Life Writing：A Powerful New Genre

Paula R.Backscheider

Abstract： “Life Writing：A Powerful New Genre”gives a brief overview of the history and growth of life writing and the major methodologies that have emerged. In the next section，that life writing has become a distinct genre is illustrated. The essay concludes with a discussion of some of the issues and controversies surrounding the practice and publication of life writing. Among these are the relationships between biography and autobiography and between the strategies of life-writers and those of fiction writers. Another issue is the explosive development of thematic biographies and other kinds of biographies that are not intended to be“whole lives，”all of which depend to some extent on the methods of life-writers.

Key words：biomythography； biography； autobiography

An unusual dimension to my literary criticism is attention to biography and theories of biography. Rather than familiar canonical writers，I tend to study women writers and male authors whose lives were marginal in one way or another. As someone once said to me，people were proud to dine with or even see Samuel Johnson and recorded the experience，but Defoe，as a man who served jail time for debt and for seditious libel，was not so much. The evidence about these less prominent women’s and men’s lives is often scarce. Evidence for life writing，however，survives for many of them，and the theories and methodologies that have emerged over the last twenty-five years are increasingly sophisticated，trustworthy，and effective in recovering their lives，thoughts，and reception.

Based upon the fascinating and important questions posed to me by Liang Qingbiao，editor of Journal of Modern Life Writing Studies，I will begin with an overview of the history and development of life writing and then comment on its distinctiveness and the issues that most concern to its practitioners and readers.

Life writing is now an exciting，growing field while it was just beginning to be defined anew when I published the first edition of Reflections on Biography in 1999（another edition，2013，available from Amazon）. In fact，as I was then trying to stick exclusively to biography，I excluded pioneering contemporary methodological examples of life writing books such as Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s A Midwife’s Tale：The Life of Martha Ballard（1990）. I also excluded autobiography in order to keep my readers’ focus sharply on biographers’ methods and decisions and why readers should care deeply.“Life writing”inscribes the boundary breakdown so common in contemporary biography writing. Like Ulrich’s book，it often alternates quotations from autobiographical writings with biographical discourse. It was a popular term in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and included all kinds of autologous texts，some belles lettres such as travel narratives and others unstructured and highly experimental such as Charlotte Charke’s Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke（1755）. In our time，it has become a comfortable，somewhat baggy term to describe all kinds of biographical and autobiographical discourses. Nancy K.Miller observes that“the rubric remains open to new departures as critics and scholars respond to the proliferation of self-narration and self-portraiture in both popular and high culture modes.”

In fact，life writing creates a category that is protected from the inherited genre demands of“autobiography”and“biography，”but it has been used in such a variety of ways to write biographies that all scholars must now grapple with it as a genre. I do mean grapple for two reasons. First，we still need concentrated studies of biography，especially focused on the post-Strachey innovations that swept the last quarter of the twentieth century. Such studies should be foundational to understanding life writing. Second，life writing is a large，complex subject that has developed exponentially in both applied and theoretical ways in recent years. For example，I have experimented with applying life writing methods to an eighteenth-century writer，Elizabeth Rowe，and am beginning to encourage students to treat certain poets’ texts as life writing. This was the best strategy for a student working on Priscilla Poynton，a blind poet，who wrote many autobiographical poems over many years.

As Marlene Kadar says，“Life writing，put simply，is a less exclusive genre of personal kinds of writing that includes both biography and autobiography，but also the less‘objective，’ or more‘personal，’ genres such as letters and diaries.” Books such as Ulrich’s Midwife’s Tale have become more common，as scholars bring together the subject’s documents of many kinds written over many years and forge them into an account of a life bound together and given continuity and themes by commentary by the scholar. Thus，books classified as life writing may cover a considerable part of a person’s life，coherent segments of it，or be about ways of living and material culture. Life writing techniques solve problems most biographers know well，problems serious enough to rule against attempting some biographies. When sections of a life are beyond recovery or only fragments of evidence exist，a life writing book is still possible. The author can include rich historical and contextual material to help readers understand the autobiographical utterances，and they may draw on what they know about the social，political，and domestic circumstances of highly similar people.

