As the nineteenth century progressed, a spotlight was shone on modern autobiography and biography. In the previous century, confessional and spiritual autobiographies had been the dominant genre and were primarily concerned with moral or spiritual transformation. However, the 19th century saw a greater shift towards more secular life stories.
Biographies, too, gained in popularity. One of the significant transformations was the shift from hagiographical biography, that is, one that treats its subject with undue reverence with depictions of the 'Great Man', to more realistic and detailed accounts of a subject's life, including their flaws and complexities. Forms and styles were experimented with as were various mediums even involving gossip and satire. In addition, authors played with narrative structure, often employing non-linear chronologies and fragmented narratives. The innovation offered more nuanced ways of understanding life, acknowledging that human experience isn't always linear or neatly categorized and that often, the flaws or early life traumas are what built the ‘Great Man’ in the first instance.
The 19th century, therefore, marked an increase in life-writing from groups historically marginalised, such as former slaves like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, who published narratives detailing their inhumane experiences, thereby providing a powerful counter-narrative to prevailing racial biases of the time. Women's life-writing, too, was on the rise, with authors like Mary Shelley and Elizabeth Gaskell portraying their personal experiences and perspectives, challenging traditional gender roles and offering insights into women's, more often than not, challenging lives.
It could be said that life-writing in the 19th century developed within the broader socio-cultural context, demonstrating a shift in understanding the self and individuality, marked by introspection, reflexivity, and an increased emphasis on personal experience. This period witnessed a surge in autobiographical and biographical narratives, with numerous notable authors contributing to this genre, including William Hazlitt, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Their works provide a rich tapestry of individual and social insights, pioneering various forms and styles of life writing that remain influential today.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, although active in the 18th century, cast a long shadow over the 19th century with his ground-breaking autobiographical work, ‘Confessions’. This was one of the first works to focus on the author's subjective experience, exploring not just events of his life, but also his thoughts, feelings, and motivations. It served as a prototype for many subsequent autobiographies and inspired writers to delve deeper into personal introspection and the exploration of the self. Rousseau’s honesty in detailing personal highs and lows, his virtues and vices, set a new standard for autobiographical candour and greatly influenced the genre's development in the 19th century.
Likewise, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, one of the most important figures of German literature, wrote ‘Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit’ (‘From my Life: Poetry and Truth’), his autobiography, releasing it in four parts between 1811 and 1833. It became an influential work of life-writing in the 19th century because it blended factual biography with artistic invention. Goethe managed to map his evolution as a poet and a human being. His focus on individual experiences and the shaping of his artistic consciousness made his work a significant contribution to the Romantic autobiographical tradition.
William Hazlitt was a prolific English writer known for his essays, but his work ‘Liber Amoris’ (1823) stands as a remarkable example of life-writing. It is a detailed account of his passionate yet unreciprocated love for a maid in his lodging house. This work is distinctive because Hazlitt lays bare his soul and presents his unvarnished emotions to the reader, which was quite bold and unconventional for its time.
Across the pond, Ralph Waldo Emerson, a central figure in American Transcendentalism, used life-writing in a somewhat different way. Rather than focusing on recounting life events, Emerson's essays often contain autobiographical elements that serve his philosophical and spiritual ideas. Works like, ‘Self-Reliance’ and ‘Experience’ use personal anecdotes and reflections to elaborate on his concepts of individuality, non-conformity, and the human connection to nature.
All in all, the 19th century was a pivotal period in the development of life writing, and a time of both reflection and revolution. It saw life-writing evolve from focusing on public achievements and moral lessons to a more intimate exploration of personal experience and values, directly addressing human complexity. And most importantly, it set the stage for the diverse and vibrant tradition of life-writing that we see in the 21st century. Gone were the old didactic, chronological, and impersonal accounts and what arose were more introspective, subjective, and personal narratives. It became a means to chronicle the author's life and explore and construct the self with a sense of playfulness within the narrative structure and opportunity give to the rise of voices from the margins.