BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM
Biographical literary criticism stresses that knowledge of an author’s life can provide
valuable insights into understanding a work of literature. Some writers draw on their own lives
(particularly personal events and conflicts) to inform their work.
For example, Charlotte Perkins Gilman turned to events in her own life when she wrote
“The Yellow Wallpaper.” The “rest cure” that the female protagonist faces in the story is a
dramatization of the same cure that Perkins Gilman suffered under Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. Just as
Perkins Gilman faced utter mental ruin, so does the character Jane in the story.
When F. Scott Fitzgerald was turned away from a marriage to Generva King, a beautiful
and wealthy young woman, she told him, “Rich girls don’t marry poor boys.” Fitzgerald would
later dramatize this event in his masterpiece The Great Gatsby when Jay Gatsby is turned away
from the beautiful and wealthy Daisy Buchanan because “rich girls don’t marry poor boys.”
Biographical criticism also involves a study of the author’s intentions. This kind of
critique involves research. Secondary source materials such as critical articles or credible
biographies might reveal an author’s intentions in writing a work. Sometimes, however, an
author might reveal his or her intentions in an essay or letter. Gilman, for example, wrote an
essay entitled “Why I Wrote ‘The Yellow Wallpaper.’”
Be careful not to assume that an author is the main character. Some readers, for example,
like to draw connections between Edgar Allan Poe’s life and his tales and poems. Do not assume,
though, that the narrator in “The Tell Tale Heart” is Poe himself! Poe the author is not the first
person narrator of the story; Poe invented the first person narrator to tell his (the fictional
narrator’s) own story.
Remember, the goal of biographical criticism is to illuminate a work of literature and
support your critical assertions. When writing a biographical analysis of literature, do not include
details about the author’s life that have no bearing on your critique. You are interested in literary
biography in order to illuminate a work by an author.