In the twentieth century，many biographers began to prioritize“letting the subject speak，”and，again，life writing with the frequent technique of alternating quotations from the subjects’ writings or even their conversation with interpretation is a powerful choice. Interestingly，James Boswell pioneered that technique in his life of Samuel Johnson，and readers sometimes said that they“saw and heard”Johnson. As Boswell wrote，“ ... I cannot conceive a more perfect mode of writing any man’s life，than not only relating all the most important events of it in their order，but interweaving what he privately wrote，and said，and thought； by which mankind are enabled as it were to see him live，and to‘live o’er each scene’ with him，as he actually advanced through the several stages of his life.”

In the past twenty years，feminists have begun to theorize life writing in different ways，and they often describe it as documents of many kinds written out of a life or lives. Their work brought into question many male-defined categories that had shaped biography，especially the expected life shape that was organized as origin，logic，purpose，and outcome. Not only were women’s lives often reinvented and redirected，but biographers recognized that exigency，accident，and，especially，private circumstances and relationships demanded the rewriting of biographies of men.These feminists’ pioneering work was partly motivated by the relative lack of records of even prominent women’s lives. Families and histories preserved fewer diaries，journals，letters，and such documents describing the woman and her actions by herself and by others. Many women lacked the time and privacy to keep，for instance，a journal. Kadar，who is following Sidonie Smith，observes that until quite recently，the writing and study of life writing was most often concerned with women’s bios，“life，way of living”； their aute，“authority and originality”； or their“ graphia（signs）or hermeneutics.”

Recently，important theoretical books on the subject by specialists in autobiography and biography have begun to appear. They provide searching studies of the history of life writing，how life writing documents might be interpreted，and about the most pressing issues for the field. Some of those issues are about the genre，and most important are form，interpretations of history，and definitions of consciousness，identity，and aesthetics. Others offer great challenges to the author as they try to understand how to evaluate the subject’s memory，time，consciousness，sexual identity，and subjectivity. James Olney’s Memory and Narrative：The Weave of Life writing（1998），for instance，gives an authoritative account of this history into the twentieth century. A distinguished，much published and quoted scholar，he begins by re-classifying Augustine’s，Giambattista Vico’s，and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s autobiographical writings and concludes with a thought-provoking treatment of Samuel Beckett’s varied writings. In both of the two parts of the book，he considers memory，a vexed concept for all who use autobiographical and biographical materials. In the second part of the book，he deeply engages the issue of the ways those who work with life writings explicate genres such as plays and，especially，fiction. In addition to Beckett，he contributes a fascinating example in Richard Wright，whose Black Boy is a natural case study. Olney’s book richly suggests what the biographer can contribute，regardless of how fully a writer has engaged with his or her own life，how self-consciously attempted to“work his or her life into an elaborate，important，and connected whole.”

Max Saunders’ Self Impression：Life writing，Autobiografiction，and the Forms of Modern Literature is evidence of how rapidly the major theoretical questions have come into wide discussion. He points out that“autobiografiction”has been revived from its coining in the early twentieth century and his Self Impression is a study of the form，which he argues is“a prime postmodernist mode.”He uses the word for modern experiments with life writing and as a means to discuss how the relationships among autobiography，biography，and fiction underwent dramatic changes in the period between 1870 and 1930.

Saunders describes life writing becoming“an area of major development in literary studies”beginning in the 1970s but points out that it remains a“contentious term.”He carefully considers both sides of many major questions. For instance，he notes the objections to blurring distinctions among biography，autobiography，and fiction that，among other deleterious effects，can camouflage inaccuracies and unverifiable claims. He points out，however，how intertexual the genres seen as more pure have always been and how boundaries have always been permeable.Like Olney，he finds Gertrude Stein important to the modernist history of auto/biography and，therefore，to life writing. Treating her work within the context of her generation’s critique of biography，which included fictionalizing and parodying，he goes on to relate her work to Virginia Woolf’s. His study is one of many gradually repositioning Woolf in the history of biography，as the field moves to replace Strachey with Woolf as the major spokesperson and critic for the New Biography. They recognize Woolf’s Orlando as foreshadowing today’s meta-fictional biographies. As Saunders says，“Of all modernist engagements with life writing，Virginia Woolf’s is the most visible，and her work represents the most sustained and diverse exploration of the relation between fiction and auto/biography ... .”

