TOPIC: ‘AUTOBIOGRAPHY: THE CONCEPT & HISTORY OF IT’.

AUTHOR NAME: MAYUR R. AGRAVAT

QUALIFICATION: B.A., M.A., B.Ed, M.PhilAFFILIATION: SHRI CHIMANBHAI PATEL INSTITUTE OF

BUSINESS ADMINISTRATIONOPP. KARNAVATI CLUB, PRAHLAD NAGAR, S.G.HIGHWAY, AHMEDABAD-380051

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CO-AUTHOR NAME: RITA DABHI

QUALIFICATION: B.A., M.A., B.Ed, M.PhilAFFILIATION: L. J. POLYTECHNIC

OPP. DIVYA-BHASKAR PRESS,NR. NAGDEV TEMPLE, S.G.HIGHWAY, SANAND, AHMEDABAD-380051

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DECLARATION CERTIFICATE

I, Mayur Agravat, declare that this research paper is wholly my own work unless

otherwise referenced or acknowledged. It has not been submitted anywhere for

any publication purpose.

MAYUR AGRAVAT

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Abstract

Autobiography is a form still a bit new to India and Asia, it originated essentially in

Europe, and turned towards India in the early 20 t h century. The prop of the study is

autobiography, because every human being thinks that, his or her life is a story, and

everyone plays the hero or heroine of their own story. Thus, each one of us wants an

audience, a public to listen to the story; this motivates a person to write something

personal which can be accommodated under the general idea of autobiography. It can be a

diary, an autobiography, a memoir or even a letter, which inevitably expresses it’s writer’s

inner being. One finds a very few number of scholars who prefers to work on the less

treaded a path of autobiography, but then this is the quality that can makes a research

distinct. A very few number of Indian scholars have tried their hand at this form and

therefore an Indian researcher has to rely on foreign authors, which are very rare to be

found in India, not even in old libraries, but these are the things which makes a research

challenging as well as interesting.

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History of the Genre Autobiography

Colonial and post-colonial era has brought a remarkable change in the area of

literature. The effect of such literature, knowledge area, appeal, vastness and readers are

immense & infinite. Autobiography is one of the genres which is so vast and

comprehensive. In order to understand the genre one must know the difference of it’s

nature from the other literary forms like Novel, Drama, Poetry, Biography etc. if we look

at these genres and try to see the nature of autobiography then autobiography is a form

more personal and subjective in nature than the other literary forms, because it is written

about the life of the author himself, or it is valid to call it the life of the author himself.

When we use terms such as ‘Literature’ or ‘Author’ then certain questions arise in

our minds that, “Is Autobiography Literature?” that we are looking at the comparison of

it’s nature with the nature of other literary genres?” If it is ‘Literature’ then “What place

does it occupy among the other literary genres? “Is it ‘Fiction’ or is it ‘Fact’?” If it is

‘Fact’ then “How does it differ from ‘History’?

If it is ‘Literature’ then the distinguishing factor of literature is as Northrop Frye

calls it , ‘Radical Presentation, shape, texture, and mode of presentation are important to

determine the form.’ It is easy to differentiate Drama from an Epic, or a Lyric from a work

of Fiction but when it’s Autobiography, it becomes difficult to come to any conclusion, on

one hand a reader is tempted to put it in proximity with non-fictional forms like History or

Biography, as it is nothing but a narration of the factual events which are a part of an

individual, on the other hand one is drawn to place it in a section called Fiction, this

inherent quality of autobiography, as it falls very much on the border line of Fact and

Fiction, makes difficult to categorise the form.

If one look at the dictionary meaning of the word then it is divided in the simplest

manner, which provides the reader with surfacial meaning of the term, it is made up of

three Greek words,

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‘Autos’ - Self

‘Bios’ - Life

‘Graphein’ - Write

Murray defines the word autobiography in his ‘New English Dictionary’ as,

“The story of a person’s life written by that person.”

Compact Oxford Reference Dictionary defines the term as,

“An account of a person’s life written by that person.”

To think of Autobiography then, in its modern context one would find an almost all

inclusive definition of the form in ‘Autobiography and Psycho Analyses’ by Bruce

Mazlish, for it covers some of the main aspects of Autobiography in the contemporary

sense, Mazlish defines the term as,

“A literary genre produced by romanticism which offers us a picture from a specific

present viewpoint of a coherent shaping of an individual’s past, reached by means

of introspection and memory of special sort, wherein the self is seen as a developing

entity, changing by definable stages, where knowledge of the self links with the

external world and both together provides us with a deep and true grasp of reality.”

