106-040 Biography and its Hazards

Credit Points

HECS Band

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Usually admission to the Postgraduate Diploma or Fourth Year Honours in English, see Honours entry.

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

This subject will study a range of biographies of literary figures, canonical writers or critics. The investigative aims will be to gain an understanding of the subjects of the biographies, and an exploration of the relation between life and writing, with particular concern for the value and problems of reading literature through biography. It will examine different approaches to literary biography, including psychobiography, group biography and humanist biography. There will be an opportunity to undertake some practical biographical writing. On completion of the subject students should have an understanding of theories of biography, its history and value, the ethics of reading and writing biography, and some of the practical skills required in the writing of biography.

Assessment

Written work totalling 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• B Mazlish, James and Stuart Mill, Father and Son in the 19th Century. New York Basic Books.
• R Ellman, Oscar Wilde. Penguin.
• L Edel, Bloomsbury: A House of Lions. Hogarth Press.
• Cynthia Griffin Wolff, A Feast of Words, The Triumph of Edith Wharton. OUP.
• J Miller, The Passion of Michel Foucault. Harper Collins.