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Life Writing
Out of Africa by Karen
Blixen
Life Studies by Robert Lowell
The Orchard by Drusilla Modjeska
The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster
This material was written by Colleen Walles.
Introduction to the genre
What is Life Writing?
Life Writing conventions
Introduction to Genre
English Extension1, Module A: Genre, Life Writing develops your ability to ‘explore and evaluate notions of genre’ (p.89. Syllabus Document). You will study three of the following four texts from the prescribed texts list, Out of Africa by Karen Blixen, Life Studies by Robert Lowell, The Orchard by Drusilla Modjeska and The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster.
All of these texts are autobiographical and factual although they contain fictional elements which the composers use to a greater or lesser degree to develop their ideas. The texts include a variety of references to religious and literary texts, art, music, allegory and fable. Historical references place characters and concerns of the texts within a context.
The syllabus document requires students to ‘examine why genres arise at a particular time and the social and cultural conditions that are conducive to their endurance or recurrence in popularity’ (p.89). In your study you will evaluate the interaction between the values of the different contexts, the forms of the chosen texts, and the function of conventions in reflecting context and concerns.
The rubric in the Prescriptions is also important and must guide your approach to the texts and be reflected in your analytical and creative responses to assessment tasks and the HSC. The Prescriptions state:
In this elective students explore nonfictional texts composed in a range of media that represent lives or aspects of lives. Texts such as biographies, autobiographies, memoirs and documentaries explore a life and may at the same time be a recording of that life. Many examples of life writing interrogate whether there can ever be a comprehensive account of the facts of a life. They explore instead the various ways the facts of a life can be represented, interpreted and valued. (pg 30. English. Stage 6. Prescriptions. 2009-2012)
Another important aspect of this study is that you read and view a wide variety of texts that you consider may be classified as Life Writing to develop your ability to create original imaginative, interpretive and analytical compositions (p.89. Syllabus Document) All of the texts set for study represent the concerns and hopes of their composers and their social and cultural contexts. It is helpful to remember that for your creative responses, especially under exam conditions, you need to carefully select and structure a selection of appropriate events, anecdotes, facts and intertextual references to provide a convincing and evocative account of the life you have chosen.
In your own reading of the genre remember, too, that autobiographies, like biographies, present the author’s perspective and therefore it is always important to evaluate and analyse the information provided. A comparison of an authorized and unauthorized biography can often provide you with conflicting or withheld information.
Genres are fluid and dynamic. They change, sometimes substantially, depending on the composer’s context and purpose. Therefore you should evaluate the extent to which generic distinctions are justified.
In your study you will need to evaluate:
- the influence of the context on the form including textual features, and values reflected in the text
- how each composer conforms to or subverts the concepts and conventions of ‘Life Writing’
- how the composer’s purpose and the form and content of the text was influenced by considerations of the anticipated responders.
What is Life Writing?
The term genre was used to define a literary type or class, and from the Renaissance until the end of the 18th century the rules of each genre were clearly defined and used to assess the success or failure of the text. However, your study will have shown you that each text has adapted many common rules and conventions depending on the composer’s purpose and context. The texts set for study are variously classified as memoirs, autobiographies, biographies, and fiction.
The following definition of autobiographical writing is useful for this study:
A narrative account written by an individual that purports to depict his or her life and character. Unlike diaries and journals which are kept for the author’s private use, autobiographies are written expressly for an audience. Autobiographies are distinguished from memoirs (also produced for public consumption), whose authors render an account of the people and events they have known and experienced without providing the detailed reflection and introspection characteristic of most autobiographies. Some fiction writers draw so heavily on their own experiences in their works , though not autobiographies in the strict sense of the term, are correctly perceived and described as being autobiographical in nature or even as thinly disguised autobiographies. (Murfin, R. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. p 28 Bedford Books. Boston 1998)
Remember a writer relies on others for details of early childhood because memory is unreliable, and writers may choose to conceal or re interpret events and situations that are potentially unflattering or damaging to others involved or to the writer. Diaries or journals began as factual accounts of events often not intended for publication. As stated above a memoir may not include the detailed reflection or introspection of well written autobiography.
A thorough knowledge and understanding of Genre and Life Writing will enable you to develop your own extended responses in the HSC Extension 1 Paper.
Mind Map of Life Writing Conventions
Mind Maps are a useful first step in establishing the relationships between the texts and developing your understanding of the functions of the conventions.
Life Writing Conventions
- a concern for ‘truth telling’
- memory – insight into past, present, future
- place
- revelation and concealment – no life can be fully recounted
- privileged ideas and perspectives
- context – historical, political and cultural
- mixture of fact and fiction
- voice – sense of person
- variety of text types: letters, newspaper articles, photographs etc
- allusions to religion, art and literature
- writing and reflection to understand connections between past, present and future
- relationships – insight into connections between past, present and future
Note: Composers both conform to and subvert generic conventions. Decisions relating to structure, languages and genre made by composers are designed to best reflect the concerns of their context and authorial intention.
The prescribed texts in Life Writing include biographical and autobiographical texts that range from confessional writing as in the poems of Robert Lowell in Life Studies, Paul Auster’s memoir/autobiographical postmodern novel The Invention of Solitude, Drusilla’s Modjeska’s The Orchard with its mixture of fiction and fact, and Karen Blixen’s nature writing Out of Africa which is a plea for conservation as an autobiography. The sub-genres of Life Writing include texts that predominantly explore issues relating to: race, religion, gender and the cult of personality.
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