Sastila Calista Sumbayak

183211029 / 6F
Historical-Biographical Approach

This theory starts with the basic yet fundamental observation that literature is written by
real individuals and that recognizing an author’s life will help readers more properly understand
the work. It also affords a realistic approach from which readers can properly comprehend a
letter. However, a biographical critic have to be careful not to take the biographical detail of a
writer’s life too far in reviewing the works of that writer: the biographical critic insists on
contextualizing the literary work by using the perspective offered by knowledge of the author’s
life. Biographical information must reinforce the meaning of the text, not drown it out with
meaningless content.

The approach to Historical and Biographical may be described as the way literary work
mainly or exclusively reflects the lives and conditions of the writers or the lives and times of the
characters in the work (Guerin, 22). The reader will have a greater view of the structure or way
of life over a certain amount of time to form opinions and to truly comprehend the plot.
Information about the life and times of the author often provide related means of generating
thoughts on a plot.

The historical biographical approach involves understanding in the events and

experiences surrounding the composition of the work especially the life of the author and the
time period when the work is being published or being written and using these findings to
interpret that work of literature. This is in contrast with the formalist type of criticism. The focus
of historical biographical approach is on the life, the times, the environment of the author and the
historical context. Historical context refers to the social, political, economic, cultural, and
intellectual climate of the time period when the literary piece is being written. In other way if
someone wants to use this approach and analyze a literary piece, they would look according or
will study the work according to the period in which the work is being produced. So, personal
opinion, personal value, or personal perceptions are being set aside.

The few advantages for this approach using history historicism or historical biographical
approach in analyzing literary piece it places the illusions in their proper classical political or
biblical background because the spectators really have to travel back to when it was written so it
is being placed on its proper period. Next to that is there are a lot of social cultural and more or
Sastila Calista Sumbayak
183211029 / 6F
less linguistic changes that cannot be understood today without the help of this criticism. Hence,
this criticism would take the spectators beyond the limited experience of their lives to show the
lives of others. Giving them the experiences they may not face in their lives. More or less this
approach would help the spectators to deepen the understanding of their own history, the society,
and the lives of the people around.

Among those mentioned advantages or the importance of this approach, there is also
challenges in using this approach. In historicism or historical biographical criticism the art is
reduced to the level of biography rather than universal. Literature is supposedly universal but
with this one it is put into limit because the interpretation is only concentrated on the life of the
author in the historical context the time period when uh the literary piece is being written and of
course this approach would always require to read a lot to do research and of course prior
knowledge of any historical events that may be present.

Historical-biographical approach maintains a bridge between the reader and the author's
world.The life of the poet, the historical incidents and the standards of his age encourage us to
understand the work and, in a similar way, the literary work brings insight to the author and his
own times.

References

--- CRITICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE ---. (2021). Retrieved February 25, 2021,

10.35 AM from Olemiss.edu website: http://home.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/spring97/litcrit.html

Gurien, Wilfred L. 1979. A Handbook of Critical Approaches To Literature. Harper&Row

Publishers.

Literary Criticism 101. (2015, September 6). Retrieved February 25, 2021 10.25 AM, from A
Useful Fiction website: https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/literary-criticism-101/

tikaocta. (2015, August 7). Historical – Biographical Approach of “The Black Cat.” Retrieved

February 25, 2021, 10.35 AM from KATA TIKA website:

https://semuatentangtika.wordpress.com/2015/08/07/the-black-cat/