Biography meaning of word

A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person’s life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person’s experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject’s life story, highlighting various aspects of their life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject’s personality.

Biographical works are usually non-fiction, but fiction can also be used to portray a person’s life. One in-depth form of biographical coverage is called legacy writing. Works in diverse media, from literature to film, form the genre known as biography.

An authorized biography is written with the permission, cooperation, and at times, participation of a subject or a subject’s heirs. An autobiography is written by the person themselves, sometimes with the assistance of a collaborator or ghostwriter.

History

At first, biographical writings were regarded merely as a subsection of history with a focus on a particular individual of historical importance. The independent genre of biography as distinct from general history writing, began to emerge in the 18th century and reached its contemporary form at the turn of the 20th century.^[1]

Historical biography

Biography is the earliest literary genre in history. According to Egyptologist Miriam Lichtheim, writing took its first steps toward literature in the context of the private tomb funerary inscriptions. These were commemorative biographical texts recounting the careers of deceased high royal officials.^[2] The earliest biographical texts are from the 26th century BC.

In the 21st century BC, another famous biography was composed in Mesopotamia about Gilgamesh. One of the five versions could be historical.

From the same region a couple of centuries later, according to another famous biography, departed Abraham. He and his 3 descendants became subjects of ancient Hebrew biographies whether fictional or historical.

One of the earliest Roman biographers was Cornelius Nepos, who published his work Excellentium Imperatorum Vitae («Lives of outstanding generals») in 44 BC. Longer and more extensive biographies were written in Greek by Plutarch, in his Parallel Lives, published about 80 A.D. In this work famous Greeks are paired with famous Romans, for example, the orators Demosthenes and Cicero, or the generals Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar; some fifty biographies from the work survive. Another well-known collection of ancient biographies is De vita Caesarum («On the Lives of the Caesars») by Suetonius, written about AD 121 in the time of the emperor Hadrian. Meanwhile, in the eastern imperial periphery, Gospel described the life of Jesus.

In the early Middle Ages (AD 400 to 1450), there was a decline in awareness of the classical culture in Europe. During this time, the only repositories of knowledge and records of the early history in Europe were those of the Roman Catholic Church. Hermits, monks, and priests used this historic period to write biographies. Their subjects were usually restricted to the church fathers, martyrs, popes, and saints. Their works were meant to be inspirational to the people and vehicles for conversion to Christianity (see Hagiography). One significant secular example of a biography from this period is the life of Charlemagne by his courtier Einhard.

In Medieval Western India, there was a Sanskrit Jain literary genre of writing semi-historical biographical narratives about the lives of famous persons called Prabandhas. Prabandhas were written primarily by Jain scholars from the 13th century onwards and were written in colloquial Sanskrit (as opposed to Classical Sanskrit).^[3] The earliest collection explicitly titled Prabandha- is Jinabhadra’s Prabandhavali (1234 CE).

In Medieval Islamic Civilization (c. AD 750 to 1258), similar traditional Muslim biographies of Muhammad and other important figures in the early history of Islam began to be written, beginning the Prophetic biography tradition. Early biographical dictionaries were published as compendia of famous Islamic personalities from the 9th century onwards. They contained more social data for a large segment of the population than other works of that period. The earliest biographical dictionaries initially focused on the lives of the prophets of Islam and their companions, with one of these early examples being The Book of The Major Classes by Ibn Sa’d al-Baghdadi. And then began the documentation of the lives of many other historical figures (from rulers to scholars) who lived in the medieval Islamic world.^[4]

By the late Middle Ages, biographies became less church-oriented in Europe as biographies of kings, knights, and tyrants began to appear. The most famous of such biographies was Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. The book was an account of the life of the fabled King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Following Malory, the new emphasis on humanism during the Renaissance promoted a focus on secular subjects, such as artists and poets, and encouraged writing in the vernacular.

Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists (1550) was the landmark biography focusing on secular lives. Vasari made celebrities of his subjects, as the Lives became an early «bestseller». Two other developments are noteworthy: the development of the printing press in the 15th century and the gradual increase in literacy.

Biographies in the English language began appearing during the reign of Henry VIII. John Foxe’s Actes and Monuments (1563), better known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, was essentially the first dictionary of the biography in Europe, followed by Thomas Fuller’s The History of the Worthies of England (1662), with a distinct focus on public life.

