[Wikipedia-l] Biography as a discipline

Sun Nov 25 16:34:31 UTC 2001

On Sun, Nov 25, 2001 at 03:22:46PM +0100, Lars Aronsson wrote:
> 
> I just added a note at the end of the article about Danish author
> [[Hans Christian Andersen]] about the Danish use of initials in
> personal names.  In Denmark, this author is called H. C. Andersen.
> Even if these initials are short for Hans Christian, the full name is
> almost never used in Denmark.  This is as common in Denmark as the
> U.S. use of a middle initial (e.g. George W. Bush), but all English,
> French, and German sources that I have found use the full name Hans
> Christian.  Since Wikipedia is in English, it is just fine that it
> follows the established English convention.
> 
> This makes it just like a translation.  The Danish words "sm?rrebr?d",
> "K?benhavn", and "H. C. Andersen" are translated into English
> "sandwich", "Copenhagen", and "Hans Christian Andersen".  We are used
> to translating nouns and city names, but this is a case where also
> personal names are in fact translated.  I find that fascinating.

It is fascinating.

> This sort of knowledge should be written down somewhere, but where?
> Is there a science, school or discipline that teaches how to document
> a person's name or life?  Shouldn't there be?  I know we discussed
> this in May in [[Biography/Talk]].  I stated that biography is a
> scholarly discipline, which Larry doubted, and I had no hard evidence.
> I think I wish that it were a scholarly discipline, and I would like
> to establish biography as a discipline, in fact a subdiscipline of
> creating an encyclopedia.  (This could lead to a discussion of whether
> disciplines are static or how they can be established.)

Biography is definitely a scholarly discipline. Think "Life of
Johnson" by Boswell.

(PD version at http://newark.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/BLJ/)

Also see Parker Honan's excellent "Documenting Authors' Lives" for an
excellent in-depth look at the difficulties involved in that particular
subgenre.

> I have observed that books titled "biographic dictionary" never list
> people that are still alive.  Is this a rule or just a coincidence?
> Has the rule been documented?  Where?  If such a work contains entries
> on people who are still alive, does it have to change its title?

Hell if I know. :-)

> Another unwritten rule is that the birth and death years should both
> appear at the top of the article.  Only some older biographic
> dictionaries list the death year at the end of the chronologically
> organized article.
> 
> Are there any handbooks (or useful websites) that explain how to write 
> biographies, biographic dictionaries, or encyclopediae?  Is there a
> Wikipedia page that lists suchs references?

I don't know of anything online, but if you find anything let us know.

-- 
Dr. David C. Merrill                     http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project                   david at lupercalia.net
Collection Editor & Coordinator            http://www.linuxdoc.org