(Mazlish ‘Autobiography and Psycho Analyses’-

Encounter, Vol. 35 No- Oct. 1970, 28)

Thus, from these definitions of the term autobiography, one can form a picture that,

it is a work of art written or narrated by that person, where the writer passes and grows

through the definable stages of his life to present the real picture. It is not a form

completely new for the world, as it has always existed in the form of journals, letters,

diaries, memoirs etc, like other genres this form also contains ebbs and flows, as it was

written for the self exaggeration and self glorification in the days of antiquity. In

medieval times, it was written to confess and in Modern times it is written as we have

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seen in the definition given by Mazlish, that it is written to realize explore, evaluate and

even to examine one’s self, and it offers an unparelled insight into the mode of

consciousness of other man. Even if what they tell us is not factually true, it always is

true evidence of their personality.

Then, it leads us to the period of the origin of this particular genre. It is commonly

believed and an accepted belief that the term was first used by Robert Southey in the year

1809, that makes it’s origin in 19 t h century but on searching hard for the original origin of

the term, the path led us to post Homeric Greece where Hesoid, Empedocles, Plato, and

Socrates used the genre, although it was not named such but it contained almost all the

qualities of the genre which is termed as Autobiography now a days, then one can see it

being flourished in the Roman times where poets like Ovid wrote beautiful

autobiographical poems, in circa-430. Now it becomes evident that the form is almost as

old as any other literary genre.

The autobiography that appeared earlier up to the medieval period, which led finally

to St. Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ , have a religious basis because the main motive of these

autobiographies was to confess. It was a kind of ritualistic act of confession, which led the

autobiographer to examine his self and ascertain his possibilities of entering into closer

ties with the presence known as God. This preoccupation with the question of one’s

religious worthiness was quite in keeping with the general temper of the period. St.

Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ (Ca-400) St. Teresa’s ‘The Life’ (1563-9) John Bunyan’s

‘Grace Abounding’ (1666) represents the confessional mode.

Most medieval religious autobiographies lack precision in observation of the outer

world, and fail to relate meaningfully the outer event and inner experience. The religious

experience is largely dissociated from the specific personality, and in fact rapidly acquires

a conventional quality. The seventeenth century shows nothing comparable to the three

autobiographies: Cardinal de Retz, Saint Evremond, Evelyn, and Pepys. It is a great age of

memoirists and diarists, but not of autobiographers. All the authors in the medieval

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period, brooding over sins and salvation, fail to see the outer world or themselves as

persons.

The change in motivation of the 18 t h century and later autobiographers seems to set

in because of the changing concepts and his relationship with God and the Universe.

Rousseau’s ‘Confessions’ (1782) Benjamin Franklin’s ‘Autobiography’ (1784) Casanova’s

‘Histoire de ma Fuite des Prisons de Venice (1788) and Gibbon’s ‘Memoirs’ (1796) are

some of the examples of the kind we are talking about. This also shows that the term was

in fact coined in the 18 t h century, when the genre actually began to flourish in Europe and

North America, which is considered the period of the birth of Romantic Fascination with

the complex individual soul and the interaction of nature and social experiences. In the

later 18 t h and 19 t h century not only a large number of great autobiographies were written,

but true ‘classics’ in the usual sense of the term, this period may properly be called an age

of great autobiographies. Autobiography was self exploratory and confident in this period,

free of literary conventions, and directed toward the specific truth of the self, these great

autobiographies transformed the conception of the psyche, particularly in the realizations

of its complexity.

Wordsworth also represents the modern outlook. Rousseau and Wordsworth can be

singled out as arch-autobiographers of the 19 t h century. Their modernism is brought out in

their egoism which makes them the leading spokesman for the character of a new age in

literature, but one can clearly see that Rousseau unlike St. Augustine doesn’t confess in

order to be pardoned by God, he does it to find a kind of solace to the tension that the

theft occasioned, his ‘Confessions’ shows traces of modern autobiography. Wordsworth

also in his ‘The Prelude’ seeks consolation in recapturing the lost moments of joy which

he cherished in the nature’s lap, in his imagination. Both of this autobiographer’s reaction

to the evils of society makes them the arch-autobiographers, representing the modern

mode of autobiography.

