Biography vol. 20, no. 3 (Summer 1997)
Editor’s Note, p. iii
ARTICLES
Sources for a Neglected Masterpiece: Paul Schrader’s
Mishima, pp. 265-283
John Howard Wilson
Though little known, Paul Schrader’s film about Yukio Mishima
provides a model for cinematic biography. Mishima’s
distinction stems partly from a wide range of sources, such as
other films, novels, and biographies. Cinematic styles separate
and connect Mishima’s life and art, as biographical scenes
alternate with scenes from the work.
Virginia Woolf Revising Roger Fry Into the Frames of "A
Sketch of the Past", pp. 284-301
Georgia Johnston
Influenced by the aesthetic theories of Roger Fry, Virginia Woolf
added an interrupting frame to "A Sketch of the Past."
The frame presents a series of present-day "I"s that
undermine the coherence of the subject who lived that past. Thus
Woolf redefines the literary spectator and invalidates a retrospective,
unified, authoritative subject.
Biography, Conspiracy, and the Oswald Enigma, pp. 302-330
John F. Keener
Biography as a narrative mode is in direct opposition to conspiracy
narrative, which by definition decenters the life story in favor
of a more diffuse subject. In the case of Lee Harvey Oswald, telling
a life story becomes a politically charged act. Among writers
seeking to explain the enormous event of the Kennedy assassination,
such narratives often become very diffuse indeed...and very unbiographical.
SKETCHES FROM LIFE
Telling Bret Harte’s Story: Putting Theory into Biographical
Practice, pp. 331-343
Axel Nissen
The author discusses how biographical, historical, and narrative
theory empowered him to explore new modes of biographical discourse
and organization in his literary biography of Bret Harte. He discusses
his new "scenic method," his use of consistent narration,
and other means of achieving a greater degree of selectivity,
interiority, and polyphony of perspective without violating the
grounding principles of scholarly biography.
REVIEWS, pp. 344-363
REVIEWED ELSEWHERE, pp. 364-395
LIFELINES, pp. 396-397
CONTRIBUTORS, pp. 398-399
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