The individualistic theory argues that memoirs are a means through which an individual seeks to define and assert himself and his lifestory as against history. When we come to examine this theory, we should first ask how a text can assert individualism. Any text whatsoever, be it an autobiography, a poem, or a shopping list, can express the individuality of its author as author. However, when scholars connect autobiographical texts and individuality, they do not usually have in mind the individuality of the author-as-author. For in this respect, Renaissance poetry may be a more promising field of research than Renaissance autobiographical writings. For similar reasons scholars do not have in mind the individuality of the author-as-narrator. Instead, what they have in mind – and what I have in mind in the following pages – is the individuality of the protagonists, and in particular the individuality of the author-as-protagonist.

What do we require of a protagonist appearing in a text in order to label him or her ‘an individual’? It would be wrong to assume that there is a necessary connection between being a textual individual and being a central protagonist. Occasional, exemplary and even eyewitness protagonists too may be individuals. Many twentieth-century autobiographers explicitly depict themselves as exemplary rather than central protagonists, yet are considered individuals. In contrast, there are numerous central protagonists in medieval hagiographies, biographies, romances, histories and other writings, yet the individualistic theory asks us to believe that individuality is a novel Renaissance phenomenon.