Literary Biography and Theory

Abstract

As English developed as a university subject an increasing number of eye-catching theories about literature started to circulate, and these theories were often applied to literary texts in an unreflective and off-putting way. In response literary biographers started to position themselves as offering a more direct and somehow more humane way of thinking about literature, which (it was claimed) would release readers from the rebarbative confusions of academic theory. Yet far from being untheoretical much literary biography in this period tended to be premised, knowingly or otherwise, on a very specific theory about literature which can be traced back to the romantic period. So what might it mean to be genuinely ‘against theory’ when it comes to literature, and how might biography deliver on this hope? This chapter explores how some of the major biographers answered this question, successfully or otherwise, including discussion of work by Leon Edel, Richard Ellmann, Hermione Lee, Claire Tomalin, Lyndall Gordon, Richard Holmes, and Jonathan Coe.