Influential in shaping popular conceptions of pirates, A General History of the Pyrates (1724), by Charles Johnson, is the prime source for the biographies of many well-known pirates.^[5]

A notable early collection of biographies of eminent men and women in the United Kingdom was Biographia Britannica (1747-1766) edited by William Oldys.

The American biography followed the English model, incorporating Thomas Carlyle’s view that biography was a part of history. Carlyle asserted that the lives of great human beings were essential to understanding society and its institutions. While the historical impulse would remain a strong element in early American biography, American writers carved out a distinct approach. What emerged was a rather didactic form of biography, which sought to shape the individual character of a reader in the process of defining national character.^[6][7]

Emergence of the genre

The first modern biography, and a work that exerted considerable influence on the evolution of the genre, was James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson, a biography of lexicographer and man-of-letters Samuel Johnson published in 1791.^{[8][unreliable source?][9][10]}

While Boswell’s personal acquaintance with his subject only began in 1763, when Johnson was 54 years old, Boswell covered the entirety of Johnson’s life by means of additional research. Itself an important stage in the development of the modern genre of biography, it has been claimed to be the greatest biography written in the English language. Boswell’s work was unique in its level of research, which involved archival study, eye-witness accounts and interviews, its robust and attractive narrative, and its honest depiction of all aspects of Johnson’s life and character – a formula which serves as the basis of biographical literature to this day.^[11]

Biographical writing generally stagnated during the 19th century – in many cases there was a reversal to the more familiar hagiographical method of eulogizing the dead, similar to the biographies of saints produced in Medieval times. A distinction between mass biography and literary biography began to form by the middle of the century, reflecting a breach between high culture and middle-class culture. However, the number of biographies in print experienced a rapid growth, thanks to an expanding reading public. This revolution in publishing made books available to a larger audience of readers. In addition, affordable paperback editions of popular biographies were published for the first time. Periodicals began publishing a sequence of biographical sketches.^[12]

Autobiographies became more popular, as with the rise of education and cheap printing, modern concepts of fame and celebrity began to develop. Autobiographies were written by authors, such as Charles Dickens (who incorporated autobiographical elements in his novels) and Anthony Trollope, (his Autobiography appeared posthumously, quickly becoming a bestseller in London^[13]), philosophers, such as John Stuart Mill, churchmen – John Henry Newman – and entertainers – P. T. Barnum.

Modern biography

The sciences of psychology and sociology were ascendant at the turn of the 20th century and would heavily influence the new century’s biographies.^[14] The demise of the «great man» theory of history was indicative of the emerging mindset. Human behavior would be explained through Darwinian theories. «Sociological» biographies conceived of their subjects’ actions as the result of the environment, and tended to downplay individuality. The development of psychoanalysis led to a more penetrating and comprehensive understanding of the biographical subject, and induced biographers to give more emphasis to childhood and adolescence. Clearly these psychological ideas were changing the way biographies were written, as a culture of autobiography developed, in which the telling of one’s own story became a form of therapy.^[12] The conventional concept of heroes and narratives of success disappeared in the obsession with psychological explorations of personality.

British critic Lytton Strachey revolutionized the art of biographical writing with his 1918 work Eminent Victorians, consisting of biographies of four leading figures from the Victorian era: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold, and General Gordon.^[15] Strachey set out to breathe life into the Victorian era for future generations to read. Up until this point, as Strachey remarked in the preface, Victorian biographies had been «as familiar as the cortège of the undertaker», and wore the same air of «slow, funereal barbarism.» Strachey defied the tradition of «two fat volumes … of undigested masses of material» and took aim at the four iconic figures. His narrative demolished the myths that had built up around these cherished national heroes, whom he regarded as no better than a «set of mouth bungled hypocrites». The book achieved worldwide fame due to its irreverent and witty style, its concise and factually accurate nature, and its artistic prose.^[16]

In the 1920s and 1930s, biographical writers sought to capitalize on Strachey’s popularity by imitating his style. This new school featured iconoclasts, scientific analysts, and fictional biographers and included Gamaliel Bradford, André Maurois, and Emil Ludwig, among others. Robert Graves (I, Claudius, 1934) stood out among those following Strachey’s model of «debunking biographies.» The trend in literary biography was accompanied in popular biography by a sort of «celebrity voyeurism», in the early decades of the century. This latter form’s appeal to readers was based on curiosity more than morality or patriotism. By World War I, cheap hard-cover reprints had become popular. The decades of the 1920s witnessed a biographical «boom.»

American professional historiography gives a limited role to biography, preferring instead to emphasize deeper social and cultural influences. Political biographers historically incorporated moralizing judgments into their work, with scholarly biography being an uncommon genre before the mid-1920s. Allan Nevins was a major contributor in the 1930s to the multivolume Dictionary of American Biography. Nevins also sponsored a series of long political biographies. Later biographers sought to show how political figures balanced power and responsibility. However, many biographers found that their subjects were not as morally pure as they originally thought, and young historians after 1960 tended to be more critical. The exception is Robert Remini whose books on Andrew Jackson idolize its hero and fends off criticisms. The study of decision-making in politics is important for scholarly political biographers, who can take different approaches such as focusing on psychology/personality, bureaucracy/interests, fundamental ideas, or societal forces. However, most documentation favors the first approach, which emphasizes personalities. Biographers often neglect the voting blocs and legislative positions of politicians and the organizational structures of bureaucracies. A more promising approach is to locate a person’s ideas through intellectual history, but this has become more difficult with the philosophical shallowness of political figures in recent times. Political biography can be frustrating and challenging to integrate with other fields of political history.^[17]

The feminist scholar Carolyn Heilbrun observed that women’s biographies and autobiographies began to change character during the second wave of feminist activism. She cited Nancy Milford’s 1970 biography Zelda, as the «beginning of a new period of women’s biography, because «[only] in 1970 were we ready to read not that Zelda had destroyed Fitzgerald, but Fitzgerald her: he had usurped her narrative.» Heilbrun named 1973 as the turning point in women’s autobiography, with the publication of May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude, for that was the first instance where a woman told her life story, not as finding «beauty even in pain» and transforming «rage into spiritual acceptance,» but acknowledging what had previously been forbidden to women: their pain, their rage, and their «open admission of the desire for power and control over one’s life.»^[18]

Recent years

In recent years, multimedia biography has become more popular than traditional literary forms. Along with documentary biographical films, Hollywood produced numerous commercial films based on the lives of famous people. The popularity of these forms of biography have led to the proliferation of TV channels dedicated to biography, including A&E, The Biography Channel, and The History Channel.

CD-ROM and online biographies have also appeared. Unlike books and films, they often do not tell a chronological narrative: instead they are archives of many discrete media elements related to an individual person, including video clips, photographs, and text articles. Biography-Portraits were created in 2001, by the German artist Ralph Ueltzhoeffer. Media scholar Lev Manovich says that such archives exemplify the database form, allowing users to navigate the materials in many ways.^[19] General «life writing» techniques are a subject of scholarly study.^[20]

In recent years, debates have arisen as to whether all biographies are fiction, especially when authors are writing about figures from the past. President of Wolfson College at Oxford University, Hermione Lee argues that all history is seen through a perspective that is the product of one’s contemporary society and as a result, biographical truths are constantly shifting. So, the history biographers write about will not be the way that it happened; it will be the way they remembered it.^[21] Debates have also arisen concerning the importance of space in life-writing.^[22]

Daniel R. Meister in 2017 argued that:

Biography Studies is emerging as an independent discipline, especially in the Netherlands. This Dutch School of biography is moving biography studies away from the less scholarly life writing tradition and towards history by encouraging its practitioners to utilize an approach adapted from microhistory.^[23]

Biographical research

Biographical research is defined by Miller as a research method that collects and analyses a person’s whole life, or portion of a life, through the in-depth and unstructured interview, or sometimes reinforced by semi-structured interview or personal documents.^[24] It is a way of viewing social life in procedural terms, rather than static terms. The information can come from «oral history, personal narrative, biography and autobiography» or «diaries, letters, memoranda and other materials».^[25] The central aim of biographical research is to produce rich descriptions of persons or «conceptualise structural types of actions», which means to «understand the action logics or how persons and structures are interlinked».^[26] This method can be used to understand an individual’s life within its social context or understand the cultural phenomena.