With the growing understanding of the performativity of the self and the artifice of subjectivity，blending biography and autobiography has become deliberate and a growing area of experimental writing. While revelations or autobiographical moments in biographies used to be recognized through speculation or discourse shifts within the writing，now they are approaching a genre，a contemporary variant perhaps somewhat comparable to William Wordsworth’s Prelude. An awareness of how people have performed public roles，sometimes even parodying these roles in order to make a point，have made the work of writers of biography more difficult but opened intriguing possibilities for life-writers. To look at Alexander Pope’s late satires，such as The Epistle to Arbuthnot，in this way is to see a poet both presenting versions of himself and displaying the attitude of his time toward poets that provoke these performances and make them necessary. Apparent contradictions in personalities may be explained when filtered through the lens of public performance. Many practitioners and theorists of biographical writing continue to be concerned about the influential argument made by Hayden White that literary-like narratives in historiography shape the meanings of history，of which many biographies are an important branch. White argued that these narratives were not“found，”but invented，primarily in literature. Rather than revealing past reality，he argued，“historical narrative imposes a mythic structure on the events it purports to describe.”The extent to which the master narratives，myths，and inherited interpretations can be escaped or avoided is controversial and intersects with performativity，as questions of how much the narrated self is also an inescapable product of these plot lines. As Saunders says，“the notion of the performative reintroduces the ideas of fictionality and creativity to the heart of the autobiographic project.”He goes on to point out that even formal autobiography therefore becomes a version of autobiografiction.

One way to look at life writing is to say that it has made certain questions irrelevant as it has defined and analyzed itself as a new genre. Terms such as autobiografiction，”“auto/biografiction，”and“auto/biographic metafiction”show that authors know exactly what they are doing and offer their methodologies for other authors to employ. Some of these techniques are used in texts many have unproblematically called“fiction”in the past，such as Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire（1962）and A.S.Byatt’s Possession（1990）that are fictions about biographers and autobiographers. From Gian Artico di Porcía call for scholars to write their intellectual memoirs for the benefit of the young，Olney took“periautography，”which he calls the autobiographical form for our time. In this attempt to write“intellectual memoirs”as Vico did and to“make his mind present to itself so that he may make it present also to his readers”as Augustine did，Olney defines this type by the fact that the subject is the self rather than the lived life. In biography as opposed to autobiography or life writing studies，“intellectual biography”is the term we use more commonly.“

Biomythography，”rather than being the creation of martyrdom，celebrity，and idolatry，is a fascinating current trend in which the biographer concentrates on or adds a final chapter on the afterlife，the“posthumous life，”where mythologies are created. After the subject’s death，“versioning”runs wild and may obliterate aspects of the actual life. It identifies how“the scattered fragments of the past”are gathered and organized“to meet the needs of the present，”and what the stakes are and for whom in creating and then maintaining the myths— or exposing and replacing them.Sometimes the most interesting and important chapters in today’s biographies are those that trace how a man became a Great Man and how and why that status survives generation after generation.Whether his own self-fashioning or the needs of a society determined these things is an important inquiry. Sometimes these final chapters trace the way entire parts of a famous person’s history disappear and coins，statues，stamps，libraries，and other material artifacts and even holidays fix a nationally useful identity.

“Thematic biographies”are now frequently written and described by authors and critics as liberating biography from the straitjacket of chronology. The term“versioning”fits many of them，as they offer reinterpretations or even refashionings. Conor Cruise O’Brien writes，“I set out to write a biography of Edmund Burke ... . Had it been completed，［it］ would have been on conventional lines，emphasizing chronology，and without a sustained thematic dimension. The project soon got into difficulty. ... The real trouble was that the Burke that interested me— Burke’s mind and heart，at grips with the great issues of his time— seemed to get further and further away.”He unifies his biography of the much-studied Burke around the theme of his opposition to abuse of power. By bringing in many autobiographical utterances and memories of Burke’s contemporaries，some apocryphal，he mingles biography，political and social history，and life-writing. By doing so，he can give an in-depth look at Burke’s involvement in four major historical events and create a stronger sense of his view of Burke’s controlling principles and reflexive responses to varying kinds of exercises of power including the campaign to repeal the Penal Laws in Ireland. O’Brien recognized that one of the primary advantages of a thematic biography is the potential to encourage readers to see an event and reactions to it by highly familiar，major actors in that event from a strong perspective.

