The Indian Autobiography
Origins, Type, and Function
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9595293 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Arnold Krupat (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1981 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 22 |
| Publication date | 1981-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Literature (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-9831 • E-ISSN: 1527-2117 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2926192 |
| OpenAlex | W2335417036 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
HE INTERESTING GROUP of texts I propose to treat as genre and call the Indian has almost entirely been ignored by students of American literature. This may be because Indian autobiographies have been presented by the whites who have written them as more nearly scientific documents of the historical or ethnographic type than as literary works. In any case, no Indian conforms to the definition of all know, as James Cox states it, a narrative of person's life written by himself.' Autobiography as particular form of self-written life is European invention of comparatively recent date. Southey is credited with coining the word in English in I809, and the earliest American book title I have discovered to use it is from I832. Great labor has recently been expended in the effort to define autobiography as genre. For our purposes, we may note only that the autobiographical project, as we usually understand it, is marked by egocentric individualism, historicism, and writing. These are all present in European and Euramerican culture after the revolutionary last quarter of the eighteenth century. But none has ever characterized the native cultures of the present-day United States. Although the Indian's sense of personal freedom, worth, and responsibility became legendary, the autonomy of the [male] individual was always subordinated to communal and collective requirements.2 That egocentric individualism associated with the
Art · Art history · Biography · Biology · Evolutionary biology · Function (biology) · Genealogy · Literature · Type (biology) · American and British Literature Analysis · American Literature and Culture · History · Paleontology · Race, History, and American Society
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,13 |
| Citation span | 1994 - 2008 (15) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |