Biography and Autobiography

Abstract

As biographical and autobiographical prose developed over the course of the seventeenth century, it became less about exemplarity—the traditional motive and theme associated with these genres—and more about defending or justifying a life. This chapter first surveys the primary categories of biographical and autobiographical prose (profession-based memoir, the funeral-sermon biography, prison narrative, family memoir, occasional meditations, etc.) produced in England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1640–1714 and then focuses on a few key examples that best demonstrate some of the broader trends. The chapter highlights key shared features of these texts, including numerous rhetorical techniques, a tendency toward genetic hybridity, and—perhaps most importantly—the urgent and often-didactic tone required of the tumultuous period in which the life-writers lived that best allow us to understand the important work that seventeenth-century autobiography and biography performed.