Certainly thematic biographies allow writers the space they need to probe key events in a life and the intersections of that life with social，political，or familial upheaval. Rosemarie Bodenheimer，for example，organized Knowing Dickens（2007）into five themes including memory，male friendships and rivalry，and houses and their management that she identifies as“some of the ways of knowing that drove his creative life.”She uses letters as well as his stories and sections of novels，and some of her conclusions show the effectiveness of her method. For instance，she argues that his characters’ dialogue and the unfolding of his plots reveal more about his“ways of knowing”than his omniscient narrative voice. Authors of thematic biographies often emphasize their use of the subject’s letters，journals，speeches，and creative writing including fiction，thereby letting the person“speak”in autobiographical ways. O’Brien writes，“Incomparably the most important sources，for this study，are the recorded words，both spoken and written，of Edmund Burke.”Juxtaposing printed and recorded public utterances with personal，unguarded reactions in diaries and journals and then with accounts of the same event in letters to different correspondents is a frequent life writing technique—one biographers are beginning to use more often. Literary critics have always identified themes in texts，and thematic biographies with varying degrees of skill are bringing this method into their work.

The genres of autobiography，biography，history，and life writing are all informative and entertaining，but they are also all dangerous. They give an interpretation of a person’s life，of his or her time，and of the forces that shaped that life and，often，continue to influence us. Citizens of the United States trace many of their values to the biomythographies of George Washington and Martin Luther King. Whether the biogythographies of Confucius or Chairman Mao are our conception of China actually tells more about us than about China，but it also tells what we have read and how gripping and“real”the biographies we’ve read were. The most effective of these genres in transmitting ideologies and values have always used narrative，and narrative is always a created story with a beginning，middle and end and the assignment of cause-effect. Biography became a major genre when it imitated the great Victorian novels. Now the most influential biographies are probably television programs that make historical human beings heroes，nation-changers，victims，or monsters. For me，the most heartening and important change is the awareness that ordinary readers and viewers now have of the absolutely routine，even unavoidable dependence on fictional techniques of life-writers and biographers. The gullibility I encountered twenty-five years ago when many people，even scholars，believed that history and fiction could be separated seems largely gone. The question now is“How is this fiction‘true’？”“Does it fill in what a time was like？”“Does it tell us what ordinary life was like so that we can understand the subject better，either as one who had to conform，wanted to conform，or resisted expectations？”“Does it offer us an interpretation of why a politician acted as s/he did that we find credible or highly speculative？”And most important for human history and action：“Does the interpretation and the maintenance of an ideology generate and depend upon this fiction？”

Perhaps the next step for readers and watchers of biography is the development of an understanding that there are kinds of life writing truth. Rather than in the allegedly“objective”discourses of history or the allegedly“accurate”recollections of biography，truth is sometimes best conveyed in an image or in an allegory or with a symbol. Is not the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima that we can all see in our minds a more accurate conveyance of truth than many，many words? And cannot we all see it at this moment in our minds and recognize it as an important moment in the biographies of people in many nations？

Another kind of truth is actually in the“lies”in the documents we use to construct life writing，both the subject’s and those around him/her and the author’s published text. Biographers have long known that the subject’s memories and accounts were among the least reliable sources of objective，veridical truth. Now life-writers are working in fascinating ways with these discrepancies and falsehoods. Why does a person remember an event or action as s/he does? Maybe it is not a memory，but a story a parent told the child about something s/he did，and the parent improved the story to make it more interesting or instructive. Perhaps it was the only way the subject could make sense of an event，could assign cause-effect. Perhaps the subject is covering something shameful or illegal or humiliating. If we are life-writers，we need to be as interested in the errors and falsehoods as the verifiable actions. At every moment we must dig for the feelings，the emotional and personal experiences that may make the subject different from others who experienced the same things. And every moment we must run through the catalog of social，domestic，political，historical，religious，economic，and other contexts to decide which must be brought into the narrative.