Autobiography - Sally Cline
[alert-success] Autobiography - Life Writings - I MA - Unit I
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What is Autobiography?
The name ‘autobiography’ was
initially coined by poet Robert Southey in 1809. However, the concept of
autobiographical writings dates back to ancient times, where such works were
commonly titled ‘apologia.’ Apologia, the title, suggests that these writings
served not only as a means of self-documentation but also as a sort of
self-justification.
St. Augustine (354–430) titled his
work "Confessions," which is often considered to be the earliest
autobiography in Western Europe. In this book, he sought to elucidate important
events that occurred throughout his life.
The name 'autobiography' is derived
from three Latin roots: autos, bios, and graphe, which respectively indicate
self, life, and writing. Therefore, autobiography refers to the act of writing
about oneself and one's life.
The difficulty in defining
autobiography is that it is defined not by form but by content. Autobiography
relies on a tricky pact between writer and reader that the book is a true
account. It is a contract between reader and author that autobiographers will
commit themselves to an honest effort to understand and come to terms with
their lives.
Paul John Eakin suggests that the
‘self’ expressed in autobiography is a fictive construct. A fictional
protagonist articulated in a quasi-fiction. Philip Lejeune says that autobiography is “telling the
truth about the self, constituting the self as complete subject – it is a
fantasy”. Thus, the nature of autobiographical truth is a sort of fiction.
Saly Cline defines that “autobiography
is a narrative account in non-fiction prose usually written by one person that
purports (give impression) to depict that person’s life, character and
personality, especially the inner life, with immediacy and authenticity, told
retrospectively”.
Why do people write autobiographies?
Some autobiographers are motivated
by a desire to establish order and structure in their random experiences. Others
choose to write autobiographies because they are able to draw upon their own
personal knowledge and experiences. Disclosure and revealing a secret can have
a significant impact, and some authors argue that writing an autobiography can
be therapeutic. However, certain autobiographers prioritize the exclusion of
distressing particulars over their disclosure. Eudora Welty, in her work "One
Writer's Beginnings," omits mention of certain troubling incidents
that occurred in her life. She conceals her anguish regarding her
unattractiveness, her mother's controlling behavior, her persistent desire for
death, and her obligatory and sorrowful return to the Southern region amidst
the economic downturn of the Depression.
Some autobiographers write from a
conviction that they possess the ability to narrate a good story, and that
their personal experiences, occupation, or social network makes their story is
worth sharing. Nevertheless, certain writers who possess good stories of life
feel uncomfortable when they shift the focus onto their own self.
Where to start an Autobiography
Many autobiographers choose to start their narrative
from their childhood experiences. Maya Angelou in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has effectively explained her
childhood. The book starts in the 1930s when Maya was sent to live with her
grandmother, where she ends up becoming a mother at seventeen. Reviewers
sometimes categorise Caged Bird as autobiographical fiction.
History and development of
contemporary autobiographies
The explosion of modern
autobiographies came as a result of the growth of three movements: the
Confessionalist Literature Movement, The Women’s Movement and the Gay Movement.
These intense hidden experiences led to outpourings about incest, violence
against women, and homophobic abuse.
Confessionalist
literature in the sixties was a literary movement in which the dominant feature
was the use of the writers’ most extreme life experiences as literary material.
The Women’s Movement focused on the
exploration of suppressed female selves and voices.
The genre of autobiography in
America has evolved from a non-literary method of documenting one's life to its
present literary form, which is characterized by a blend of both fictional and
non-fictional elements.
During the Colonial period,
autobiographers frequently fabricated myths in order to justify particular
religious or patriotic objectives. From spiritual autobiographies came the slave narrative and the Indian
captivity narrative. Slave accounts such as
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by
Himself and Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents
in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written
by Herself show successful escapes from American slavery and were
originally intended as propaganda by abolitionists.
Indian
captivity narratives often showed
European settlers engaging in daring exploits. Taking their lead from spiritual autobiographies, both
Indian captivity accounts and slave narratives focused on life before and
after spiritual conversion. James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of
the Mohicans originated from
narratives of captivity, which subsequently influenced the development of
Western literature.
Classical and contemporary American autobiographies share
the common theme of the autobiographer presenting their life story as a
demonstration of the significance of individual existence within a democratic
society.
Are all autobiographies written by
their subjects?
No.
Some autobiographies are based on interviews with a professional writer either
when subjects are alive or even after death. The Autobiography of Malcolm X was published in 1965 after the
black Muslim activist had been assassinated. His collaborator, journalist Alex
Haley, based the book on Haley’s taped interviews during the years
1963–65.
