I.

PROPONENT

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was a literary critic and one of the major figure of French
literary history one of Sainte-Bueve’s major critical contentions was that in order to
understand an artist it was first necessary to understand the artist’s biography.
II. DISCUSSION
The Biographical Approach investigates the life of an author using primary texts, such as
letters, diaries, and other documents, that might reveal the experience, thought, and feelings
that led to the creation of a literary work. An investigation of Aldous Huxley’s personal
life reveals that Point Counterpoint is a roman a clef: the character Marc Rampion is a
thinly disguised imaginative version of Huxley’s friend, D.H. Lawrence. In this same
manner, an investigation of Samuel Clemens’ life may reveal that Tom Sawyer is a
composite character based not only on Samuel Clemens but also on his friends and
relatives. If you research the biographical background of the creators for Toy Story, you
may be surprised to find that all of them have in common a love for the first Star Wars
episode that hit the screen in 1979. The creators of Toy Story admired and were inspired
by the special effects presented in Star Wars. In fact, the chess scene in the movie is very
similar to the chess scene in Harry Potter, both were created with animation technology.
The technology is not the critical component in the research. The research into the creators
of Toy Story shows that all of the creators for Toy Story shared a love of early animation
in movies and this love led them to creating the first computer animated full length feature.
Toy Story This understanding into the mind of the author/creator is the basis for the
Biographical Approach

 A writer's life may shed light on his or her literature and the literature of the era.
 It is necessary to know the author and the political, economical and sociological context of
his times in order to truly understand his literature
 Real life experience can help shape (either directly or indirectly) an author's work.
 Understanding an author's life can help us better understand the work.
 It focuses on links between a work’s content and the writers life; often use the writer’s life
 Facts from the author's life are used to help the reader better understand the work; the focus
is always on the literary work under investigation.
 It begins with the simple but central in sight that literature is written by actual people and
that understanding an author’s life can help readers more thoroughly comprehend the work.
 A biographical critic must be careful not to take the biographical facts of facts if a writer’s
life too far in criticizing the works of that writer the biographical critic focuses on
explicating the literary work by using the insight provided by acknowledge of the author’s
life biographical should amplify the meaning of the text not drown it out with irrelevant
material

III. ISSUE
 What aspects of the author’s personal life are relevant to this story?
 Which of the author’s stated beliefs are reflected in the work?
 Does the writer challenge or support the values of her contemporaries?
 What seem to be the author’s major concerns? Do they reflect any of the writer’s personal
experiences?
 Do any of the events in the story correspond to events experienced by the author?
 Do any of the characters in the story correspond to real people?
  Unsound sources of information about the author's life.
 Literary work should be studied in conjunction with author’s life for full meaningand
appreciation.
 Correlation of events in the text to the author’s life should be done carefully.

IV. IMPLICATION
As a HUMSS student we need to study biographical approach so that the we can understand clearly
on what the author say’s and also we can know how the author made the story or the movie is it
by his own experience or it just popped up in his mind also we can know what background he/she
has because it is the author’s life on how he/she write the story and also we can understand what
is his relationship on the story that he/she made and why he made the story.

V. REFLECTION
I learned that in there is a thing called biographical approach because before I actually didn’t care
about the author of the story and in biographical approach you will really understand what the
author meant to the story and what is the real meaning of the story to the author. I also learned that
some author’s actually based their feelings from someone or a real experience on something. If
you really love reading you need to know what is biographical approach so that it will be easy for
you to understand more about the story.

VI. REFERENCE
Baltimore County Public Schools (1996) Literary Criticism Primer: A Guide to the Critical
Approaches to Literature
Retrieved from:
https://herefordhs.bcps.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_3705599/File/Academics/English/New%20
Lit%20Crit%20Primer.pdf
Biographical Criticism (2013)
Retrieved from:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/125869444/Biographical-Criticism-English