Skip to content
Cart 
Register Sign in

Availability:

Out of Stock Add to wishlist Find sales consultant
× This is a Sterling guide price. You will be invoiced in the appropriate currency for your country.
  • ISBN:9780521732314
  • Format:Paperback
  • Subject(s):English Literature
  • Author(s):Midge Gillies
  • Available from: No date available

Critical introductions to a range of literary topics and genres.

Availability:

Out of Stock Add to wishlist Find sales consultant
× This is a Sterling guide price. You will be invoiced in the appropriate currency for your country.

Send a Query

formRow
×
  • DESCRIPTION

    Writing Lives takes as its focus life writing, both autobiography and biography, discussing these genres specifically within the contexts of the lives and literary careers of writers, past and present. In addition to exploring the key characteristics of life writing, the book also examines the relationship between the lives of authors and the influence of these lives both on their own writing and on the reception of their work by contemporary and later readers. The book traces the origins of literary biography from its early roots to its position as a best-selling genre in its own right.

  • Contents
  • FEATURES
    • Each title includes a wide-ranging yet carefully levelled introductory discussion of a literary period, genre or theme, to provide students with an excellent introduction to an area of literature.

    • Helps students to address the new assessment objective 4 ('demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts are written and received') - worth up to 35% of the A level qualification under new guidelines.

    • Discussion questions and end-of-section tasks offer an invaluable resource for self study as well as helpful exam preparation.

    • A mini-anthology of texts and extracts saves teachers time searching for appropriate 'wider reading' texts.

  • CONTENTS
    • Introduction
    • 1. Reading life writing: The influence of early biographers: Plutarch, Izaak Walton, John Aubrey, Samuel Johnson and James Boswell
    • The Victorian approach
    • Bloomsbury
    • Autobiography
    • Life Writing and the Second World War
    • Women's autobiographical writing
    • Family memoirs
    • Biographical structure in the twentieth century and key writers
    • Ethics and biography
    • Assignments
    • 2. Approaching the texts: How biographers choose their subjects
    • Structuring a life
    • New approaches to biography
    • Other forms of life writing: letters and diaries, autobiographical fiction
    • Sources
    • Illustrations
    • Assignments
    • 3. Texts and extracts: Peter Ackroyd, from Dickens
    • Maya Angelou, from I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
    • John Aubrey, from Brief Lives
    • JG Ballard, from Empire of the Sun and Miracles of Life
    • Vera Brittain, from Testament of Youth and Letters from a Lost Generation: First World War, Letters of Vera Brittain and Four Friends
    • Elizabeth Gaskell, from The Life of Charlotte Brontë
    • Brian Keenan, from An Evil Cradling
    • Doris Lessing, from Alfred and Emily
    • Primo Levi, from If This is a Man
    • Alison Light, from Mrs Woolf and the Servants, Janet Malcolm, from The Silent Woman
    • Sylvia Plath, 'Morning Song'
    • Plutarch, from Parallel Lives
    • James Shapiro, from 1599, A Year in the Live of William Shakespeare
    • Zadie Smith and Ian McEwan, from Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers
    • Virginia Woolf, from The Diary of Virginia Woolf, volume III, 1925–30
    • 4. Critical Approaches: The autobiographical writings of Doris Lessing
    • Alfred and Emily
    • Critical responses to Alfred and Emily
    • Assignments
    • 5. How to write about life writing: The writer and the reader
    • Different perspectives: comparing texts
    • The context of writing: facts and their emphasis
    • Your own and other readers' interpretations
    • Assignments
    • 6. Resources: Chronology
    • Further reading
    • Websites
    • Glossary
    • Index
    • Acknowledgements.
Landscape and Literature

Landscape and Literature

View product
The Literature of Love

The Literature of Love

View product
Shakespeare on Stage

Shakespeare on Stage

View product
Modernism and After

Modernism and After

View product
Contemporary Poetry

Contemporary Poetry

View product
Contemporary Fiction

Contemporary Fiction

View product
World and Time

World and Time

View product
Romanticism

Romanticism

View product
The Age of Chaucer

The Age of Chaucer

View product
Women's Writing: Past and Present

Women's Writing: Past and Present

View product
Shakespearan and Jacobean Tragedy

Shakespearan and Jacobean Tragedy

View product
Twentieth Century British Drama

Twentieth Century British Drama

View product
Metaphysical Poetry

Metaphysical Poetry

View product
Satire

Satire

View product
American Prose and Poetry in the 20th Century

American Prose and Poetry in the 20th Century

View product
The Victorian Novel

The Victorian Novel

View product
The Modern Short Story

The Modern Short Story

View product
Post-Colonial Literature

Post-Colonial Literature

View product
The Gothic Tradition

The Gothic Tradition

View product
American Drama 1900-1990

American Drama 1900-1990

View product
The Great War in British Literature

The Great War in British Literature

View product
This site uses cookies to improve your experience. Read more Close

Thank you for your feedback which will help us improve our service.

If you requested a response, we will make sure to get back to you shortly.

×
Please fill in the required fields in your feedback submission.
×