20050610.00

     In a sense, to understand literature is to understand
autobiography, and vice versa, to the extent that no matter how
objective, how scientific, how factual an account may be, its
writer can never detach, remove, or absent himself from its
creation.  And this is true even of a statistician when he
compiles a catalogue of data, or of a mathematician when he
outlines the logical steps to prove a theorem.  Some writing, it
may be remarked, is autobiographical in a negative sense, by
virtue of what it conceals, by virtue of what it fails to say.
The identity of the author can never be expunged, even when the
writing purports to deny it.

     But as distinct from inadvertent autobiography entailed in
all creative writing, the deliberate, calculated exhibitiion of
the personality of the author who admits to writing about him or
her self entails issues and problems of some consequence.  In
order to interpret the text responsibly, one must then look
outside it for supplementary facts and ideas.  Such an inquiry
concerning an author's life, concerning his personal affairs, I
find distateful, and when I am confronted with the need for so
intrusive an investigation, I wish that the author has gone to
the trouble of preparing a wholly fictional account the
explanation of might be found entirely within its framework.

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