Self-Same Songs constitutes a major contribution to the growing literary study of autobiography. Using a range of authors, including Homer, Edward Gibbon, Benjamin Franklin, Somerset Maugham, Franz Kafka, and Eugene Delacroix, Roger J. Porter offers a broad-based examination of the autobiography and the varied techniques used by its practitioners over time. In a style that is both graceful and erudite, Porter focuses on the diverse motivations and rhetorical functions that the act of self-writing serves for particular writers. He reflects on the texts not only as an exploration of self-identity but also as the writers' attempts to modify the life in the act of writing about it. Then, stepping out of his critical role, Porter ends each chapter with an autobiographical discussion of his professional and personal engagement with the autobiographer under discussion, creating an intriguing and absorbing literary autobiography within the critical text.
- ISBN10 0803287674
- ISBN13 9780803287679
- Publish Date 1 July 2002
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Nebraska Press
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 272
- Language English