The literary critic George Gusdorf helps us to understand how “life writing” works.
Diary: Daily record, usually private, and usually about the writer’s own experiences, observations, feelings, and attitudes.
Memoir: A record of events written by a person having intimate knowledge of them and based on personal observation.
Journal: A record or reflection of someone’s experiences or observations.
Autobiography: A history of a person’s life that is written or told by that person.
Confession: Acknowledgement, avowal, admission, disclosure. This form of writing is based on a formal profession of belief and acceptance of doctrine. The first popular confession was The Confessions of St. Augustine (354-430).
8 Key Questions:
Does the life writing:
1. Reveal inner/outer change?
2. Reveal growth?’
3. Reveal weakness (especially guilt or crime)?
4. Reveal outward or inward observation?
5. Reveal a class/gender/ethnic position?
6. Reveal audience?
7. Reveal emotional drama (inner/outer)
8. Reveal intellectual calm?
Major Points:
1. How does life writing lead to self-invention?
2. How can we describe the world and our own path through it in a way that is understandable?
3. How does the life writing reveal the difficult drive to reconcile and explain and justify internal with external identifications?
