Introduction to History 103 “I think that an historian’s chief interest is in character and circumstance. His [or her] concern is to discover the hopes, fears, anticipations and intentions of individuals and nations he [or she] is writing about. His [or her] task is to reproduce as best he [or she] can the circumstances, problems and situations faced by another person in another time. He [or she] seeks insight and understanding that cannot be gained through application of sociological rules and general explanations.” -- Donald Creighton Biography The history, or record, or story of a life Forms of Biography Life Chronologies or Chronicle Character Portraits Hagiography National Biographies Critical Biography Comparative Biography Why Study Biography? Curiosity about other people’s lives Moral lessons Individual counts in human existence Life stories play different roles in different political and cultural settings Canadian Biography Victorian Era - ‘paragons of virtue’ ‘Life and times’ on national stage, little on private life ‘Golden Age’ of National Biography 1950s and 60s – Creighton’s Macdonald, Careless’s Brown Expansion beyond Politics (1960s to present) Businessmen, sports heroes and cultural icons (eg. Berton, Dionne Years and Gray, Flint and Feather) ‘Social History Revolution’: Not just ‘heroic,’ national figures any longer Family relationships, role of women, impact of disease, daily lives, etc. Multiple facets of personalities (eg. Stacey’s A Very Double Life) Further Reading: Historian Robert Craig Brown’s insightful address on Biography in Canadian history, delivered to the Canadian Historical Association in 1980, also offers some interesting insights and background. Back to Lecture Outline