An essay my students and I read this week argues that "sources have shaped the nature of biographies and the biographical method adopted" (William St Clair, "Biographer as Archaeologist," in Mapping Lives).
In exploring biography, we have been thinking precisely about sources. Historians have their own techniques; they visit archives, dig through files and folders, decipher handwriting and piece together their stories. Geoffrey Parker, who talked with us this week about his majesterial Imprudent King: A New Life of Philip II, even confided one of his research strategies that is more about the human than the document. Convinced by years of experience that archivists tend to withhold the "good stuff" until the bitter end, when they love to say "if only you had more time you could look through this lovely stack of materials," he now tells the staff of archives that he'll be leaving on a certain date, and then -- if and when they pull that trick on him -- announces: "oh, I'm actually staying another week." He wants to make sure to get all the good stuff.
But what is "all the good stuff"? Does more evidence sometimes mean less certainty, to paraphrase St Clair?
In the preface to his famous Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey tells us to
Another essay we read argued that the brief lives written by "new biographers" such as Strachey leave out too much; the chronological method, writes Mark Kinkead-Weekes, offers "less lucid reading, but greater and more complex understanding" ("Writing Lives Forwards," Mapping Lives). Here we run into the question of "biographical method." Prof. Parker had no doubt as to where his biography would begin (with the birth of Philip II), nor where it would end (with his death -- though the posthumous "miracles" allowed him to extend somewhat!), but the 2012 Spanish version of his biografia definitiva runs to 1436 pages. It's the rare fan of Philip II who wants to read that much about the man.
Kinkead-Weekes insists that chronological biographies are preferable; "we do not, alas, live our lives in themes but day by day," he explains. And yet. The lure of writing a non-"definitive" biography is great. Certainly if and when I write my biography of Tynianov, the art of arranging the life will intrigue me more than taking every scrap of evidence into account. But then, I'm no Geoffrey Parker.
Yesterday I wandered onto the page of Lev Rubinstein, Muscovite and Russian conceptualist poet. I regularly mention Rubinstein in lectures -- his Mama was washing the windowframe is a classic of its time -- and I remember with pleasure a reading of his I went to in 1989, I think at the Teatr na doskakh (Theater on the Boards, a makeshift semi-underground theater in perestroika Moscow). But before yesterday I hadn't contemplated Rubinstein as a private individual, and I certainly hadn't considered him as a presence on Facebook.
In exploring biography, we have been thinking precisely about sources. Historians have their own techniques; they visit archives, dig through files and folders, decipher handwriting and piece together their stories. Geoffrey Parker, who talked with us this week about his majesterial Imprudent King: A New Life of Philip II, even confided one of his research strategies that is more about the human than the document. Convinced by years of experience that archivists tend to withhold the "good stuff" until the bitter end, when they love to say "if only you had more time you could look through this lovely stack of materials," he now tells the staff of archives that he'll be leaving on a certain date, and then -- if and when they pull that trick on him -- announces: "oh, I'm actually staying another week." He wants to make sure to get all the good stuff.
But what is "all the good stuff"? Does more evidence sometimes mean less certainty, to paraphrase St Clair?
In the preface to his famous Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey tells us to
row out over the great ocean of material and lower down into it, here and there, a little bucket, which will bring up to the light of day some characteristic specimen from those far depths to be examined with a careful curiosity.Really? We love his narratives, but we can't help thinking that one should be a bit more selective in choosing what to include in the life one is writing. This vivid image of dipping the "little bucket" doesn't feel right for a scholarly crowd like my students. They want more research, not less, more material to choose from.
Another essay we read argued that the brief lives written by "new biographers" such as Strachey leave out too much; the chronological method, writes Mark Kinkead-Weekes, offers "less lucid reading, but greater and more complex understanding" ("Writing Lives Forwards," Mapping Lives). Here we run into the question of "biographical method." Prof. Parker had no doubt as to where his biography would begin (with the birth of Philip II), nor where it would end (with his death -- though the posthumous "miracles" allowed him to extend somewhat!), but the 2012 Spanish version of his biografia definitiva runs to 1436 pages. It's the rare fan of Philip II who wants to read that much about the man.
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| Beware the word "definitive," warns Parker, who found a new cache of documents after publishing this volume! |
I had another line of inquiry in mind, though, when I sat down to write this. So here it is: What is a source, or what will be a source, in the Facebook Age?
Academics are ambivalent about Facebook. Many of us use it, though some feel guilty, or pretend they don't spend much time on it. For the 21st century Facebook is a means of communication -- I PM'd my old swim coach just last week, though I'm not positive he knows how to receive a private message -- and I maintain that it also will be a source for future biographers. But at what cost?
Yesterday I wandered onto the page of Lev Rubinstein, Muscovite and Russian conceptualist poet. I regularly mention Rubinstein in lectures -- his Mama was washing the windowframe is a classic of its time -- and I remember with pleasure a reading of his I went to in 1989, I think at the Teatr na doskakh (Theater on the Boards, a makeshift semi-underground theater in perestroika Moscow). But before yesterday I hadn't contemplated Rubinstein as a private individual, and I certainly hadn't considered him as a presence on Facebook.
A mutual acquaintance had "liked" his post reminiscing about how his parents met -- in the 1930s, at an impromptu dance party in a Moscow communal apartment. Olga Sedakova (whose religious philosophical poetry had been the subject of one of the chapters of my student's dissertation some years ago) then commented something on the order of "so your talent as a dancer is genetic -- remember that evening at NLO?"
Memoirs can lie, and sometimes conversations are meant to be private. But what do we make of such a conversation conducted via social media? If we were to write a biography of Rubinstein, or of Sedakova, would we need to conduct research on their social media pages?
Rubinstein has 26,000 followers, now 26,001 including me. I think he's smart, and his observations are fascinating. But two questions: does the number of followers equal a portion of a possible audience for biography, or does social media replace biography? And secondly, if poets are writing their memories and thoughts on FB etc, does that mean they are not writing poetry?
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