Biographical Approach to Analyze Literature

According to Reaske (1966), Biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts (education, work, relationships, and death), biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents the subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of his or her life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.

Biographical approach examines the literary work  in relation to the author’s life. And often a particular poem or song is subject to this kind of analysis simply by nature of its material in relation to the background of the author's personal experience. Or simply we can say, Biographical approach is an approach used to understand and comprehend a literary work by studying deeper about the life of the author. 

The good example of analysis by using this approach is the study of Emily's Chariot, since almost the whole contents of the poem tell about Emily's personal life.

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See also:

• Critical Approaches to Study Literature
• Objective Approach
• Subjective Approach
• Historical Approach
• Biographical Approach
• Psychological Approach
• Mythological and Archetypal Approach
• The Formalist Approach