
Altered Egos
Authority in American Autobiography
G. Thomas Couser(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 14. December 1989
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-0-19-505833-8 (ISBN)
Description
This work is concerned with the `authority' of autobiography. Couser considers recent critiques of the notion of autobiography as issuing from, determined by, referring to a pre-existing self. He examines the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin, P. T. Barnum, and Mark Twain and appraises the authority of autobiography in the rather different circumstances of the minority writer: in slave narratives, the Civil War diaries of Mary Chesnut, and contemporary works by Richard Rodriguez and Maxine Hong Kingston. The work treats autobiographical writing as a struggle for literary control over the life of the author, against the constraints of genre, language, and society.
Reviews / Votes
'Altered Egos is a rewarding book with insights about authority, not just in individual texts and authors, but in the genre itself.'Carol J. Singley, The American University, Prose Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2, August 1992
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
640 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-505833-8 (9780195058338)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
11/1989
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€28.99
Available for download
Person
Author
Associate Professor of EnglishAssociate Professor of English, Hofstra University