Many autobiographies of celebrities are written by
ghostwriters. Some ghosts, as their name
suggests, remain invisible. Others, many well-established authors, have
recently become highly visible. Two of the best-known are Hunter Davies,
biographer of The Beatles and Rebecca Farnworth the ‘voice’ of Katie Price.
Autobiographical writing in other
genres
Autobiographical
materials have been catapulted into various literary forms such as novels,
stories, poetry, non-fiction, and even fictitious works labelled as
'autobiographies'. By the close of the twentieth century, the distinctions
between autobiography and autobiographical novels were more blurred, as fiction
writers heavily relied on their personal experiences. James Weldon Johnson’s novel The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a famous early example.
Autobiographical novels
Graham
Greene advised new autobiographical novelists to use their experiences and
write autobiographically but always change one thing. This transition from pure
autobiography to fiction is essential, as there are two main types:
autobiographical novels based strictly on the author's life and
semi-autobiographical novels, which are loosely based on the author's life.
Semi-autobiographical novels may be used to protect privacy or achieve
emotional distance from the subject, while fully autobiographical fiction does
not pretend to be exact truth.
Thomas
Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel (1929) is considered autobiographical, with
thinly veiled descriptions of family and the Ashville community. Siri
Hustvedt's The Sorrows of an American (2008) is also
semi-autobiographical, dealing with the troubles of a Norwegian American family
in which psychiatrist Erik Davidsen has a sudden identity crisis.
Paul Auster and Philip Roth are novelists
obsessed with the construction of reality and how barriers break down between
what is lived and what is written and read. Auster believes that "we live
inside an enormous novel," filtering his own life through his fiction.
Roth intentionally blurs the edges between fiction and autobiography, viewing
his life as a Jew and an American as an integral part of his fiction.
Roth's
1974 mock autobiography My Life as a Man features a surrogate
protagonist, randy Jewish novelist Nathan Zuckerman, who allows Roth to write
about his own emotions and intellectual life without using precise
autobiography. The fake autobiography focuses on fictional author Peter
Tarnopol, who claims to be the inventor of Nathan Zuckerman. Roth questions the
genres of autobiography and fiction, inviting readers to become entangled in
his literary game.
Autobiography in creative
non-fiction
Many imaginative non-fiction writers incorporate
autobiographical passages through their work. The writer of this essay, Sally
Cline, herself claims to include autobiographical elements in her creative non-fiction.
Sally Cline says that she has included themes like food, feminism, loss, writing,
reality, solitude, and death in her creative non-fictional works.
Autobiographical poetry
In the
1950s and 60s, confessional poets like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton wrote
autobiographical poetry that revealed intimate details of their lives,
including sexuality, illnesses, depression, and death wishes. They express
their intensely personal
often painful emotions. The term "confessional" was first used
in 1959 by M.L. Rosenthal in a critique of Robert Lowell's Life Studies, which
was seen as a series of shameful private confidences. Other confessional poets
included Theodore Roethke, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs,
William Snodgrass, and John Berryman. Three of these poets committed suicide.
Hyper-autobiographical
poetry defines itself by how poets' personal lives are explored, avoiding
modesty and discretion. Ginsberg's poem Howl exemplifies this, rejecting
yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked
and endless head. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who had heard Ginsberg, might have
been amused by his approach, as he could inform authors about writing interesting
books without disguising the feelings accompanied by their experiences.
Exploitation
Confessional material, such as
poetry or prose, can lead to exploitation due to the splinter of ice in every
writer's soul. This issue is evident in the correspondence between Lowell and
Elizabeth Bishop, who used anguished letters from Hardwick's wife during his
absence in London with Lady Caroline Blackwood. Lowell mixed fact and fiction,
changing some letters to suit his purposes and exploited his relationship with
Hardwick. Bishop, despite recognizing The Dolphin as "magnificent"
poetry, was appalled by Lowell's actions, quoting a line from Thomas Hardy
about the dangers of mixing fact and fiction.
Another incident involved Bishop as
the victim, publishing a highly autobiographical story, In the Village,
in The New Yorker in 1953. In 1962, she received a typescript of Lowell's book
of poems, For the Union Dead, which included a poem called The Scream,
which used and misused Bishop's entire autobiographical story.
Dame Joan Bakewell, who had a
clandestine affair with Harold Pinter between 1962 and 1969, took a more mature
view of exploitation. She felt their friendship was more important than his
dramatic betrayal and tried to understand Pinter's play. Despite the incident,
Bakewell looks back on the affair and incident with pleasure, stating that she
smiles when she thinks about it.
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