DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

 

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

  

                   

Before the 16th century, what existed were histories. And what were important in those histories were major figures (political, religious, etc.). The people behind great works of literature and art, as well as many other fields, had never quite had a history of themselves.

    

      There was an absence of “biography” as we know it today until the early 16th century in England. This was the turning point. Emerging from the small island were a number of biographies of writers, painters, poets, and more.

    

     But why did this happen? How did this modern obsession materialize? What caused these words such as “biography,” “autobiography,” “person,” and “character” to emerge or gain new meaning during the English Renaissance?

 

     The point of this project is to explore these questions and come to an understanding of how “biography” was born and how it developed as we know it today.

   

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.