Critical issues

There are many largely unacknowledged pitfalls to writing good biographies, and these largely concern the relation between firstly the individual and the context, and, secondly, the private and public. Paul James writes:

The problems with such conventional biographies are manifold. Biographies usually treat the public as a reflection of the private, with the private realm being assumed to be foundational. This is strange given that biographies are most often written about public people who project a persona. That is, for such subjects the dominant passages of the presentation of themselves in everyday life are already formed by what might be called a ‘self-biofication’ process.^[27]

Book awards

Several countries offer an annual prize for writing a biography such as the:

• Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize – Canada
• National Biography Award – Australia
• Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography – United States
• Whitbread Prize for Best Biography – United Kingdom
• J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography – United Kingdom
• Prix Goncourt de la Biographie – France

See also

• Historiography
• Historiography of science
• Historiography of the United Kingdom
• Historiography of the United States
• Legal biography
• Letter collection
• Psychobiography

Notes

References

Further reading

• Gosse, Edmund William (1911). «Biography» . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 952–954.
• Sidney Lee (1911), Principles of Biography, London: Cambridge University Press, Wikidata Q107333538
• Solomon, Maynard (2001). «Biography». Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.41156. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)

External links

• «Biography», In Our Time, BBC Radio 4 discussion with Richard Holmes, Nigel Hamilton and Amanda Foreman (June 22, 2000).

Last Updated:
1 Apr 2023
— Updated example sentences

bi·og·ra·phy

 (bī-ŏg′rə-fē)

n. pl. bi·og·ra·phies

1. An account of a person’s life written, composed, or produced by another: a film biography of Adlai Stevenson; an oral biography.

2. Biographies considered as a group, especially when regarded as a genre.

3. The writing, composition, or production of biographies: a career entirely devoted to biography.

---

[Late Greek biographiā : Greek bio-, bio- + Greek -graphiā, -graphy.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

biography

(baɪˈɒɡrəfɪ)

n, pl -phies

1. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) an account of a person’s life by another

2. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) such accounts collectively

biˈographer n

biographical, ˌbioˈgraphic adj

ˌbioˈgraphically adv

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

bi•og•ra•phy

(baɪˈɒg rə fi, bi-)

n., pl. -phies.

1. a written account of another person’s life.

2. an account of the history of an organization, society, etc.

3. such writings collectively.

4. the writing of biography as an occupation.

[1675–85; < Greek biographía. See bio-, -graphy]

Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.

biography

The story of a person’s life, recounted by someone else.

Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words by Diagram Group Copyright © 2008 by Diagram Visual Information Limited

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Translations

Last Update: Jan 03, 2023

This is a question our experts keep getting from time to time. Now, we have got the complete detailed explanation and answer for everyone, who is interested!

Asked by: Ferne Fisher

Score: 4.6/5
(15 votes)

A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person’s life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person’s experience of these life events.

What is a biography simple definition?

1 : a usually written history of a person’s life a new biography of Abraham Lincoln. 2 : biographical writings as a whole the genre of biography. 3 : an account of the life of something (such as an animal, a coin, or a building) the biography of the commonwealth.

What is biography and example?

The definition of biography is a story written about someone’s life. An example of biography is a book about the story of President Obama’s life. … An account of a person’s life written, composed, or produced by another. A film biography of Adlai Stevenson; an oral biography.

What is ment by biography?

The definition of a bio is a short story written about a person’s life. … An example of bio is biography which is the story of a person’s life.

What is the meaning of biography and autobiography?

A biography is a text written about someone else’s life (usually someone famous). An autobiography is a text written about one’s own life.

15 related questions found

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From New Latin biographia, formed from Ancient Greek βίος (bíos, “life”) + γράφω (gráphō, “write”).

Pronunciation[edit]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /baɪˈɒɡɹəfi/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /baɪˈɑɡɹəfi/
• Rhymes: -ɒɡɹəfi

Noun[edit]

biography (countable and uncountable, plural biographies)

1. A person’s life story, especially one published.

   There are many biographies of Benjamin Franklin.

2. The art of writing this kind of story.

Derived terms[edit]

• autobiography
• heterobiography
• psychobiography

[edit]

• biographer
• biographical
• biographism
• hagiography
• pathography

Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

biography (third-person singular simple present biographies, present participle biographying, simple past and past participle biographied)

1. (transitive) To write a biography of.

Anagrams[edit]

• ribophagy

Autobiography

As discussed before, this is a self-written biography where the author narrates stories from their own life. The autobiographer is the subject and the author of the biography.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) is the first edition of a seven-volume autobiographical series written by Maya Angelou. It details her early life in Arkansas and her traumatic childhood, where she was subjected to sexual assault and racism. The autobiography then takes us through each of her multiple careers as a poet, teacher, actress, director, dancer, and activist and the injustices and prejudices she faces along the way as a black woman in America.

Fig. 2 — Maya Angelou, the author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

Fictional biography

Yes, you heard that right! There are some instances where writers incorporate fictional devices in biographies to create biographies that are more entertaining rather than informative. Writers of this style may weave in imagined conversations, characters and events in their biographies. Sometimes, writers may even base an entire biography on a fictional character!

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (2013) is a fictionalised biography where writer Theresa Anne Fowler imagines the life of Zelda Fitzgerald and F. Scott Fitzgerald from the perspective of Zelda herself and details the glamourous yet turbulent married life of the couple that defined the Jazz Age (1920s).

It is one of the most important subgenres of the didactic genre of literature, since it consists of the text of the history of the life of a person. It is a written narration in which the most important facts of a person’s life are related as a summary, starting with the birth, with the whole context of the place of origin, and in some cases even going back to family history. The narrator is not the protagonist.

As for the completion of the biography, many of them are written when the protagonist has already died, so that it covers his or her life from beginning to end. However, it is up to the writer to choose how far the biography will go, especially if the protagonist lives.

Meaning of the subgenre biography

The term comes from the union of the Greek bios, which refers to life, and graphein, which refers to writing. This is how the term is configured, giving rise to a form of writing focused on life, so that it can also be used in a symbolic sense.

Definition of the sub-genre biography

It is a type of text written in the third person, in which the content consists of a summary of the life of a person, however, it may include appreciations by the author in which aspects related to the context of the life of the protagonist of the biography are specified, in addition to information related to accurate data.

What is the function of a biography?

A text like this gathers a great amount of information about the life of a person, so that its purpose is, above all, to make known fundamental features of the life of the person about whom the biography is made, in most cases it is about public people in which their professional activity is highlighted, appreciations about their private life or other activities for which they have stood out, which are essential to understand their work.

History and origin of the biographical subgenre

It is considered that the biographical text type has its beginnings since Antiquity, however, it should be noted that at that time it had not been established as a literary subgenre, so it had not been formally classified. It was in the Middle Ages, with the Renaissance movement, that biography began to be recognized, since at that time it was necessary to provide specific information on the artists in order to gradually eliminate the ancient Greek models from which it sought to dissociate itself.

With the passage of time, biography, like humanity, achieved an important evolution, in which it gradually came to incorporate a desperate search for documents that would allow an approach to the lives of subjects and artists. This will be key to the realist movement, which we have already talked about in a previous article. Thus, by the present time, the biography manages to consolidate itself as a writing that allows us to know the life of a character from the most relevant and determining events for the activity for which he is publicly known, in the case of figures recognized in the political, social, cultural, etc. field.

Characteristics of the biography subgenre

Let us look at the essential characteristics of this literary subgenre:

Theme

The central theme that distinguishes the biography from other didactic subgenres is the narration of the most relevant facts of a person’s life, which is presented through a written text. It deals with real events in the life of an equally existing person. Its content goes from the birth of a person until the present time or the time of his death. Some authors write about the author even after death, especially if he left works that keep his name active.

Mode of composition

At the time when a biography is being written, as well as when it is read, the organization of the events that are exposed are arranged chronologically, following the line of life. Likewise, in the writing, the author maintains an objective and accurate look in which everything he mentions can be verified. However, the author may mention some particular assessments.

Narrator

Another of the most relevant aspects of this type of subgenre has to do with the type of narrator who writes, since the story is narrated in the third person.

Mode of presentation

Although it is essentially a written text, so that it can be presented in documents and books, the truth is that these serve as a basis for the reproduction of the biography through other formats, as has happened in recent years where the lives of key characters are exposed through documentaries, films, programs, etc.

