Biography, vol. 21, no. 2 (1998)

Editor’s Note, p. iii

ARTICLES

The Remasculinization of the Artist and Author in Ford Madox Ford’s Life Writing, pp. 153-174
Bette H. Kirschstein

Ford Madox Ford’s lifelong ambivalence about the “manliness” of his profession led him to a number of efforts to affirm his masculinity, the most sustained of which took place in his life writing. When famous artists and authors appear in his autobiography, memoirs, literary portraits, or biographical sketches, he often “remasculinizes” them, presenting them as conventionally, and sometimes exaggeratedly, virile.

Elizabeth Gaskell’s Ethnographic Imagination in The Life of Charlotte Bronte, pp. 175-194
Maria H. Frawley

This article examines ethnographic strategies and rhetoric invoked by Elizabeth Gaskell in her influential biography, tracing its roots both to Charlotte Bronte’s own self-representations and to a specific historical moment in mid-nineteenth-century British culture associated with imperialism abroad and with internal colonialism at home. The Life of Charlotte Bronte reveals the complex correspondence between the language and nostalgic impulses of the “biographer-persona” and the ethnographer, both situated at an important juncture of cultural history.

SKETCHES FROM LIFE

Philip Larkin — An American View, pp. 195-205
Dale Salwak

Dale Salwak combines affectionate memories of his meetings and correspondence with the English poet Philip Larkin and personal enthusiasm for his work with a candid assessment of his reputation in America since the “revelations” of Andrew Motion’s biography and Anthony Thwaite’s edition of the Selected Letters. Should the revelations in any way deter us from wanting to read Larkin’s work? Should they affect our assessment
of the work, other than perhaps to open wider possibilities of interpretation? These are among the questions Salwak addresses as he examines some reactions to Larkin’s life, work, and reputation since his passing.

REVIEWS, pp. 206-232

REVIEWED ELSEWHERE, pp. 233-269
Excerpts from recent reviews of biographies, autobiographies, and other works of interest.

LIFELINES, pp. 270-271
Upcoming events, calls for papers, and news from the field.

CONTRIBUTORS, pp. 272-273