Design and Truth in Autobiography

Download or read book Design and Truth in Autobiography written by Roy Pascal and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-08-20 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1960. Is there an art of autobiography? What are its origins and how has it come to acquire the form we know today? For what does the autobiographer seek, and why should it be so popular? This study suggests some of the answers to these questions. It takes the view that autobiography is one of the dominant and characteristic forms of literary self-expression and deserves examination for its own sake. This book outlines a definition of the form and traces its historical origins and development, analyses its ‘truth’ and talks about what sort of self-knowledge it investigates.