Historical content

A biography, although it has a series of data on important dates, also tends to make tours around important trips or journeys made by the character, so that it incorporates historical events during their travels, as many of them influence their activities and will have an important impact on decision making. This information also allows the reader to situate and contextualize the reader in relation to the time and space of the person’s life.

Structure of the biography subgenre

As for the structure of this type of text, it is similar to the organization usually used in narrative texts, since it has an opening section, an introduction and a closing section as a conclusion at the end of the text. Thus, the biography is organized as follows:

Introduction: as its name indicates, this initial part introduces the character about whom we are going to talk. Thus, the full name, date and place of birth (if desired date and place of death), and finally the activity he/she developed in life, that is to say, his/her profession and specialty, are mentioned.

Development: in this part begins as such the order of the biography. Here the author begins with the narration of all those events that were transcendental for the protagonist’s life, so he can start by pointing out particularities of his origin, the activity of his parents and siblings, if he focuses on the family circle, etc.

Conclusion: it is the closing of the text in which we reach the last years of the character’s life, if he/she has passed away, or the present time, if the author prefers. Often, in this part the author’s subjectivity is evident due to a series of evaluations that are made in relation to the transcendence of the protagonist.

Likewise, the structure of the biography usually includes other elements in its organization such as:

Dedication: this is a space that occupies one or two short sentences in which the author or writer of the biography allows himself to show affection, either to the protagonist of his biography or to people he esteems.

Preface: in this section the author can relate some of his or her personal experiences in relation to the moment prior to consolidating the biography to be presented. In this sense, he/she can address issues such as the reasons that prompted him/her to develop his/her work, the reasons and the research tools, for example.

Acknowledgements: in the final part of the biography, although it can also appear at the beginning, the author proceeds to thank different people, including those who helped him/her to find relevant information about the protagonist, as well as other people who have accompanied the process through complementary activities, company, photographic work, data collection, etc.

Annexes: in this section the author can include annexes such as photographs, articles and documents that have been mentioned during the course of the biography and that are duly indicated to lead the reader to them.

Types of the biography subgenre

According to the field in which a biography is developed, it is possible to identify some modalities that give rise to a number of types of biography. These are:

These are all biographies that have been reviewed and validated by the author, who, once he/she has reviewed them, approves everything that is exposed within their content and allows the publication of the biography that has been written.

Unauthorized biography

In this case, the biography has not been reviewed by the author, in most cases without seeking the approval of the person whose life is narrated. Often this type of biography is part of the journalistic activity when reporting on a public person, especially when it is a political or social figure.

Book biography

It is given by the type of format in which the biography is presented. Its length allows for a much more detailed and thorough exploration of the protagonist. Often the person written about is a public personality of interest in a specific society and context. Its content includes background, moments prior to becoming known, work, etc.

Professional biography

In this type of biographies the content is focused on the exaltation of the person’s skills, as well as his or her knowledge, abilities, experience and other aspects that may increase the value of the proposal. It includes skills related to personality traits in the quality of the activity.

Informative biographies

They are usually biographies not marked within the literary world, but within the journalistic world, since they tend to emphasize in-depth research with the intention of informing a much wider audience. There is no deepening of the data presented, but they are exposed in an objective and concrete way where specific aspects are highlighted.

How to write a biography?

Now that we have seen what a biography consists of in broad strokes, it is time to see how to write such a text correctly:

Choosing the protagonist 

The first thing we must do when we plan to write a biography is to choose the person about whom we want to develop the text. We can practically choose any person, whether it is a friend, a relative, an acquaintance, an artist, a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher or any other person we want to write about.

Collecting the information 

Once you have chosen the person you are going to write the biography about, it is time to start gathering as much information about the person as possible. Gather information about their life, background, institutions they went through, their jobs, activities and so on, this will allow you to make a complete biography. If you can have contact with the person, interviewing him or her, for example, will be of great help.

If you choose a famous personality, you may find much of this information in audiovisual media, interviews, books, among others. If not, you can approach relatives, friends and people close to you to obtain much more information.

