The biography is defined as ‘a truthful record of an individual, composed as a work of art.’ It deals with the character and experiences of the individual in a dispassionate way. Its aim is to present the personality, which is a model in some way or the other to the world.
It projects the inward and outward life of the individual. Some are great for their inward light like Johnson or Shaw. Some others are memorable for their deeds. Julius Caesar or Napoleon is interesting for their military exploits. Shakespeare is memorable for his literary genius.
It is, by and large, a faithful picture of the individual. It brings out the strengths and shortcomings of his personality. It does not permit the extolling of the good in him alone. It does not give scope for the outright condemnation of the bad either.
It is a dispassionate study of the individual from an artistic point of view. Therefore it recreates the personality from ‘dead bones’ keeping in view the purpose for which the individual lived. It narrates his struggles, vicissitudes, failures and successes in his life with dramatic fidelity.
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The Victorian Age sets a new trend in the writing of the biography. It is to put emphasis on the weaknesses of the individual. Sometimes it led to uncharitable comments or pulling down of the image. There is ‘debunking’ in Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians. Somerset and all other Maugham’s by Robin Maugham pulls down the image of Somerset Maugham, who built it consciously during his life time.
There are a number of biographies in English. Boswell’s Dr. Johnson, Strachey’s Queen Victoria and Pearson’s George Bernard Shaw are very interesting. The public figures drew the attention of the writers in the nineteenth century. John Morley’s Gladstone and Monypenny’s Disraeli are such biographies.