In the 20 t h century, the possibilities of the genre have been greatly enlarged, where

writers like Gertrude Stein wrote, ‘The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas’ (1933) which

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was structured as the life story of her friend and personal secretary Alice and authors like

Sartre wrote ‘Les Mots’, at the age of sixty and that too narrating only first twelve years

of his life.

Other forms also have an effect on the form, for instance ‘Obsolescence’ of Literary

Epistle has affected autobiography with spontaneity and intimacy, and lyric emerging in

the 19 t h century has also provided the genre with its straight forwardness. Moreover the

form ‘Autobiography’ has the advantage of extra literariness over other allied forms.

Novel has affected the form with its ability to communicate at times his vital truth through

falsification and from the novelist; the modern-autobiographer has learnt to delineate his

own self shaped by imagination.

One might now turn to the pondering that though the 18 t h century appears as an

appropriate seed time for the genre, “Why does it find a ‘Luxuriant Flowering’ only in the

20 t h Century?” Perhaps Kathleen Nott’s Explanation can provide an answer, she says,

“People want and need to know about people, because they need to know about

themselves, to look over the wall into parallel circumstances and see that one must

do so and not otherwise.”

(Kathleen Nott’s on ‘Feeling and Ideology’, “Partisan Review”

pg no.71)

In the 20 t h century the impulse to write an autobiography became more clearly

defined, the autobiographer does not want his self narration to be a mere matter of fact

statement of events of his life, he specifies his experiences, which brought out internal

transformation, he wants to set an example for his readers, by carving out an artistic

image of himself, he is on an outlook for a meaning and pattern in his life which is best

known only to himself, he is keen on making it an expression of an unique personality. He

demonstrates in his autobiography how he has learnt the art of living in his own unique

manner.

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An autobiography is a venture which people belonging to a large section of life are

tempted to undertake, but when the autobiographer who presents his life history is again a

poet, then the work requires a distinctive quality of its own because the poet

autobiographer has a certain special faculties as compared to other autobiographers:

imagination, love of words and literary dexterity as Roy Pascal puts it ,

“What one can expect from the imaginative writer is an unusual skill in the

invocation of senses and character, and more delicate self observation, especially in

respect to obscure inner urges, imagination to modes of perception and

apprehension: one can expect too an artistic arrangement of the whole.”

(Roy Pascal, ‘Design and Truth in Autobiography’. Pg. 133)

One of the most important realizations on the part of modern autobiographer is that

the past that he wants to narrate cannot be explained or analyzed, but it can only be re-

experienced in metaphors and symbols.

But unlike that poet who highlights his experiences, the poet autobiographer’s focus

is on the creation of ‘self’ that experiences various events, it is through the medium of

this ‘self’ that he conveys his life story, the poet’s religious convictions, political

commitments, his divided self and his efforts to transcend his self to have a wider

perspective of things- have all been expressed in his verse, what he does next in his

autobiography, is to recast his thoughts, revising and reconstructing them in prose, though

the poet-autobiographer restate things covered elsewhere in his poems, he perhaps feels

that his personal side remain unstated in his poems, and hence that the poem convey only

a part of the truth. In order to communicate the full truth of his experiences he takes

refuge to autobiography and demonstrates how he is engaged in a special way with the

world.

Autobiographer may leave out whatever they wish and include anything from human

geography to reproach; they may term their books into a confession, a litany, an apology,

a cathartic act, a collection of anecdotes or just gossip. Similarly they are free to choose

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where to begin or end, and as in the case of Gertrude Stein’s ‘Autobiography of Alice B.

Toklas’ the subject’s name may not necessarily correspond to the author’s. Thus

autobiography is a genre very personal yet flexible, this flexibility divides it in to various

types, nature and versions.

If one pays a rough look at the history of autobiography then there are a few most

employed types or ways to write autobiography. The most common type is that, which tells

the story of a particular profession or calling, the steps through which a writer achieves

the public support. Second is, autobiographies which represents a person’s theoretical

understanding of the world, the essayistic autobiographies are perhaps a new type, and the

autobiographies which restrict itself to the childhood, and the autobiographical novels are

some modern forms of autobiographies.

In a work called ‘A Lover of Light among the Luminaries-Dilipkumar Roy’ , a Ph.D.

thesis by Mrs. Amrita Patel, wherein she divides the form in to three main types,

Types of Autobiography

1) Informal Autobiography

2) Formal Autobiography

3) Specialized forms of Autobiography

To see what the term ‘Autobiography’ connotes, let’s see what these three types has to

offer.

