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An autobiography (from the Greek ''auton'', 'self', ''bios'', 'life' and ''graphein'', 'write') is a Biography written by the subject or composed conjointly with a collaborative writer (styled "as told to" or "with"). The term dates from the late eighteenth century, but the form is much older. Biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints; an autobiography may be based entirely on the writer's memory. A name for such a work in Antiquity was an '' Apologia ,'' essentially more self-justification than introspection. John Henry Newman 's autobiography is his ''Apologia pro vita sua.'' Augustine applied the title '' Confessions '' to his autobiographical work (and Jean-Jacques Rousseau took up the same title). Probably the most famous German autobiography is still Goethe's '' Dichtung Und Wahrheit ''. '' The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin '', the first secular biography published in the United States, served as a model for subsequent American autobiographies. African-American autobiography has developed from Slave Narrative s. Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois both published autobiographies. A framed his life memoir as one of his Oration s, not the public kind, but the literary kind that would be read aloud in the privacy of one's study. This kind of memoir refers to the idea in ancient Greece and Rome, that memoirs were like "memos," pieces of unfinished and unpublished writing which a writer might use as a memory aid to make a more finished document later on. In more recent times, memoirs are also life stories which can be about the writer and about another person at the some time. Modern memoirs are often based on old Diaries , Letter s, and Photograph s. The term "memoir" has begun to replace "autobiography" in its popular use. Until the last 20 years or so, few people without some degree of fame tried to write and publish a memoir. But with the critical and commercial success in the United States of such memoirs '' Angela's Ashes '' and '' The Color Of Water '' more and more people have been encouraged to try their hand at this genre. Paul Delaney has coined the term "ad hoc autobiography" to describe an autobiography motivated by the desire to exploit some temporary notoriety. Such autobiographies, often written by a Ghostwriter , are routinely published on the lives of professional athletes and media celebrities—and to a lesser extent about politicians. Some celebrities admit to not having read their "autobiographies." Mark Twain was probably the first popular person to include photography in his autobiography. He was specially interested and involved on the taking of the pictures to control his photographic persona. NOTABLE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES (in addition to those referenced in the article)
SECONDARY LITERATURE
SEE ALSO Autobiographical Songs |
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