“Most books, like their authors, are born to die;
of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion over them;
they live, and their influence lives forever.” ~ J. Swartz ~
As a teacher, beyond the task of convincing students that reading classic literature is worth their time and energy, one of the most frustrating aspects of introducing a new novel is deciding how much biographical information to include. It seems an inescapable fact that once we know any information about a writer, we begin to investigate how the personal details of a life find their way into a work of art. Literature professors warn their students not to “psychoanalyze” authors through their works, yet it is tempting and almost unavoidable to do so.
In the classroom, I struggled with how much information to impart to students. How can someone — a well-meaning teacher — who has no personal knowledge or relationship with the author compress an interesting, rich life into a ten minute Powerpoint without doing that author a grave injustice? In the past, I have imagined the author sitting in the back of my classroom, listening intently to which details of his or her life I share with my high school students — who by their nature can be skeptical and a bit judgmental at times. Since adolescents are in the exciting and painful process of defining themselves, they can be particularly curious about the definitions of others.
And authors and artists can be misunderstood by their own contemporaries — frequently their visions are ahead of their time — and it can be tempting to a teacher to expose the most unusual, painful, thought-provoking, misunderstood aspects of their lives simply to keep the attention of adolescents and “sell” the next novel coming at them…
In my kits, I attempted to stick to the facts and then include links to other sites that may provide more interesting details or aspects of the author. My hope is that the authors of these sites have devoted time and energy to their research and have done this in the spirit of reverence and gratitude of the author in question. But I recently completed a kit on Frankenstein, for the upcoming “British Beauties” series, and was enthralled and dismayed by the fascinating, lurid details of the life of Mary Shelley. Even simply stating the facts of how her marriage came about — and then the shape it took — puts the most titillating reality show to shame. However, I did not research her life until I had finished Frankenstein, and believe only the loss of her mother at her own birth was relevant or added significance to my understanding of the novel.
So, the question is… how much personal information do we really need in order to appreciate an author’s work? And do authors automatically sacrifice a sense of privacy once their immortality is guaranteed? How much should we “give in” to our curiosity about others’ lives?
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