Autobiography

Autobiography

Self-written biography
more_vert
pencil

An autobiography (from the Greek, αὐτός-autos self + βίος-bios life + γράφειν-graphein to write) is a self-written account of the life of oneself. The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English periodical The Monthly Review, when he suggested the word as a hybrid, but condemned it as "pedantic". However, its next recorded use was in its present sense, by Robert Southey in 1809. Despite only being named early in the nineteenth century, first-person autobiographical writing originates in antiquity. Roy Pascal differentiates autobiography from the periodic self-reflective mode of journal or diary writing by noting that "[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". Autobiography thus takes stock of the autobiographer's life from the moment of composition. While biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints, autobiography may be based entirely on the writer's memory. The memoir form is closely associated with autobiography but it tends, as Pascal claims, to focus less on the self and more on others during the autobiographer's review of his or her life.

Contributors

No records found.

This page is the FamousFix profile for Autobiography. Content on this page is contributed by editors who belong to our editorial community. We welcome your contributions... so please create an account if you would like to collaborate with other editor's in helping to shape this website.

On the Autobiography page you will be able to add and update factual information, post media and connect this topic to other topics on the website. This website does skew towards famous actors, musicians, models and sports stars, however we would like to expand that to include many other interesting topics.

Terms of Use · Copyright · Privacy
Copyright 2006-2024, FamousFix · 0.44s