Literary genre Biography: how to talk about yourself in a book

Biography as a literary genre

The biography presents itself as one of the most loved literary genres ever. However it can be said that biographical works are also among the most complex to create.

The biography is the story of a person’s lifeand in order for it to be faithful and effectively reflect the story lived by the subject, it is necessary that the finished work carries with it a considerable work of reconstruction . It is normally carried out by the biographertogether with the protagonist of the narration himself. Usually the author gets to know the protagonist by reading up on him, but also by talking to him and interviewing him personally, perhaps at a later time, after having understood how to approach him and his life.

There are many questions to ask, you can go to deepen your private life as well as your professional one. It all depends a lot on the cut you intend to give to the work. That’s why there is no standard model of biographical interview, but the prior reflection of the author is essential in outlining the individual aspects that must be examined from time to time.

The birth of the biographical genre

The biographical genre has very ancient origins. In the past it was already chosen and appreciated to tell the lives of important characters in history. We can think, just to name a few, of ancient Greece and Plutarch’s Parallel Lives , or of the Roman Suetonius who wrote the biographies of the Caesars .

It was a way to introduce all those who wanted to read true stories mixed with gossip about some of the most important characters of the time. Yes, because biography by its very nature can be more or less faithful to reality and therefore appear more or less fictionalized, depending on the era in which it is written, the author’s choices, or the requests of the protagonist himself, who in in many cases he is also the one who commissions the work.

How a biography is structured

So let’s see specifically how a biography should be structured. First of all, in writing a text of this type the author must pay close attention to the chronology. In fact, the structure of the biography requires a precise order which it is appropriate, indeed necessary, not to upset.

The facts must be narrated from beginning to end without unnecessary anticipations or leaps. Maintaining this structure is essential to guarantee a logic to what is being told.

If time is therefore the first element to follow in structuring a biography, the second fixed point must be represented by the indication of the places where the events took place.

Thus, the geography of a biographical text can appear more or less varied depending on the type of life led by the protagonist. There will be places of childhood , those lived during travels , those of maturity . Each will have a more or less relevant role in the narration of the facts and in all of this the narration of the protagonist to the biographer will be of fundamental importance. In fact, the latter has the difficult task of perceiving the emotionsthat emerge from the stories lived, in order to be able to transpose the events into the written text and give each of them with the relative setting the right importance.

Main features of the biographical genre

Among the most important characteristics of the biographical genre, its being written in the third person emerges in the first place . Unlike autobiography, in which the protagonist himself tells his story in the first person, in the biographical genre there is an author who has the task of narrating the protagonist’s life, generally after having obtained all the necessary information also through direct interviews.

If it is true that relevance to the facts is important in the biographical genre , they can be interpreted and narrated in a thousand different ways. The biography, in fact, finds its strength precisely in the presence of a third party, extraneous to the story , who has the task of seeing and interpreting it with his own eyes and then transposing it into writing.

Another characteristic of the biographical genre is its having certain times and places , those in which the events took place. The narration revolves around the most important facts that have characterized the life of the protagonist, who is almost always a famous person.

Characters in biographical books

A biography is normally characterized by the presence of numerous characters within it. If the protagonist is unquestionably one, all those who in one way or another have played an important role in his life rightfully become part of the story that describes it.

The author has several tools to tell the characters in his book. Descriptions can be more or less explicit . The author can decide to be immediate in the characterization of his characters or to let it leak between the lines of his work. To tell a character, for example, you can give indications on his behavior, or even on his physical appearance, all clues which added together help the reader to characterize that subject in his own imagination.

Throughout this process, the protagonist plays a fundamental role, the main subject of the work, who is also the one who in the preliminary phase has the task of describing to the author not only facts and places but also people who will by right have to assume a role in the narration of his life.

Whether it’s relatives , friends or simply acquaintances , everyone can play an important role if the progress of the story requires their inclusion. And then we refer to the author’s ability, which can make the difference between an anonymous and monotonous characterization of a subject and a description that can instead attract the reader’s attention and arouse in him that curiosity that drives him to go on in the reading.

Themes of the biographies: personal and professional biography

A biography can have different aims and objectives and it is on the basis of these that its author decides how to structure it. What is the theme of a biography? The answer to this question might seem trivial. Most would say that the theme of a work of this type can only be the story of a life, of the facts and salient events that characterized it. In reality, it’s not all that obvious.

In fact, a biography can be focused on different themes and on the basis of this be elaborated with certain characteristics.

Let’s take for example a personal biography, written with the pure intention of narrating the life of the protagonist. Whoever reads it will have the opportunity to get an idea of ​​how that person lived, what he did important in the course of his life, who he met and how important these people were to him and influenced his personal choices. he. In all of this, his professional life will certainly play an important but certainly not predominant role, inserted in the general context.

On the contrary, it will be precisely this aspect that will assume a leading position within what is instead defined as a professional biography. In this case the story is centered on the person’s working activity, on what he has achieved in the course of his life.

