Biografias e autobiografias como fontes de informação e memória

Abstract

This article aims to explore the biography genre in its dual function: source of information and memory. Supported by a bibliographic review inscribed in multidisciplinary perspectives, we sought to apprehend the specifics of the biographical genre and characterize the productions derived from it – notably the biographies and autobiographies – both as sources of information and as social resources for the production and dissemination of individual, social and historical memories. As a result, it is pointed out that autobiographical writings and biographies, as they are intimately imbricated to the “spirit of their time”, should not be perceived as a narrative characterized by the succession of events linked chronologically and linearly, but, rather, as the result of choices, negotiations and contingencies that, as a whole, modulate a reasonably delineated image of a certain subject and his living experiences. In these terms, they can inform us about the historical, political, cultural and social circumstances of an era, as well as about the singularities of a private life, be it of ordinary people or of those who have become “national heroes” or, still, models of virtue.