Autobiography

Front Cover
Routledge, Nov 30, 2010 - Literary Criticism - 176 pages

If every writer necessarily draws on their own life, is any writing outside the realm of ‘autobiography’? The new edition of this classic guide is fully updated to include:

  • developments in autobiographical criticism, highlighting major theoretical issues and concepts
  • different forms of the genre from confessions and narratives to memoirs and diaries
  • uses of the genre in their historical and cultural contexts
  • major autobiographical writers including St Augustine, Bunyan, Boswell, Rousseau and Wordsworth, alongside non-canonical autobiographies by women
  • twentieth-century autobiography including women's writing, black and postcolonial writing, and personal criticism
  • a new chapter on narrative and new material examining recent trends in autobiography such as blogs, the popularity of literary memoirs and recent developments in theory on testimonial writing.

Combining theoretical discussion with thought-provoking readings of major texts, this is the ideal introduction to the study of a fascinating genre.

 

Contents

Series editors preface ix
Saint Augustines Confessions 17
John Bunyans Grace Abounding 26
Rousseau and Wordsworth 40
Subjectivity representation and narrative 57
Gender modernism and autobiography 86
Locating difference 95
Landscape for a good woman 103
Narrative 113
Personal criticism 125
Glossary 140
Bibliography 148
Index 156

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About the author (2010)

Linda Anderson is Professor of Modern English and American Literature at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Her recent publications include Women and Autobiography in the Twentieth Century (1997), Women's Lives/Women's Times (edited with Trev Broughton, 1996) and Territories of Desire in Queer Culture (edited with David Alderson, 2000).

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