Autobiography in English Literature

Autobiography is a form of non-fictional literature, the subject of which is the life of an individual, written by him self. In it the subject recounts his or her own history. It can be seen as a branch of history, because it depends on a selective ordering and interpretation of materials, written and oral, established around the writer’s personal life.

Autobiographies belong to the branch of confessional literature. In the Romantic Period, many writers’ confided their thoughts and feelings to the readers. They explored the depths of their souls. Rousseau’s Confession, George Moore’s Confessions of a young Man belong to this kind of literature. Autobiographies are to be distinguished from memories and diary or journal. Memories record mainly the people and the events that the author has seen and experienced. Diary is a day-to-day record of the events in a man’s life. But autobiographies trace the development of the author from childhood to maturity through interaction with other characters and events.

Benjamin Franklin, John Stuart Mill, Winston Churchill wrote autobiographies, which, in their truth and design are remarkable achievements. Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s “The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian” deserves mention for its vigorous and bold description of the passing away of Indo-British culture.
But autobiographical writing can easily pass into fiction when rational inference or conjecture pass over into imaginative reconstruction or frank invention or when the subject itself is wholly or partly imaginary.

Renaissance Period in English Literature

Mohamad II, the Sultan of the Ottoman Turks and a crusader, defeated the Christians in 1453 and occupied Constantinople, the then capital of the Byzantine Empire and the centre of classical learning. After the defeat the Christian scholars fled to different parts of Europe where they spread their knowledge. Thus ancient learning started reviving. This revival of the classical knowledge is called Renaissance.

So Renaissance means rebirth or regeneration or revival. This Renaissance was meant for a revival of ancient classical mythology, literature, and culture as well as reawakening of the human mind. After the long sleep of the dark middle ages, the conception of Renaissance comes forth as a wonder. It was the glory and the beauty of the human body and the world of nature. It was, as if mankind, it were the human revival from a long sleep and looking at the glory of nature with astonishment. During this period the beauty of humanity, of women, of nature, of art and of literature was being perceived newly.

Actually Renaissance began in Italy as early as the fourteenth century with the words of Petrarch and others’. Its influence reached England with its vast importance as the last years of the fifteenth century and the opening years of the sixteenth. After this influence Father of English literature Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Kyd, Ben Jonson, and many other poets, writers, and scientists started to create their vast type of creation.