Art & Biography
an essay from our resident librarian
Readers, we hope you enjoy this piece of public scholarship from our assistant, copywriter, and resident librarian Katie Male. Katie helps us put together these newsletters each week, gathers show notes, and helps us find fabulous resources as only a librarian can. She has lots of thoughts on biological fallacy, which tie into this semester’s modern/postmodern reading list and our ongoing study of critical theory.
There are many words and phrases which conjure up distinct memories of my undergraduate years, but maybe none that provide such visceral, primal feelings of irritation whenever I hear biological fallacy. I instantly feel myself transported to the classroom of one particular English professor, a less disheveled and unmarked, more introspective version of Weird Barbie, who stood before a room of undergrad English majors reminding us, once again, to not confuse the biography of the author with the interpretation of the work.
As Weird Barbie Professor put it (or so I’m paraphrasing), “There’s the (author) and the (work). And never the twain shall cross.”
To a certain extent, I understood the rationale for this argument. We don’t want to overreach into biography and personal history to derive all meaning from a text. Experience and personal writings do not always nor exactly equal intention when it comes to creating art. But as a wholly enthusiastic English nerd, the tradition of closely reading a text and deriving meaning from its formal elements and specific textual examples could feel, at times, too sterile and scientific. This is the humanities! Where is the, you know, human aspect to all of this?
A Brief History
There was a time when using the historical and biographical context of an author’s life was commonly used to extract meaning and relevance from literary texts. Poems were often thought of as expressions of the author and their interior thoughts. Novels prior to the Modernist movement were often considered in light of surrounding history and biography as critics and academics argued over literariness. Historicism was widely considered the literary framework for studying literature up until the early 20th century.
The turn of the century also marked a shift in the way critics thought about approaching texts. Gaining widespread popularity at this time, New Criticism called for a closer reading of the work, looking at the relationship between the form and the text. This school of thought called into question the legitimacy of using the author’s biography and historical context as well as a reader’s response to the work. Everything there is to know about a work is in the text. If a work was examined through the lens of biography, New Critics would find the argument to be committing biographical fallacy or what is also described as “intentional fallacy.”
As other various critical theories gained prominence and use, one that spoke directly to the issue of the author and history surrounding their life was New Historicism. Gaining popularity by the 1980s, this framework sought to reconnect a literary work to biographical and historical context, as well as the dominating power structures and minority views during the time it was written. This meant studying the history of the text could illuminate the work, and studying the work could help illuminate history.
Biography Today
Writers and scholars are still thinking about the role of the author to their art, and we also ponder that along with them. David Foster Wallace obliterates a biography of Jorge Luis Borges in the New York Times for committing intentional fallacy, writing, “Williamson is an atrocious reader of Borges's work; his interpretations amount to a simplistic, dishonest kind of psychological criticism.” In his article “Steinbeck: A Defense of Biographical Criticism,” Jackson Benson argues for the consideration of biography, stating that without it we are “cutting off the very qualities that make literature so invaluable in a mechanical, impersonal, scientized age.” We ourselves join in the great online debate as to whether one specific lyric in Olivia Rodrigo’s newest single is revealing her real feelings about Taylor Swift.
Biography has become increasingly important as writers and readers have advocated for better representation, especially from OWN voice writers and reviewers. Even criticism is reckoning with objectivity and that when we seek to view matters without bias, the perspective is often not representative of everyone especially marginalized communities. Perhaps now, more than ever, biography becomes more important as we reckon with the age of AI.
I’m not sure my professor was entirely right about his viewpoint on biography, though I don’t think he is entirely wrong either. What I do love most about being out of the classroom and into the world is that these questions can be asked and richly debated and not weigh heavily on my GPA. No longer do I feel like I should read completely divorced from the human that created the art, which sometimes felt more like reading with my dorm lights off. For, at the very least, grounding ourselves in biography and history gives us the opportunity to illuminate the room before we dig into enriching work.
-Katie
Works Cited
Brewton, Vince. “Literary Theory.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, University of Tennessee at Martin.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "historical criticism.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Feb. 2014
Delahoyde, Michael. “New Historicism.” michaeldelahoyde.org.
Felluga, Dino. "General Introduction to New Historicism." Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. 31 January 2011. Purdue U.
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