Freud, Biography, His Autobiography and His Biographers'

‘Biographical history’ has never ceased to be valued by the broadest public in spite of the ostracism moved against it by some historians, especially the followers of the alternative Ecole des Annales. We know the arguments used to condemn it: devoted to the study of individuals, and more specifically the most distinguished amongst them, biographical history highlights certain elements of their existence or of their psychological characteristics—as their authors describe them—as ‘causes’ of their life events and of their works. Yet in reality, the origins of these depend upon multiple conditions: economic, social, political, etc. It is to such conditions that historians should devote themselves, rather than studying everyday life in fine detail by piecing together the lives of common people and ignoring the elitist filter of the past, as has become customary for them to do.

Certain authoritative voices have been questioning the significance of conducting biographical research on written works by studying their authors. The examples of Homer or Shakespeare can be quoted as evidence of these biographers' lack of interest. Knowing nothing, or almost nothing, about events in their lives, even having doubts as to their identity, would never have prevented anybody from appreciating their poetry or from endlessly scrutinizing the complexity of their thinking. Why should it matter what has happened to Freud or Melanie Klein to those who dedicate themselves to the understanding or to the practical application of their theories?

At first glance, these observations appear relevant; an amateur biographer, eager as he is to find anecdotes, may feel slightly embarrassed, or intellectually inadequate, almost as if he could be suspected of being a voyeur with an unhealthy curiosity.

But that makes no difference to the existence of this genre, half-way between history and literature, and almost as old as both: these considerations have in no