Asking important questions

As you collect information, it is important, at the same time, to keep in mind a series of key questions that will allow you to go deeper and collect baseline information to provide as much data as possible about your entire life. So some of these questions can be: Who were his parents and what did they do, what was the relationship with his family circle like, what was his childhood like, what led him to approach what would become his main activity in life, what are his first steps in his passion, etc.

Organization of the information

When you have all this information, it is time to organize it. Remember to keep a chronological order, even though there are connections between past and present directly, so you should go deeper into different moments that allow you to configure the future of the protagonist seen from the past.

Establish a central idea 

Many biographies maintain an order that revolves around a particular idea, it can be a particularity of the character, an activity or profession that he/she has developed, etc. Elaborating this central idea will allow you to develop the content around the character’s life, through which all the events will pass.

Start writing

It is time to get down to work. Start writing keeping the order you have chosen and the central idea you have set up, although you can indicate it from the beginning, you must take care that the information you add builds it during the course of the biography.

Adding the bibliography 

Because of the type of text you are writing, since it involves a large number of sources of information, it is necessary that each of the sources be added to the final document, including not only documents or books, but also interviews and people who gave you their word, online sources consulted, etc.

Final proofreading 

We have the whole document ready, now we just need to check again aspects such as spelling and grammar, as well as the coherence between paragraphs and other divisions you have decided to make within the biography. You can ask someone to read it so that they can give you their feedback, especially if the person you are talking about is of interest to them as well.

Remember to check some sources beforehand. You can refer to existing biographies of authors, artists, doctors, politicians or any other important personalities. This will allow you to have a closer guide to start writing the biography.

Example of the biography subgenre

The following is an excerpt from the authorized biography of Steve Jobs, one of the most well-known biographies of our times, written by Walter Isaacson:

“This is a book about the eventful life and searing, intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and fierce determination revolutionized six different industries: personal computers, animated films, music, telephony, electronic tablets, and digital publishing. We could even add a seventh: retail, which Jobs didn’t exactly revolutionize, but he did revamp. He also paved the way for a new digital content market based on applications rather than websites. Along the way, he has not only created products that have transformed the industry, but also, on his second try, an enduring company, imbued with his very DNA, filled with creative designers and daring engineers who will be able to carry his vision forward.”

Content

• What is Biography:
• Biography and autobiography
• Biography and memoirs

What is Biography:

Biography is the narration about a person’s life story. The word biography is of Greek origin «bios « What does it mean «lifetime» Y «graphein”That expresses «to write», for what it means «write life».

The biography is a 17th century literary genre, narrated in the third person and explains in a brief summary, the life of a person, in general, is a public and famous person, in which another person, whether a journalist or another profession, writes the life of the individual through of data collection and, if possible, through interviews directly with the biographer or his family or friends.

The biography covers birth, family, childhood, how was his adolescence, studies, profession, relevant works, characteristics of his personality, sometimes a brief summary of the time in which he lived or lived, his adult life, his legacy, among others points that the writer considers important or interesting to capture. In the case of the person being deceased, the reason for his death is reported, in which place he was veiled, people who attended, among other matters related to the subject. Otherwise, that is, if the individual is alive, it is written up to the present time or as far as the biographer considers relevant.

However, there are different subgenres of biography such as: authorized biography It is considered from that biography that is subject to the review of the author in order to approve everything exposed about him and his life and, unauthorized biography It is that biography that has been written without the desire or approval of the biographer, unauthorized biographies are part of journalistic work when it reports on the life of a public person, whether in the political, economic or social sphere.

Likewise, at present there are several films in which they represent the biography or life of a public person, such as: the film that represents the life of a blind singer from the age of 7, known as Ray Charles, in addition to being a saxophonist and soul, R&B and jazz pianist; the film Yves Saint Laurent that narrates the life of the French designer who manages to be consecrated as a man of great talent in his 21 years and, of this genre there are many films.

Biography and autobiography

The autobiography It is the narrative of a person’s life written by himself. The autobiography is written in the first person and the autobiographer is the author and protagonist of his work. In turn, as indicated above, the biography it is the narration of a person’s life written by a third person, that is, not properly by the biographer, for example: the book of «Steve Jobs» written by the author Walter Isaacson.

Biography and memoirs

The memories They are the narration of the life of a person in a certain period and, these can be written by the same person or by a third person close to the character. However,the biographies They write the entire life of the biographer and are always written by third parties.