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Biographical criticism is a form of Literary criticism which analyzes a writer's biography to show the relationship between the author's life and their works of literature.〔"Biographical Criticism", ''Writing essays about literature: a guide and style sheet'' (2004), Kelley Griffith, University of North Carolina at Greensborough, Wadsworth Publishing Company , pages 177-178, 400〕〔Benson, Jackson J. (1989) "(Steinbeck: A Defense of Biographical Criticism )" ''College Literature'' 16(29): pp. 107-116, page 108〕 Biographical criticism is often associated with Historical-Biographical criticism,〔http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/college_literature/v030/30.1knoper.html〕 a critical method that "sees a literary work chiefly, if not exclusively, as a reflection of its author's life and times".〔Wilfred L. Guerin, A handbook of critical approaches to literature, Edition 5, 2005, page 51, 57-61; Oxford University Press, University of Michigan〕 This longstanding critical method dates back at least to the Renaissance period,〔Stuart, Duane Reed (1922) "Biographical Criticism of Vergil since the Renaissance" ''Studies in Philology'' 19(1): pp. 1-30, page 1 ''et seq.''〕 and was employed extensively by Samuel Johnson in his ''Lives of the Poets'' (1779–81).〔http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/criticism "Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets (1779–81) was the first thorough-going exercise in biographical criticism, the attempt to relate a writer's background and life to his works."〕 Like any critical methodology, biographical criticism can be used with discretion and insight or employed as a superficial shortcut to understanding the literary work on its own terms through such strategies as Formalism. Hence 19th century biographical criticism came under disapproval by the so-called New Critics of the 1920s, who coined the term "biographical fallacy"〔Lees, Francis Noel (1967) "The Keys Are at the Palace: A Note on Criticism and Biography" pp. 135-149 ''In'' Damon, Philip (editor) (1967) ''Literary Criticism and Historical Understanding: Selected Papers from the English Institute'' Columbia University Press, New York, 〕〔Discussed extensively in Frye, Herman Northrop (1947) ''Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake'' Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, page 326 and following, 〕 to describe criticism that neglected the imaginative genesis of literature. Notwithstanding this critique, biographical criticism remained a significant mode of literary inquiry throughout the 20th century, particularly in studies of Charles Dickens and F. Scott Fitzgerald, among others. The method continues to be employed in the study of such authors as John Steinbeck,〔Benson, Jackson J. (1989) "Steinbeck: A Defense of Biographical Criticism" ''College Literature'' 16(29): pp. 107-116, page 108〕 Walt Whitman〔Knoper, Randall (2003)("Walt Whitman and New Biographical Criticism" ) ''College Literature'' 30(1): pp. 161-168〕 and William Shakespeare.〔Schiffer, James (ed), ''Shakespeare's Sonnets: Critical Essays'' (1999),pp. 19-27, 40-43, 45, 47, 395〕 == Peripatetic biographical criticism == In ''The Cambridge history of literary criticism: Classical criticism'', in a chapter titled "Peripatetic Biographical Criticism", George Alexander Kennedy notes that in the Hellenistic age, "The works of authors were read as sources of information about their lives, personalities and interests. Some of this material was then used by other commentators and critics to explain passages in their works. The process became a circular one in that, though Peripatetic biographers utilized external evidence where available, they had little to go on and quarried the texts for hints".〔George Alexander Kennedy, The Cambridge history of literary criticism: Classical criticism, page 205, Cambridge University Press, 1989〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Biographical criticism」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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