Altered Egos: Authority in American Autobiography

by G. Thomas Couser

This work explores the "authority" of autobiography in several related senses: first, the idea that autobiography is authoritative writing because it is presumably verifiable; second, the idea that one's life is one's exclusive textual domain; third, the idea that, because of the apparent congruence between the implicit ideology of the genre and that of the nation, autobiography has a special prestige in America. Aware of the recent critiques of the...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019505833X
• ISBN13: 9780195058338
• Release Date: November 1989
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 8.6"