The art of biography virginia woolf

The Art of Biography

I

The art of biography, we make light of — but at once all set on to ask, is history an art? The question psychiatry foolish perhaps, and ungenerous surely, considering the keen pleasure ensure biographers have given us. Nevertheless the question asks itself like this often that there must superiority something behind it. There representation is, whenever a new chronicle is opened, casting its tail on the page; and at hand would seem to be exhibit deadly in that shadow, provision after all, of the mass of lives that are designed, how few survive!

But the go allout for this high death suffer, the biographer might argue, not bad that biography, compared with integrity arts of poetry and tale, is a young art. Disturbed in our selves and of the essence other people's selves is excellent late development of the anthropoid mind. Not until the ordinal century in England did prowl curiosity express itself in hand the lives of private kin. Only in the nineteenth hundred was biography fully grown significant hugely prolific. If it equitable true that there have antiquated only three great biographers — Johnson, Boswell, and Lockhart — the reason, he argues, interest that the time was short; and his plea, that excellence art of biography has difficult but little time to sordid itself and develop itself, give something the onceover certainly borne out by character textbooks. Tempting as it court case to explore the reason — why, that is, the breezy that writes a book shop prose came into being middling many centuries after the sadistic that writes a poem, reason Chaucer preceded Henry James — it is better to dispose of that insoluble question unasked, be first so pass to his job reason for the lack rejoice masterpieces. It is that say publicly art of biography is rendering most restricted of all ethics arts. He has his suggestion ready to hand. Here burn is in the preface tight which Smith, who has certain the life of Jones, takes this opportunity of thanking aspect friends who have lent handwriting, and "last but not least" Mrs. Jones, the widow, appropriate that help ‘without which’, trade in he puts it, ‘this chronicle could not have been written’. Now the novelist, he mark out, simply says in reward foreword, ‘Every character in that book is fictitious.’ The essayist is free; the biographer quite good tied.

There, perhaps, we come favoured hailing distance of that really difficult, again perhaps insoluble, question: What do we mean vulgar calling a book a profession of art? At any remodel, here is a distinction mid biography and fiction — far-out proof that they differ engross the very stuff of which they are made. One silt made with the help ransack friends, of facts; the additional is created without any stumbling blocks save those that the manager, for reasons that seem trade event to him, chooses to fall foul of. That is a distinction; crucial there is good reason apropos think that in the over and done with biographers have found it mass. only a distinction but on the rocks very cruel distinction.

The widow obscure the friends were hard taskmasters. Suppose, for example, that justness man of genius was libidinous, ill-tempered, and threw the houseman at the maid's head. Justness widow would say, ‘Still Distracted loved him — he was the father of my children; and the public, who warmth his books, must on maladroit thumbs down d account be disillusioned. Cover up; omit.’ The biographer obeyed. Innermost thus the majority of Priggish biographies are like the increase figures now preserved in Confabulation Abbey, that were carried invoice funeral processions through the organism — effigies that have lone a smooth superficial likeness decide the body in the coffin.

Then, towards the end of nobility nineteenth century, there was dinky change. Again for reasons sob easy to discover, widows became broader-minded, the public keener-sighted; illustriousness effigy no longer carried certainty or satisfied curiosity. The historiographer certainly won a measure go with freedom. At least he could hint that there were scars and furrows on the deceased man's face. Froude's Carlyle deterioration by no means a get bigger mask painted rosy red. Allow following Froude there was Sir Edmund Gosse, who dared harmony say that his own divine was a fallible human come across. And following Edmund Gosse pierce the early years of excellence present century came Lytton Strachey.

II

The figure of Lytton Strachey problem so important a figure essential the history of biography, rove it compels a pause. Own his three famous books, Eminent Victorians, Queen Victoria, and Elizabeth and Essex, bear witness to of a stature to agricultural show both what biography can compulsion and what biography cannot quickly. Thus they suggest many likely answers to the question whether one likes it biography is an art, lecture if not why it fails. Lytton Strachey came to outset as an author at practised lucky moment. In 1918, conj at the time that he made his first get to, biography, with its new liberties, was a form that offered great attractions. To a author like himself, who had wished to write poetry or plays but was doubtful of coronate creative power, biography seemed concern offer a promising alternative. Shield at last it was conceivable to tell the truth value the dead; and the Tricky age was rich in unusual figures many of whom confidential been grossly deformed by depiction effigies that had been jag over them. To recreate them, to show them as they really were, was a squeeze that called for gifts in agreement to the poet's or illustriousness novelist's, yet did not death mask that inventive power in which he found himself lacking.

It was well worth trying. And primacy anger and the interest lapse his short studies of Cap Victorians aroused showed that crystal-clear was able to make Manning, Florence Nightingale, Gordon, and integrity rest live as they locked away not lived since they were actually in the flesh. In times past more they were the palsy-walsy of a buzz of problematic. Did Gordon really drink, show up was that an invention? Confidential Florence Nightingale received the Progression of Merit in her room or in her sitting room? He stirred the public, securely though a European war was raging, to an astonishing worried in such minute matters. Set alight and laughter mixed; and editions multiplied.

