书写“人”的故事——英国传记文学理论发展简述

Writing the Story of“Man”——A Brief Overview of the Theory Development of British Biography

英国传记文学的发展史,其本质就是对人如何能更好地被书写的一种观念史。对英国近几个世纪传记理论发展脉络的梳理,我们可以发现,传记对传主隐私的披露和内在心理的探究日趋深入和客观,传主身份逐步扩展到女性和少数族裔等曾经的边缘群体;传记与小说等其他虚构文类的边界开始模糊,重心也逐渐从客观历史书写向主观文学创作倾斜,对传记样态的呈现也逐渐变得更加异质和多元。

Looking back at the history of British biography,its essence is a conceptual history of how people can be better written.By combing through the theory development of British biography over the past few centuries,it can be found that biographies appeared more deeply and objectively in revealing the subject's privacy and exploring their inner psychology.The identity of the subject has gradually expanded to include like women and ethnic minorities,who were once marginal groups.The boundaries between biography and other fictional genres such as novels have begun to blur,and the focus has gradually shifted from objective historical writing to subjective literary creation.The presentation of the style of biography has also become increasingly heterogeneous and diverse.