CCA III: The Art of Biography

my thoughts. . .

CCA III, The Art of Biography. A speech given at Hillsdale College, February 7, 2024.

First, I’d very much like to thank Dr. Mark Kalthoff, Dean of Faculty, for asking me to speak today.  I love Dr. Kalthoff!  What an awesome man, truly worthy of a biography someday—the man who remade the Hillsdale history department!  I also want to thank my colleagues, Darryl Hart and Miles Smith, two men I admire deeply.  I would also like to thank Matt Bell of the CCA office as well as Doug Jeffrey and Tim Caspar, also men I respect immensely.

Second, I would like to thank the various speakers we had come this week.  I was very taken with them as a whole, and I was especially glad to see my friend, Jon Eller, speak.  I’ve had the chance, along with my wonderful colleague, John Miller, to get to know Jon.  And, I think the world of him.

As I will note in great detail in a moment, I believe the art of biography is about getting into the soul of a person, seeing the world through his eyes.  This ability is what distinguishes the biographer from the antiquarian. 

This week, I was moved by a number of things:

Matt Bell telling us: Biography enlightens our understanding of man and of history.  In biography, we see the essence of the subject and, through the biographer, the essence of his craft.  And, through biography, we see the heights and limits of human achievement.

Or, Roger Kimball telling us, Plutarch saw “history as a moral theater.”  He wanted to know of his subjects, “Who they were” rather than “what they did.”  [It must also be noted that Plutarch looks awfully like actor Mark Hamill, at least in his statue—the one that Kimball showed us]

Or, Jan Swafford telling us that “Mozart lustily embraced the whole of life and art.”

Or, Jon Eller telling us that Bradbury was a genius (he was!).

Or, Troy Senik, telling us that President Cleveland was “HONEST, was deeply honest, and was deeply respected as honest.”

Or, Anne Keene, telling us that Ted Williams had a serious respect of and for authority.

Or, Joseph Epstein revealing the tragedies—the loss of a marriage, of a child, of a job, thus wondering about fate and destiny.  He said, appropriately, biography makes the world larger and more interesting.

Each of these statements—and others—gave us glimpses of the souls of each of the subjects.  Each describes a man pivotal—of singular importance—to the world.  Can we imagine a world without a Mozart?  Do we see a soul speak to a soul?

So, here’s the bulk of my presentation:

No man truly knows himself, and, certainly, no man really knows another. A biographer’s work is always and everywhere poetic. That is, the biographer holds the high duty of being humane while also holding faithfully to the facts of his subject’s life. In one instance, the subject fires off a bitter letter, its unrestrained anger bleeding across the written page, embarrassing to the modern reader, but in ninety-nine other instances the subject behaves with saintlike charity.

In his early life, the subject might express near anarchist views but later reject those same views once so preciously possessed. In the final decade of his life, the subject might complain about the place of prominence Israel holds in U.S. foreign policy, even though in every other decade of his life he had committed himself to being anti-anti-Semitic.

The biographer must choose.

Does he emphasize the unusual because it is bizarre and consequently titillating or does he focus on the overall picture, thus obviating a vital moment in a person’s life by historicizing it? Does he accept the man as he was at seventy-five or as he was at thirty-five? Or does the biographer attempt to piece these things together, fully aware that some evidence of the transition and evolution is simply missing?

Employing poetic diction and imagination, the biographer by necessity must seek out B when only A, C, and D are known with factual certainty. The biographer must look at her subject’s thoughts as expressed in print and recorded conversation, and she must also look at her subject’s actions and reactions.

Most importantly, though, she must attempt to uncover that subject’s deepest mystery, his or her very soul. In the end, it is this attempt that separates the biographer from the antiquarian and the vigorous biographer from the effete. The biographer must dare to seek justice, to give the subject his or her due.

In judging a person according to the Platonic ideal of justice, the best biographer must also understand his/her subject not merely as an atomized individual or as a part of some collective whole. She (or he) must instead balance that which is particular in her subject with that which is universal, and she will do so best by understanding the subject in relation to other persons and events. In a very important sense, all real history is biography.

This is not to suggest that environments and a multitude of material factors do not matter. They matter greatly. But no earthquake or snowstorm is the result of free will or choice. Only the human person holds the dignity of making choices, and his choices matter not only to himself and humanity, but to all of the earth past, present, and future. “All these days in the seventy years add up to 26,250, and any one of these days brings with it something completely unlike any other,” Herodotus declared in The Histories. Many of us, it should be noted, live considerably more days than Herodotus predicted for the average person, but truly no day in one’s life is without its mysteries and eccentricities. The real person, the ancient Greek historian continued, possesses not wealth, but happiness, good children, and a blessed death.

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Writing biographies has been one of the greatest privileges of my life.  Through them, I have had the chance to spend time with and intimately get to know the English professor J.R.R. Tolkien (who became a member of our family, and for whom I pray will be canonized as a saint), the English historian Christopher Dawson, the founding father Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the rock drummer Neil Peart, the seventh president Andrew Jackson, the father of American conservatism Russell Kirk, and, now, sociologist Robert Nisbet.  Each has been far more than a subject.  Each has been a friend.  To each, I say, amen.  Thank you, thank you for letting me know you.  Thank you for letting me see through your soul.