1) Informal Autobiography

Informal autobiographical style includes intimate writings which are not written for

publishing. Letters, diaries, journals, memoirs, reminiscences are of this type. Here what

is remembered is more important than who is remembering.

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2) Formal Autobiography

This type of autobiography offers the reader a special kind of biographical truth

which was earlier unknown for them. Where the writer writes about a life, which is

reshaped by recollection, and that too with all of re-collector’s conscious and unconscious

omission and distortions.

3) Specialized Forms of Autobiography

This third type of autobiography falls under four heads, they are,

a) Thematic Autobiography

b) Religious Autobiography

c) Intellectual Autobiography

d) Fictionalized Autobiography

Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ written in 1924 and Richard Wright’s ‘Native Son’ ,

written in 1940 falls under the first type that is thematic, which explores a theme in itself.

St. Augustine’s ‘The Confessions’ is of religious type. John S. Mill’s autobiography is

known as an intellectual autobiography and ‘Last Puritan’ by George Santayana is a

fictionalized form of autobiography. Thus, these are some specialized types of

autobiography. Autobiography does have a nature where the genre is seen through the

perspective of time.

Nature of Autobiography

The classical period includes three terms Apologia, Oration and Confession , which

mean, such works were typically entitled Apologia and it had the same kind of content as

the meaning of the word apology suggests, for instance, John Henry Newman’s

autobiography which was first published in 1864 is entitled ‘Apologia Pro Vita Sua’ . In

the same respect the pagan rhetor Lebanius (C. 314-394) named his life memoir as Oration

Begun in 374 . His orations were not of a public kind, but of a literary kind that could be

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read aloud in privacy. St. Augustine’s autobiography which had ‘Confessions’ as the title

and Rousseau too employed the same title in the 18 t h century, which initiated the chain of

confessional and sometimes racy and highly self critical autobiographies of the romantic

era and beyond.

Early Autobiographies

‘Vita’ written between 1556-1558, which means in Italian ‘life’, by a sculptor and

Goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571) is considered one of the great autobiographies

of the Renaissance, where he states in the beginning of the work.

“No matter what sort he is, everyone who has to his credit what are or really seem

great achievements, if he cares for truth and goodness, ought to write the story of

his own life in his own hand; but no one should venture on such a splendid

undertaking before he is over fifty.”

The above mentioned criteria for autobiography were generally followed until recent

times, and most important and serious autobiographies of the next three hundred years

conformed to them. ‘Booke of Margery Kempe’ written in the early 15 t h century is the

earliest known autobiography in English of the early 15 t h century, which describes her

pilgrims to the holy land and visit to Rome. The other notable English autobiographies of

the 17 t h century includes those of Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1643), published in 1764 and

John Bunyan’s ‘Grace Abounding’ to ‘The Chief of Sinners’ (1666).

Autobiography as a work of art

Autobiographies are the most entrancing of books, and sometimes they are works of

art, but how do we recognize them as works of art? This question needs to be examined,

but not as a matter of examining the ‘form’ as opposed to the ‘content’ ; what needs to be

discussed is, on which principles is the content of a life is organized in this literary form,

the autobiography.

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Autobiography is the only form among many in which a writer speaks of himself and

of the incidents of his personal experiences. It was completely unknown a form for the far

or near East. It belongs to Europe, and essentially to the post classical world of Europe.

This is the form which is frequently confused with literary forms nearer to it. People often

refer to their life stories as autobiography, memoir or reminiscence. There are authors like

Mrs. Burr and H. N. Wethered, who do not distinguish between autobiographies, diaries

and even letters. It does not mean that only true autobiography is the form which can rise

to the level of art. Letters and diaries also can and they do represent the art.

Diary and autobiography

Autobiography is a review of a life from a particular moment in time, while the

diary however reflective it may be, moves through a series of moments in time. A diarist

note down, what at the moment seems of importance to him, it’s long lasting significance

is not assured. Diary material can give a remarkable authenticity but with pitfalls, diary

entries can provide a vivid picture which otherwise might have escaped memory.

Memoir or Reminiscences and autobiography

The line between an autobiography and memoir or reminiscence is much hard to

draw; or rather no clear line can be drawn. There is no autobiography that is not in some

respect a memoir, and no memoir that is without autobiographical information; both are

based on chronological and reflective personal experiences.

One can distinguish a memoir from reminiscence by saying that, a memoir concerns

with public events, a reminiscence with private relationships. The memoir is slightly

different in character, it is narrower and its intimate focus is his or her memories,

feelings, and emotions. It is generally preferred by military leaders and politicians to

record and publish an account of their public exploits. The difference is primarily of

‘content’ and does not affect the manner of composition or writing.

