Autobiography
An autobiography is a written account of a person’s life narrated by that person. It presents remembered events through the author’s own perspective.
Memoir: A first-person account centered on a particular period, theme, or set of experiences rather than a whole life. Memoir narrows life-writing to selected experiences, while autobiography usually claims a broader life span.
First-person narrative: A narrative told by a character or speaker using first-person pronouns and a situated viewpoint. The author’s first-person voice makes the account’s perspective explicit.
Confessions (Augustine): A late fourth-century work by Augustine combining spiritual autobiography, prayer, and philosophical reflection. Augustine’s account became a major model for interpreting a life through inward reflection.
Biography: A written account of a person’s life composed by someone other than that person. Biography shares autobiography’s subject but gives authorship and perspective to another person.
Slave narrative: A first-person account by an enslaved person describing enslavement, resistance, and the struggle for freedom. These autobiographies made personal witness a powerful argument against slavery.
Life writing: Writing that represents lives, including autobiography, biography, diaries, and personal essays. Autobiography belongs to this broader family of written life narratives.
Retrospective narration: Narration in which a speaker recounts events from a later point in time. Autobiographers interpret earlier experiences with knowledge gained after they occurred.
The Book of Margery Kempe: A fifteenth-century account of the religious experiences and travels of the English mystic Margery Kempe. Its dictated first-person life narrative shows medieval forms preceding the modern genre.
Diary: A dated record of personal experiences, thoughts, or events, usually written close to when they occur. A diary records life in the moment rather than shaping it retrospectively as a book-length account.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Harriet Jacobs’s 1861 autobiographical account of enslavement, sexual exploitation, and escape. Jacobs’s narrative exposes dimensions of slavery that public accounts often obscured.