Define Biography and Autobiography?

 

Biography

A biography is an account of a person's life written by someone else. The word 'biography' comes from the Greek words 'bios', meaning 'life', and 'graphein', meaning 'to write'. As a genre, it rose in prominence from the second half of the seventeenth century. It differs from history in that it is a record of one individual. Two definite events are included in almost every biography - birth and death.

 

Features of a biography

Ø  A biography is the story of an individual; the focus is on this individual, and other characters, even if they are greater in some way, play only a subsidiary role.

Ø A good biography traces not only the achievements of the subject, but also highlights her/his personality and character.

Ø  A biography is not a mere compilation of dry facts. A biographer takes care to arrange and present her/his material in a pleasing and artistic manner. A well-written biography brings the personality of the subject to life.

 

Autobiography

An autobiography is a kind of biography in which the author tells the story of his or her own life. The term is believed to have been first used in its present sense by Robert Southey in 1809. According to the American poet H.W. Longfellow, Autobiography is a product of firsthand experience; biography, of secondhand knowledge.

Dr Johnson was of the firm opinion that no man was better qualified to write about his life than himself. This is debatable, as a person's memory could be unreliable. It is difficult for a person to accurately recall all the details of his or her early life, and one may be forced to depend on other people for information. Yet another issue is that one might share only those details that one wishes to. So, an autobiography becomes unreliable as a source of information since disagreeable facts could be misrepresented, glossed over, or completely ignored.

Features of an autobiography

Ø  An autobiography is not a mere narration of events. It is a reflection of the author's inner life as well as her/his public achievements, set in the context of the time.

Ø  An autobiography is made interesting to read by presenting details in an artistic and engaging manner while remaining truthful.

 

Biography V/S autobiography

What we look for in a biography is objectivity and factual accuracy. In an autobiography, we look for subjectivity: we want the writer to give us the little, personal details about her his life. Compare, for example, D.G. Tendulkar's biography of M.K. Gandhi, Mahatma (1951), with Gandhi's autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1927). A good biography succeeds in giving us perspective. That is, we get an objective view of the background, history, and influences that had an impact upon the life of the subject (as in Tendulkar's biography). The advantage of an autobiography, on the other hand, is that we can learn about the motives, emotions, hopes, fears, doubts and joys that only the writer can know (as we do in Gandhi's autobiography).