Early Modern  Autobiography: Theories, Genres, Practices

Abstract

Anne M. Scott argues that Hoccleve is an "autobiographical poet," who ought not to be studied as merely belonging to the medieval period because "to give labels such as medieval, early modern, or modern, is to ignore the constant organic development of thought and attitude that transcends notions of periodization" (101). The final chapter in the book, Wilfrid Prest's, treats the reappearance of a "legal autobiography" in the writing of William Blackstone in the eighteenth century.