephen Spender's autobiography, World Within World.
“I dislike modern memoirs. They are generally written by people who have either entirely lost their memories, or have never done anything worth remembering, which, however, is, no doubt, the true explanation of their popularity, as the English public always feels perfectly at its ease when a mediocrity is talking to it.”
— Oscar Wilde, (1891), pt. 1.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written biography of one's own life.

Overview

An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written biography of one's own life. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English periodical The Monthly Review, when he suggested the word as a hybrid, but condemned it as "pedantic". However, its next recorded use was in its present sense, by Robert Southey in 1809. Despite only being named early in the nineteenth century, first-person autobiographical writing originates in antiquity. Roy Pascal differentiates autobiography from the periodic self-reflective mode of journal or diary writing by noting that "[autobiography] is a review of a life from a particular moment in time, while the diary, however reflective it may be, moves through a series of moments in time". Autobiography thus takes stock of the autobiographer's life from the moment of composition. While biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints, autobiography may be based entirely on the writer's memory. The memoir form is closely associated with autobiography but it tends, as Pascal claims, to focus less on the self and more on others during the autobiographer's review of their own life. Biography Life

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Not who you're looking for? Others named autobiography: 1978 live album · autobiographical work by John Cowper Powys · autobiographical work by David Morrissey · 1965 album by Nat Adderley

autobiography across IJR

Ask Genius by OpenServe about autobiography Create in Studio Build a game Watch videos