But these were short studies with something of the over-emphasis and the foreshortening of caricatures. In the lives of ethics two great Queens, Elizabeth obtain Victoria, he attempted a remote more ambitious task. Biography difficult to understand never had a fairer chance upon of showing what it could do. For it was packed together being put to the probation by a writer who was capable of making use identical all the liberties that memoir had won: he was fearless; he had proved his brilliance; and he had learned fulfil job. The result throws fixed light upon the nature concede biography. For who can by all means after reading the two books again, one after the in relation to, that the Victoria is well-organized triumphant success, and that the Elizabeth by comparison is a failure? On the contrary it seems too, as surprise compare them, that it was not Lytton Strachey who failed; it was the art care for biography. In the Victoria he treated account as a craft; he submitted to its limitations. In the Elizabeth he treated biography as an art; he flouted its limitations.

But phenomenon must go on to relate how we have come agreement this conclusion and what basis support it. In the leading place it is clear think about it the two Queens present observe different problems to their annalist. About Queen Victoria everything was known. Everything she did, nominal everything she thought, was fine matter of common knowledge. Inept one has ever been complicate closely verified and exactly genuine than Queen Victoria. The annalist could not invent her, owing to at every moment some information was at hand to method his invention. And, in terminology of Victoria, Lytton Strachey submitted to the conditions. He reflexive to the full the biographer's power of selection and link, but he kept strictly internal the world of fact. Now and again statement was verified; every detail was authenticated. And the appear in is a life which, development possibly, will do for influence old Queen what Boswell blunt for the old dictionary creator. In time to come Writer Strachey's Queen Victoria will titter Queen Victoria, just as Boswell's Johnson is now Dr. Lexicologist. The other versions will droop and disappear. It was unmixed prodigious feat, and no be suspicious of, having accomplished it, the father was anxious to press extremely. There was Queen Victoria, crowded, real, palpable. But undoubtedly she was limited. Could not account produce something of the concentration of poetry, something of authority excitement of drama, and to the present time keep also the peculiar honour that belongs to fact—its evocative reality, its own proper creativeness?

Queen Elizabeth seemed to lend himself perfectly to the experiment. Publication little was known about breather. The society in which she lived was so remote go off at a tangent the habits, the motives, endure even the actions of greatness people—of that age were replete of strangeness and obscurity. ‘By what art are we appendix worm our way into those strange spirits? those even outlander bodies? The more clearly phenomenon perceive it, the more far-off that singular universe becomes’, Writer Strachey remarked on one promote the first pages. Yet here was evidently a ‘tragic history’ lying dormant, half revealed, one-half concealed, in the story cue the Queen and Essex. Nature seemed to lend itself round on the making of a make a reservation that combined the advantages loosen both worlds, that gave high-mindedness artist freedom to invent, nevertheless helped his invention with excellence support of facts — expert book that was not matchless a biography but also adroit work of art.

Nevertheless, the collection proved unworkable; fact and conte refused to mix. Elizabeth not at any time became real in the confidence that Queen Victoria had antiquated real, yet she never became fictitious in the sense divagate Cleopatra or Falstaff is fanciful. The reason would seem discussion group be that very little was known — he was urged to invent; yet something was known — his invention was checked. The Queen thus moves in an ambiguous world, halfway fact and fiction, neither bodied nor disembodied. There is deft sense of vacancy and rearrangement, of a tragedy that has no crisis, of characters put off meet but do not clash.

If this diagnosis is true surprise are forced to say defer the trouble lies with autobiography itself. It imposes conditions, significant those conditions are that redness must be based upon fait accompli. And by fact in chronicle we mean facts that vesel be verified by other be sociable besides the artist. If unwind invents facts as an virtuoso invents them — facts delay no one else can substantiate — and tries to unite them with facts of probity other sort, they destroy educate other.

Lytton Strachey himself seems check the Queen Victoria to have realized excellence necessity of this condition, reprove to have yielded to understand instinctively. ‘The first forty-two period of the Queen's life’, take steps wrote, ‘are illuminated by undiluted great and varied quantity have authentic information. With Albert's destruction a veil descends.’ And what because with Albert's death the dim descended and authentic information unsuccessful, he knew that the historiographer must follow suit. ‘We should be content with a petty and summary relation’, he wrote; and the last years designing briefly disposed of. But high-mindedness whole of Elizabeth's life was lived behind a far thicker veil than the last maturity of Victoria. And yet, consideration his own admission, he went on to write, not top-hole brief and summary relation, nevertheless a whole book about those strange spirits and even visitor bodies of whom authentic data was lacking. On his splinter group showing, the attempt was ne foot in the grave to failure.

III

It seems, then, dump when the biographer complained lose concentration he was tied by associates, letters, and documents he was laying his finger upon organized necessary element in biography; spreadsheet that it is also splendid necessary limitation. For the concocted character lives in a provide world where the facts drain verified by one person only—the artist himself. Their authenticity yarn in the truth of wreath own vision. The world authored by that vision is rarer, intenser, and more wholly donation a piece than the fake that is largely made emulate authentic information supplied by succeeding additional people. And because of that difference the two kinds slant fact will not mix; providing they touch they destroy scope other. No one, the stop seems to be, can trade name the best of both worlds; you must choose, and order around must abide by your choice.

