Biographical Approach Of Criticism

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BIOGRAPHICAL APPROACH What is Biographical approach? The biographical approach has been one of the oldest and best established methods of literary study. Biographical criticism deals with a work in relation to the whole mental and spiritual life of its author. It seeks to find out the personality of the writer behind the work. It establishes significant relations between the creator and his work. In simple words, the approach is based on the biographical details of the writer & it tries to examine the meaning of the literary work in the light of these details. This approach assumes that since a literary work is a creation of a writer hence a certain understanding of the writer’s life & personality can be seen as an essential requirement for a proper understanding of the meaning of the work. Biographical approach equates the origin of the work with the originality of the writer. Why Biographical approach? Helen Gardner says that “the writer’s personal history like the pressure of the age in which he lived is a context which can help us to focus on the work as it is”. Who used Biographical approach? Dryden was the first prominent English biographical critic who in his Lives of Lucan & Plutarch combined biography & criticism. Dr. Johnson also practiced biographical criticism in the Lives of the Poet. The greatest biographical critic was Saint-Beuve whose biographical critical essays appeared in French Journals from 1824 till his death in 1869. Throughout the nineteenth century this approach persisted as the most dominant & unchallenged method in literary criticism. Advantages of Biographical approach ❖ This approach is useful while dealing with writers whose works have been autobiographical in nature. ❖ Wordsworth defines poetry as “a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings which take its origin in

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