Checklist of Biographical Critical Questions
- What influences—people, ideas, movements, events—evident in the writer’s life does the work reflect?
- To what extent are the events described in the word a direct transfer of what happened in the writer’s actual life?
- What modifications of the actual events has the writer made in the literary work? For what possibly purposes?
- What are the effects of the differences between actual events and their literary transformation in the poem, story, play, or essay?
- What has the author revealed in the work about his/her characteristic modes of thought, perception, or emotion? What place does this work have in the artist’s literary development and career?