Let’s think, for example, of the biography of an artist or a writer, aimed at making the reader aware of his works, his career, his modus operandi on a professional level. These are biographies written with a very different intention and which therefore require an equally different approach on the part of the author.

Which typologies for the biography genre: biography, biographical novel and comic book biography

Even in the context of biography, as well as for all other literary genres, it is necessary to make distinctions between different types of works. The story of a person’s life can be carried out in many ways and depending on the approach used by the author we have to distinguish between a real biography and a biographical novel .

In the first case we have a story faithful to reality which is elaborated by the author in an extremely faithful way to the facts. All the details, from the succession of events to the characterization of the characters, up to the description of the places involved, are told in great detail and with a realism that is precisely the main characteristic of this genre. It doesn’t matter whether the protagonist is an ordinary person or a famous person who wants to tell his story. The fact remains that in a biography fantasy must be set aside to make room for reality.

It goes without saying that the biographical novel is a very different typology, albeit belonging to the same genre as the biography. Precisely its being a fictional story involves the inclusion within it not only of real facts and characters but also of elements of pure fantasy . The author must be skilled in creating this mix of fact and fiction that makes the biographical novel such a compelling genre for the readers.

It is that narrative invention that must be dosed in the right way but which is greatly appreciated, especially when the biography tells the life of an illustrious character from the world of entertainment, a politician, a sports champion or a historical figure famous.

A very interesting genre that has developed in recent years is that of comic biography . In this type of works the text is accompanied by the images, which are entrusted to professional illustrators. In this way the work acquires further value for its originality. The book will be read not only by fans of biographies but also by lovers of comics and will be able to attract not only an adult audience but also children, who are more than anyone attracted to this kind of work.

Some biographies of famous people

Biography is such a widespread literary genre that we could endlessly list works of this type that have had great success over the years and have also become famous among the general public.

Just to start with some icons of the biographical genre, within the fictional style we mentioned above, how can we fail to mention a work like “ The Memoirs of Hadrian ” by Marguerite Yourcenar ? For those who don’t know it, it is a real masterpiece of the biographical genre, in which the life of the Roman emperor is narrated by the author with ample room for imagination but also with a strong connection to the historical facts that have been handed down to us by sources.

In the context of contemporary biographies focused on the life of historical figures, we cannot fail to mention what is considered a milestone of the genre, the life of Adolf Hitlernarrated by a very skilful Joachim C. Fest and published in its first edition in 1973.

So let’s get to the 2000s with a biography that has had an extraordinary success thanks also to the celebrity of its protagonist. We speak of the biography of the great Steve Jobs , founder of Apple, told by Walter Isaacson .

Famous biographers in Italy and abroad

Many authors have become famous both nationally and internationally thanks to the biographies they have published. Let’s see some of them worthy of being mentioned for their interesting biographies on famous people of the past and present.

We can start with one of the greatest biographers ever, Stefan Zweig , who wrote, among other things, the biography of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots in the 16th century.

To come to more recent times let us remember, for example, Michael Barrier, brilliant author of the work “ The Life of Walt Disney. Man, dreamer and genius “, in which the events that led a talented boy to become the Walt Disney that the whole world still appreciates are told in an extremely original way.

What about Donald H.Wolfe, author of what can be considered one of the best biographies of Marilyn Monroe, entitled precisely “ Marilyn Monroe. Story of a murder “. Who better than him, who worked in Hollywood for twenty-five years as a screenwriter, could have told the life of a great star of the show such as Marilyn in a reliable and realistic way?

We talked about comic book biography as a literary genre, so how can we not mention some of the authors who have experimented with this type of work? We refer for example to Wilfred Santiago , who published a comic biography of Michael Jordan in 2019 . The same genre, with beautiful drawings, is the one chosen by María Hesse and Fran Ruiz , authors of our time, for a biography of David Bowie published in 2018 which can already be considered a success, appreciated by the public and critics.

A curiosity about the biographical genre: attention to rights and disputes

Not everyone knows that the biographical genre, in its widespread nature, is also one of the literary genres that lends itself best and has also lent itself in the past to the opening of disputes.

We’re not just talking about copyright problems or suspected plagiarism, which can easily arise when two or more authors deal with narrating the life of the same character. We are also referring specifically to the attention that must be paid when the work mentions episodes that actually happened in the life of the protagonist.

Reference is made to people who really existed and not always or at least not everyone can be pleased to find themselves among the protagonists of a book. In the course of a biography, in fact, it can often happen that some facts can easily be traced back to real subjects, even if they are mentioned with fictitious names. It is not at all obvious that they take it well and it is therefore appropriate to protect themselves from possible accusations. Thus, the phrase “Any reference to existing people or to actual events is purely coincidental” can help the author to avoid finding himself in unpleasant situations against his will.

Source: BiographyTips