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Biographical Theory

Works of literature analyzed for relevance to the author's biographical data or how it pertains to the author. The ways that age, race, gender, family, education, economic status and time period may affect the writer's work.

Analyzing literature using knowledge about the author and their life to apply it to their piece of work

BRAVE NEW WORLD

Aldous Huxley connects his adolescent blindness, his scientific upbringing, and time in Italy to elucidate that the ails of humanity are a universal experience.

Huxley became blind by the age of 16, and learned braille as an aid to make things normal due to his feelings of isolation and loneliness. Huxley compares his blindness to the metaphorical blindness of humanity

George Orwell

Associated Theorists

Stated that 1984 was "written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism"

  • socialist
  • against British imperialism
  • writer for BCC during WWII
  • explained family as "upper lower middle class"
  • Samuel Johnson- researched authors and accounts of their lives to understand their work
  • Jackson J. Benson- "recognition of 'otherness'"

Common Questions

1984

George Orwell based most of the details of 1984 off current societies of his time including Stalin-era Soviet union, Imperial England, and the United States. The government of 1984 was also influenced by the Nazi regime.

  • "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." — Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

What facts about the authors life suggest ideas in the work? Did anything that happened to the author affect his or her choice of subject matter?

What was/is his or her view of the world? Which of the authors beliefs seem reflected in their story?

CITATIONS

Benson, Jackson J. (1989) "Steinbeck: A Defense of Biographical Criticism" College Literature 16(29): Pp. 107-116, Page 108

"Biographical Criticism." Biographical Criticism. Ed. Langdahl. Langdahl AP English 12, n.d. Web. <http://parkrose.orvsd.org/course/view.php?id=9>.

Knoper, Randall (2003)"Walt Whitman and New Biographical Criticism" College Literature 30(1): Pp. 161-168

Stuart, Duane Reed (1922) "Biographical Criticism of Vergil since the Renaissance" Studies in Philology 19(1): Pp. 1-30, Page 1 et Seq

Schiffer, James (ed), Shakespeare's Sonnets: Critical Essays (1999),pp. 19-27, 40-43, 45, 47, 395

Biographical Criticism

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