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n., pl. -phies.

The biography of a person written by that person.

autobiographer au'to·bi·og'ra·pher n.
autobiographic au'to·bi'o·graph'ic (-bī'ə-grăf'ĭk) or au'to·bi'o·graph'i·cal adj.
autobiographically au'to·bi'o·graph'i·cal·ly adv.

For more information on autobiography, visit Britannica.com.

As a literary genre, autobiography, narrating the story of one's own life, is a variation of biography, a form of writing that describes the life of a particular individual. From the point of view of psychoanalysis, autobiography is of interest as the story told by the patient to the analyst and to himself.

Autobiography in the modern sense began as a form of confession (Saint Augustine), even though there are memoirs in classical literature (Xenophon's Anabasis, Julius Caesar's Gallic wars). Such introspective works can be considered attempts at self-analysis before the psychoanalytic discovery of the unconscious. In 1925 Freud wrote An Autobiographical Study, in which the story of his own life merges with that of the creation of psychoanalysis. According to Freud, biographical truth does not exist, since the author must rely on lies, secrets, and hypocrisy (letter to Arnold Zweig dated May 31, 1939). The same is true of autobiography. From this point of view, it is interesting that Freud framed his theoretical victory and the birth of psychoanalysis in terms of a psychological novel.

The function of autobiography is to use scattered bits of memory to create the illusion of a sense of continuity that can hide the anxiety of the ephemeral, or even of the absence of the meaning of existence, from a purely narcissistic point of view. This story constitutes a narrative identity (Ricoeur, 1984-1988) but is self-contained. In contrast, the job of analysis is to modify, indeed to deconstruct, this identity through interpretation. Because the analyst reveals repressed content, he is always a potential spoiler of the patient's autobiographic story (Mijolla-Mellor, 1988).

Although autobiography has been of greater interest to literature (Lejeune, 1975) than to psychoanalysis, a number of psychoanalysts (Wilfred Bion and Marie Bonaparte, among others) have written autobiographies, thus confirming the link between the analyst's pursuit of self-analysis and autobiographical reflection.

Bibliography

Freud, Sigmund. (1925). An autobiographical study. SE, 20: 1-74.

Lejeune, Philippe. (1974). Le pacte autobiographique. Paris: Seuil.

Mijolla-Mellor, Sophie de. (1988). Suvivreà so passé. In L'autobiographie. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.

——. (1990). Autobiographie et psychanalyse. Le Coq-Héron, 118, pp. 6-14.

Ricoeur, Paul. (1984-1988). Time and narrative (Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1985)

—SOPHIEDE MIJOLLA-MELLOR

A literary work about the writer's own life. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa are autobiographical.

A narrative in which an individual tells his or her life story. Examples include Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and Amy Hempel's story "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried," which has autobiographical characteristics even though it is a work of fiction.

IN BRIEF: The story of one's life written by oneself.

Since he was only six, Jeremy thought he should be a little older before writing his autobiography.

Quotes:

"Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self." - W. H. Auden

"Anyone who attempts to relate his life loses himself in the immediate. One can only speak of another." - Augusto Roa Bastos

"Reminiscences, even extensive ones, do not always amount to an autobiography. For autobiography has to do with time, with sequence and what makes up the continuous flow of life. Here, I am talking of a space, of moments and discontinuities. For even if months and years appear here, it is in the form they have in the moment of recollection. This strange form -- it may be called fleeting or eternal -- is in neither case the stuff that life is made of." - Walter Benjamin

"Autobiography begins with a sense of being alone. It is an orphan form." - John Berger

"A man's memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance with his present interests, and the most faithful autobiography is likely to mirror less what a man was than what he has become." - Fawn M. Brodie

"Biographical data, even those recorded in the public registers, are the most private things one has, and to declare them openly is rather like facing a psychoanalyst." - Italo Calvino

See more famous quotes about Autobiography

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Common misspelling(s) of autobiography

• authobiography

Dansk (Danish)
n. - autobiografi, selvbiografi

Nederlands (Dutch)
autobiografie

Français (French)
n. - autobiographie

Deutsch (German)
n. - Autobiographie

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - αυτοβιογραφία

Italiano (Italian)
autobiografia

Português (Portuguese)
n. - autobiografia (f)

Русский (Russian)
автобиография

Español (Spanish)
n. - autobiografía

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - självbiografi

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
自传

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 自傳

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 자서전

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 自伝, 自叙伝

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) السيره الذاتيه وتعني قصه حياة الكاتب‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮סיפור תולדות החיים של המספר, אוטוביוגרפיה‬

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