Life Writing: A Critical and Historical Study of the Development of Autobiography in Western Literature
كتابة الحياة: دراسة نقدية وتاريخية للسيرة الذاتية فى الأدب الغربي
Keywords:
Life Writing, traditional literary, cultural importance, self-expressionAbstract
This study explores the concept of Life Writing and its development from a traditional literary genre into a broader critical practice concerned with identity, memory, and human experience. It examines the major forms of life writing, including biography, autobiography, memoir, and diaries, while tracing their historical evolution from classical times to the modern age. The study also highlights the contribution of modern critical theories, especially feminist and postmodern approaches, in expanding the scope of life writing beyond canonical texts to include ordinary and marginalized voices. In addition, it presents an analytical reading of The Story of My Life by Helen Keller as an inspiring example of autobiographical writing that reflects perseverance and self-expression despite physical challenges. Through this discussion, the research aims to show the literary and cultural importance of life writing as a means of preserving personal experience and understanding the complexity of human identity.
References
Ibn Manzur: Lisan al-Arab, Dar Sader, Beirut, 1994, entry for "sir".
Al-Fayruzabadi: Al-Qamus al-Muhit, Al-Risalah Foundation, Beirut, 2nd edition, 1987, entry for "sir".
See Julie Rak, “Marlene Kadar’s Life Writing: Feminist Theory outside the Lines,” a/b: Auto/Biography Studies 33, no. 3 (2018): 541–549; Marlene Kadar, “Coming to Terms: Life Writing—From Genre to Critical Practice,” in Essays on Life Writing, ed. Marlene Kadar (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 3–16, quotation at 4; and Donald J. Winslow, Life-Writing: A Glossary of Terms in Biography, Autobiography, and Related Forms, Biography Monographs (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1980). Winslow’s book first appeared as Donald J. Winslow, “Glossary of Terms in Life Writing,” pts. 1 and 2, Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 1, no. 1 (1978): 61–78; and 1, no. 2 (1978): 61–85.
For the phrase “the New Critical wolf,” see Marlene Kadar, “Whose Life Is It Anyway? Out of the Bathtub and into the Narrative,” in Kadar, Essays on Life Writing, 152–161, at 154. For the other quotations, see Kadar, “Coming to Terms,” 4–6.
Kadar, “Coming to Terms,” 9.
Kadar, “Coming to Terms,” 10.
Kadar “Coming to Terms,” 12. Kadar notes that her argument here is informed by pp. 162–165 of Elizabeth Fox- Genovese, “To Write My Self: The Autobiographies of Afro-American Women,” in Feminist Issues in Literature Scholarship, ed. Shari Benstock (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 161–180.
Britannica Editors (2024, December 23). Memoir. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/memoir-historical-genre
Britannica Editors (2026, February 6). Autobiography. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/autobiography-literature.
