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theses

This dissertation argues that the embarrassments associated with literary biography in the nineteenth century should be understood as productive confrontations between affect and analysis. By definition, "embarrassment" can refer to the uncomfortable self-exposure one experiences from unanticipated social interactions, but it can also refer to the kind of confusion and perplexity that obscures meaning. I examine intellectually generative relationships in late nineteenth-century biographical writing—including those between friends, critics, readers, and admirers—to show how these relationships inform twentieth-century theories of authorship that otherwise reject biography for its potentially embarrassing combination of commemoration and criticism. In the first chapter, I explore how in the Life of Charles Dickens, John Forster transforms the definitive moment of embarrassment in the novelist's life—the period in which the young Dickens worked in a factory to support his family—into evidence for the critical claim that Dickens's novels draw on personal circumstances to move beyond the individual life as a model for fiction. Chapter two situates the embarrassing relationship between biography and realist fiction in the literary culture of the late nineteenth century. I argue that the writings of George Gissing suggest how novelists critical of biography as a moneymaking venture might make exceptions to convert their biographical work into cultural capital. Whereas the first two chapters focus on the use of biography to evaluate fictional representations of real life, the second half of the project turns from social and cultural forms of embarrassment towards the critical and interpretive embarrassments that concern the literary artist. Chapter three examines how the 1895 trials of Oscar Wilde perpetuate the idea of biography as consisting of what I call "debased intentionalism." The fourth chapter analyzes early twentieth century studies of biography that seek to define its relationship to aesthetic form; I argue that these studies propose ways in which biography can adapt to an increasingly specialized culture of knowledge. My dissertation demonstrates how the creative negotiations of embarrassment in late nineteenth-century biographical writing continue to shape reading practices that are marked by the affective tension between literary lives and literary interpretation, within and outside of institutions.

ETD_6696

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Amanda J. Kotch

doi:10.7282/T3TB18WB

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.