Autobiography proper focuses on the self, and in the memoir or reminiscence the

focus is on others. It is always not possible to distinguish the autobiographer from the 13

memoirist, just by the amount of external life described. English Civil War (1642-1651)

has provided a number of examples of memoirs. Works of de Retz, Godoy, and Metternich

are invaluable as memoirs, thin and unconvincing as autobiography. Whereas, Franklin

and Gibbon calls their works ‘memoir’ , though they are great examples of true

autobiographies.

Autobiographical Writings

There are many autobiographical writings that limit themselves to one particular

experience or a group of experiences that bare the core of the personality. To this category

belong many books of travel, books of spiritual experience in war, and so on. They are not

usually called autobiographies, but the term ‘autobiographical writing’ is preferred

because from autobiography one expects a totality rather than quintessence.

In India it was Raja Rammohan Roy who wrote a short autobiographical sketch,

which was a document, another was Kashiprashad Ghosh’s letter published in James

Long’s ‘Handbook of Bengal Missions’ (1848). It was Latifulla who wrote first extensive

autobiography, he was a tutor in Persian, Arabic, & Hindustani to Britishers in 1857.

19 t h century -

-Nishikant Chattopadhyaya – ‘Reminiscences of German University Life’ , 1892.

-Rakhal Das Halder’s – ‘The English Diary of an Indian Student’ 1961 – 62.

20 t h century -

-Surendranath Benerjee – ‘A Nation in Making’ 1925.

-Gandhiji – ‘My Experiments with Truth’ 1927.

-Lala Lajpat Rai – ‘The Story of My Deportation’ 1908.

-Nehru’s – ‘An Autobiography’ 1936.

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-Suniti Devi’s-Queen of Cooch Bihar was the first Indian woman

……writer to write her autobiography – ‘Autobiography of an

…. .Indian Princess’ 1921.

After Independence people excelled in this genre,

-Morarji Desai wrote – ‘The story of My Life’ , 1974–79.

-Nirad Chaudhury – ‘The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian’ 1951.

-Dom Moraes –‘My Son’s Father’-1968.

-R.K.Narayan – ‘My Days’ 1975.

-Kamala Das – ‘My Story’ 1976.

If we emphasis on the term ‘Indian’ then this name of the country suggests

numerous things. It’s not just a name of a country, but it connotes a culture, a life style, a

history and above all it’s a nation where on one hand women are worshiped as Goddess

and on the other they are greatly humiliated for bearing female child, or compelled to burn

themselves alive on the funeral pyre of their husband.

Autobiography is a work very different from other literary genres, generally it is

understood that there is no difference between autobiography and biography. So, it will be

fruitful to mark the significant differences between these two forms.

The general idea about autobiography is that, it is a non-fictional work, but still it

can change from History to Fiction, if only the author is inventive and imaginative. The

Autobiographer becomes stranger to himself when he thinks of his life in retrospection. He

orders and arranges the past events in the light of what he is at the moment of writing.

Instead of noting events, he sees how he became what he is out of what he had earlier

been. Autobiography is rather a re-creation of his personality, from his memory. Thus it

becomes a work of art. There exists a thin line of difference between Autobiography and

Biography.

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Working Bibliography

-Murray, Thomas. ‘New English Dictionary’ .

-‘Compact Oxford Reference Dictionary’

-Literary Encyclopedia (http: www.litency.org/ )

-Patel, Amrita. ‘A Lover of Light Among the Luminaries’ .

-Pilling, John. ‘Autobiography and Imagination, Studies in Self Scrutinity’ 1 s t ed. London:

Routledge & Kegan. 1981.

-Bose, Manjula. ‘Autobiography as a Literary Form: Studies In the Autobiographies of

Edwin Muir, Stephen Spender and C. Day Lewis.’ 1 s t ed. Ahmadabad: Gujarat University.

1992.

-Pascal, Roy. ‘Design and Truth in Autobiography . Page No.-133

-Bruss, Elizabeth. ‘Autobiographical Acts-The Changing Situations of a Literary Genre.

-Mazlish, Bruce. ‘Autobiography and Psycho Analyses’ -Encounter vol. 35. October 1970.

Page No.-28

-Nott, Kathleen. ‘Notes on Feeling and Ideology’ Partisan Review, vol.26. page No. 71

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