{"product_id":"literary-biography-isbn-9781119060116","title":"Literary Biography","description":"\u003ci\u003eLiterary Biography: An Introduction\u003c\/i\u003e illustrates and accounts for the literary genre that merges historical facts with the conventions of narrative while revealing how the biographical context can enrich the study of canonical authors.   \u003cul\u003e \u003cli\u003eProvides up-to-date and comprehensive coverage of issues and controversies in life writing, a rapidly growing field of study\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eOffers a valuable biographical and historical context for the study of major classic and contemporary authors\u003c\/li\u003e \u003cli\u003eFeatures an interview with Wilfred Owen's biographer, Dominic Hibberd; a gallery of literary portraits with commentaries; close readings that illustrate the differences between fiction and biography; speculation about likely future developments; and detailed suggestions for further reading\u003c\/li\u003e \u003c\/ul\u003e \u003cp\u003eList of Illustrations xi\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAcknowledgements xii\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIntroduction xiii\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e1 Literary Biography Now and Then 1\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Cinderella of Literary Studies 1\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Rise and Rise of Literary Biography 4\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDr Johnson: Biographer, Theorist and Subject 7\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eVirginia Woolf: Time, Memory and Identity 12\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e2 Life [Hi]Stories: Telling Tales 18\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAspects of Narrative 18\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(i) Beginnings: Charlotte Brontë 19\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(ii) Middles: Thomas Hardy 21\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(iii) Endings: Jane Austen 25\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Naked Biographer 28\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eInventing the Truth 30\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e3 Reading Biography 35\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBiographer, Biography and the Reader 35\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eImagining Blake 38\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eProblems of a Hybrid Form 42\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eReading Lessons 45\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e4 Literary Biomythography 47\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBiomythography 47\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMyth-Making: The Brontë Paradigm 48\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(i) Facts: Selection and ‘Spin’ 49\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(ii) Fact into Fiction 50\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(iii) Fiction into Myth 50\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(iv) Myth into ‘Faction’ 51\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(v) Demythologising the Brontës 52\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eVariations on the Theme 53\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(i) Byron 54\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(ii) Dickens 55\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(iii) Sylvia Plath 58\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eConclusions 63\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e5 Inferential Biography: Shakespeare the Invisible Man 67\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eVirtual Shakespeares 68\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(i) The Facts 68\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(ii) The Theatrical Context 69\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(iii) The Social Context 71\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(iv) The Shakespeare Mythos 72\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(v) The Shakespeare Canon 73\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Implied Author: Inferential Biography 74\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(i) The Art of Love: The Sonnets 75\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(ii) Prejudice, Discrimination and the Law: The Merchant of Venice 77\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(iii) War and the Politics of Nationhood: Henry V 79\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(iv) Language and Thinking: Hamlet 82\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(v) Art and Artifice: The Tempest 85\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Limits of Imagination 87\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e6 Literary Biography and Portraiture 92\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSister Arts 92\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(i) Biography and Portraiture: Reynolds’s Portrait of Dr Johnson 94\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(ii) Reading the Image: Cassandra Austen’s Sketch of Jane Austen 96\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(iii) Visual Myth-Making: Henry Weekes’s Shelley Monument 98\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(iv) Celebrity Image: Thomas Phillips’s Portrait of Byron in Albanian Dress 100\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(v) Visual Memoir: Joseph Severn’s Portrait of John Keats 102\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(vi) Bardography: The Chandos Portrait of Shakespeare 104\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(vii) The Inner Life: R. W. Buss’s Dickens’s Dream 106\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(viii) Sisters’ Arts: Vanessa Bell’s Portrait of Virginia Woolf 108\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(ix) ‘To prepare a face …’: Patrick Heron’s Portrait of T. S. Eliot 110\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e(x) Branwell’s Ghost: Branwell Brontë’s Portrait of his Three Sisters 112\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eArt