What Is a Biographical Approach to Literary Criticism?

What Is a Biographical Approach to Literary Criticism? Feature Menu What Is Literary Criticism? Biographical Approach The Author’s Life and Beliefs Tips for Using the Biographical Approach Supporting Biographical Criticism

What Is Literary Criticism? To engage in literary criticism, you must • analyze, evaluate, and respond to a piece of literature • use evidence from the text to support your claims

What Is Literary Criticism? There are many “lenses” through which you can view a work of fiction. For example: • Feminist criticism notes whether the work treats women in a balanced way or presents them as stereotypes. • Historical criticism looks at the work as a product of a particular historical period. [End of Section]

background experiences beliefs What Is Literary Criticism? Biographical Approach The biographical approach to literary criticism, or biographical criticism, examines the way a writer’s work reflects his or her

What Is Literary Criticism? Biographical Approach To use a biographical approach in literary criticism, you need to learn about the writer’s biography, or life story. • Research facts about the writer, including interviews and quotations. • Try to understand the writer’s • heritage, or background • traditions, attitudes, and beliefs [End of Section]

Manuel in “La Bamba” author Gary Soto The Author’s Life and Beliefs Writers’ lives often influence their subject matter. However, fiction is not autobiography. • Characters may reflect their authors’ heritage and beliefs • but the characters are not identical with their authors.

The Author’s Life and Beliefs Writers use their knowledge of situations, people, and emotions to create realistic characters and scenes. However, they also use their imaginations. Author: Gary Paulsen Knowledge + Imagination: wrote about a boy stranded in the Canadian wilderness Knowledge: trained and raced sled dogs in Alaska; experienced harsh conditions

The Author’s Life and Beliefs Sometimes, writers invent characters and situations that seem unrelated to their—or anyone’s!—experiences. • Yet in some way, the writer is writing about something he or she knows: for example, human hopes, dreams, or fears. fear of the unknown [End of Section]

Tips for Using the Biographical Approach Here are some tips for using a biographical approach in literary criticism. • Do not assume that a fictional character, especially one who narrates the story and speaks as “I,” is the writer. • When you wonder if something in a work reflects the writer’s heritage or background, check a biography of the writer to be sure your hunch is correct.

Tips for Using the Biographical Approach Here are some tips for using a biographical approach in literary criticism. • Be specific in citing connections between the work and the writer’s life. Don’t assume that, because the main characters in the writer’s works tend to be rebels or outsiders, the writer must be a rebel. Sometimes writers like to write about the kind of people they wish they had been.

Tips for Using the Biographical Approach Here are some tips for using a biographical approach in literary criticism. • Do not ignore the part played by the writer’s imagination. Do not assume that every realistic detail in the story is based on fact. A good writer does not have to be a man in order to writer about male characters, nor a police officer to write about crime. [End of Section]

Supporting Biographical Criticism Poor literary criticism begins and ends with remarks like these: I was a little bored. I hated it. It was great.

Supporting Biographical Criticism In biographical criticism, you have to support every claim you make. You support your claims with • details from the text • facts about the writer’s life

Supporting Biographical Criticism Following is an example of an appropriate biographical criticism of a novel. The criticism works because the writer • researched facts about the life of author Sandra Cisneros • tells us specifically how the novel reflects those facts of the writer’s life

Supporting Biographical Criticism An appropriate biographical criticism of a novel: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is shaped by the writer’s own experiences growing up in a Mexican American family in a Chicago barrio. The house in the book’s title probably refers to the house the Cisneros family purchased when Sandra was young; Sandra hated the house because she thought it was ugly and old. In the same way, the girl in the novel hates the house her family has moved into, which is also in a Chicago barrio.

Supporting Biographical Criticism An appropriate biographical criticism of a novel: The main character, Esperanza (for “hope”), a determined but sensitive little girl, is clearly based on Cisneros herself. Esperanza uses writing as a way of escaping Mango Street in her imagination. Sandra Cisneros actually did escape her neighborhood by writing successful books.

Supporting Biographical Criticism An appropriate biographical criticism of a novel: There is another similarity: The women on Mango Street, including Esperanza, are dominated by men. Some of the women characters in the novel never seem to leave their homes. In the same way, Cisneros fought to be independent of the men who dominated her own life. She was the only girl in a family of seven children. [End of Section]

What Is a Biographical Approach to Literary Criticism? Quick Check You can be sure that the “I” in this story is I woke up at 6AM without having set the alarm. It was just another Saturday morning—except that I was thirteen instead of twelve, and I was on a military base in Germany instead of at home in my own bed. At least we’d been able to bring my cat Paulie with us. As if to show her annoyance, Paulie stalked across the bed and bit my ear. “Ow!” I yelled. “Is that your idea of a birthday greeting?” the writer the narrator a minor character How might you find out if the author lived in Germany as a teenager? [End of Section]

Using the Biographical Approach Your Turn Choose one of the following stories from your textbook: • “The Treasure of Lemon Brown” by Walter Dean Myers or • “An Hour with Abuelo” by Judith Ortiz Cofer Read the selection as well as the accompanying author biography. Discuss how the work reflects the writer’s heritage, traditions, attitudes, and beliefs. [End of Section]

The End

What Is a Biographical Approach to Literary Criticism?