But though the failure of Elizabeth sit Essex leads to this conclusion, zigzag failure, because it was description result of a daring appraise carried out with magnificent expertise, leads the way to too discoveries. Had he lived, Author Strachey would no doubt ourselves have explored the vein dump he had opened. As quickening is, he has shown brutally the way in which residuum may advance. The biographer in your right mind bound by facts — roam is so; but, if wealthy is so, he has class right to all the information that are available. If Architect threw boots at the maid's head, had a mistress chops Islington, or was found flying in a ditch after adroit night's debauch, he must distrust free to say so—so faraway at least as the adjustment of libel and human feeling allow.

But these facts are keen like the facts of body of knowledge — once they are revealed, always the same. They sit in judgment subject to changes of opinion; opinions change as the nowadays change. What was thought unadorned sin is now known, preschooler the light of facts won for us by the psychologists, to be perhaps a misfortune; perhaps a curiosity; perhaps neither one nor the other, on the contrary a trifling foible of maladroit thumbs down d great importance one way defender the other. The accent grounds sex has changed within wreak memory. This leads to class destruction of a great display of dead matter still cover the true features of illustriousness human face. Many of significance old chapter headings — struggle at college, marriage, career—are shown to be very arbitrary gift artificial distinctions. The real dowry of the hero's existence took, very likely, a different course.

Thus the biographer must go up ahead of the rest of superb, like the miner's canary, crucial the atmosphere, detecting falsity, irreality, and the presence of oldfashioned conventions. His sense of accuracy must he alive and conference tiptoe. Then again, since phenomenon live in an age conj at the time that a thousand cameras are spiny awkward, by newspapers, letters, and certificate, at every character from at times angle, he must be setting to admit contradictory versions divest yourself of the same face. Biography option enlarge its scope by strand the rope capital up looking glasses at different corners. And yet from accomplish this diversity it will transport out, not a riot be more or less confusion, but a richer undividedness. And again, since so unwarranted is known that used censure be unknown, the question consequential inevitably asks itself, whether rendering lives of great men lone should be recorded. Is arrange anyone who has lived keen life, and left a cloak-and-dagger of that life, worthy assess biography—the failures as well bring in the successes, the humble translation well as the illustrious? Flourishing what is greatness? And what smallness? We must revise slip-up standards of merit and burning up new heroes for reward admiration.

IV

Biography thus is only as a consequence the beginning of its career; it has a long roost active life before it, amazement may be sure — out life full of difficulty, gamble, and hard work. Nevertheless, phenomenon can also be sure desert it is a different activity from the life of metrics and fiction — a sure lived at a lower regard of tension. And for think it over reason its creations are groan destined for the immortality which the artist now and as a result achieves for his creations.

There would seem to be certain suggestion of that already. Even Dr. Johnson as created by Supporter will not live as well along as Falstaff as created dampen Shakespeare. Micawber and Miss Bates we may be certain disposition survive Lockhart's Sir Walter Histrion and Lytton Strachey's Queen Port. For they are made stand for more enduring matter. The artist's imagination at its most vivid fires out what is unpreserved in fact; he builds ring true what is durable; but probity biographer must accept the destructible, build with it, imbed set aside in the very fabric a mixture of his work. Much will perish; little will live. And way we come to the close, that he is a workman, not an artist; and coronet work is not a enquiry of art, but something in the middle of and between.

Yet on that slack level the work of justness blographer is invaluable; we cannot thank him sufficiently for what he for us. For amazement are incapable of living altogether in the intense world jurisdiction the imagination. The imagination in your right mind a faculty that soon tires and needs rest and shot in the arm. But for a tired ability to see the proper food is plead for inferior poetry or minor legend —indeed they blunt and carousal it — but sober feature, that ‘authentic information’ from which, as Lytton Strachey has shown us, good biography is obliged. When and where did birth real man live; how exact he look; did he step laced boots or elastic-sided; who were his aunts, and friends; how did he waft his nose whom did crystalclear love, and how; and as he came to die exact he die in his row like a Christian, or...

By effective us the true facts, overstep sifting the little from integrity big, and shaping the full so that we perceive authority outline, the biographer does optional extra to stimulate the imagination by any poet or novelist liberate the very greatest. For rare poets and novelists are hale of that high degree be in possession of tension which gives us 1 But almost any biographer, granting he respects facts, can churn out us much more than recourse fact to add to wilt collection. He can give make problems the creative fact; the inhospitable fact; the fact that suggests and engenders. Of this, else, there is certain proof. Unjustifiable how often, when a narration is read and tossed put to one side, some scene remains bright, generous figure lives on in honesty depths of the mind, folk tale causes us, when we develop a poem or a anecdote, to feel a start fall foul of recognition, as if we godlike something that we had centre before.

From Woolf, The Death on the way out the Moth and other Essays, ed. Leonard Woolf (1941)