to Order 114\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e7 Comparative Biography: Dickens’s ‘Lives’ 117\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Victorian Dickens 118\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Modern Dickens 121\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Post-Modern Dickens 125\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLives and Times 130\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e8 Literary Auto\/Biography 132\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eActs of Self-Creation in Wordsworth and Joyce 132\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWordsworth’s ‘biographic verse’ 134\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eJoyce’s ‘artist, like the God of creation’ 143\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMasks and Metaphors 149\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e9 Biography in Practice 152\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAn Interview with Dominic Hibberd, author of Wilfred Owen: A New Biography 152\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLiving with the Subject 153\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eImagining Wilfred 157\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMatters of Life and Death 166\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e10 Authorised Lives 171\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Life of Graham Greene by Norman Sherry 172\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBernard Shaw by Michael Holroyd 176\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eT. S. Eliot by Peter Ackroyd 181\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOrwell: The Life by D. J. Taylor 186\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePhilip Larkin: A Writer’s Life by Andrew Motion 192\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eContemporary Lives 199\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e11 Literary Lives: Scenes and Stories 202\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDinner with Dr Johnson and John Wilkes 203\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDinner with Mrs Ramsay 208\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBiography and Fiction 215\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e12 Biography and the Future 218\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSelect Bibliography 225\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFurther Reading 225\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eGeneral Bibliography 229\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIndex 239\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cb\u003eMichael Benton\u003c\/b\u003e is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Southampton. His publications include the highly influential \u003ci\u003eTeaching Literature 9–14\u003c\/i\u003e (with Geoff Fox, 1985) and several widely used anthologies of poetry, most notably the \u003ci\u003eTouchstones\u003c\/i\u003e series (with Peter Benton, various editions 1968–2008). His most recent book was \u003ci\u003eStudies in the Spectator Role: Literature, Painting and Pedagogy\u003c\/i\u003e (2000).  \u003ci\u003eLiterary Biography: An Introduction\u003c\/i\u003e illustrates and accounts for the literary genre that merges verifiable historical facts with the familiar conventions of narrative. It also reveals how the biographical context can enrich our understanding and appreciation of canonical authors. Thematically linked chapters trace the genre’s development, define its primary characteristics, and illuminate its connections with fiction and portraiture. Further insights are gained by approaching literary biography from historical, comparative, inferential and autobiographical perspectives. Examples are drawn from the mainstream literary canon and include a variety of classical and contemporary authors ranging from Shakespeare, Dickens, Blake and Wordsworth to the Brontës, Hardy, Plath and Larkin. Biographical writers discussed feature both seminal figures such as Johnson, Boswell and Woolf to distinguished present-day biographers including Hermione Lee, Richard Holmes, Peter Ackroyd, Claire Tomalin and Michael Holroyd.  \u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eLiterary Biography: An Introduction\u003c\/i\u003e offers an erudite and insightful introduction into the history, theory and practice of the increasingly popular literary genre of life-writing.\u003c\/p\u003e  \u003cp\u003e\"Provides tutors and students with a useful means of entry to a complex and rapidly developing area of debate.\"—(Dinah Birch, University of Liverpool)\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"I found this book both highly enjoyable and informative. It is simply excellent – very well written, elegant in structure and individual phrasing, a fascinating topic and a provocative introduction to a range of biographies.\"—(Geoff Fox, Exeter University)\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\"Last year I was sent Michael Benton's \u003ci\u003eLiterary Biography: An Introduction\u003c\/i\u003e prior to publication, and was happy to supply a recommendation for the dust jacket. I described it then as an \"elegant. introduction which is likely to appeal to both established scholars and to the growing number of university students who study the subject at all levels.\" Having read the book again for the purposes of this review, I am happy to stand by my initial response. Indeed, I would add that the book is sufficiently rich and thoughtful to provide an even more enjoyable and informative reading experience the second time around.\"—(Katherine Hughes, \u003ci\u003eBiography\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/p\u003e \"Brisk and readable … lucid and intelligent\"—(Claire Harman, \u003ci\u003eTimes Literary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e)  ","brand":"Wiley-Blackwell","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47989535867109,"sku":"NP9781119060116","price":36.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781119060116.jpg?v=1761784502","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/literary-biography-isbn-9781119060116","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}