Fictional Biography; the Picture of Reality and History in Literature (in Order to Clarify the a Newly Born Expression in to Fictional Literature)

Before coming to the discussion of the main subject of the article three important cases are to be noted about the ontology of the “Fictional Biography”? : 1. The theoretical issues of fictional biography as a sub – genre of the literary genre of Biography is too extensive and various to be discussed in juts a single article for the explanation and discussion of each of them needs a separate book or articles. Issues such as the backgrounds and the reasons that led to the creation of fictional biography, the mutual relationship of novel and fictional biography, different kinds of fictional biographies (autobiography – biography – a mixture of both and etc.), different kinds of autobiographies, the relationship between fictional biography and the biographical sources, fictional biography and the syndrome of wrong memories, fictional biography and ethnography, psychology, history, documentation, book therapy, truth, reality, imagination, idealism, education as well as the similarities and differences of fictional biography with other historical, documentary, fake documentary and biographical novels as well as . . . . . . . .

News ID: 251270

Date: 26 April 2010 - 10:07

Attention (Pre – Knowledge)

Before coming to the discussion of the main subject of the article three important cases are to be noted about the ontology of the “Fictional Biography”? :
1. The theoretical issues of fictional biography as a sub – genre of the literary genre of Biography is too extensive and various to be discussed in juts a single article for the explanation and discussion of each of them needs a separate book or articles. Issues such as the backgrounds and the reasons that led to the creation of fictional biography, the mutual relationship of novel and fictional biography, different kinds of fictional biographies (autobiography – biography – a mixture of both and etc.), different kinds of autobiographies, the relationship between fictional biography and the biographical sources, fictional biography and the syndrome of wrong memories, fictional biography and ethnography, psychology, history, documentation, book therapy, truth, reality, imagination, idealism, education as well as the similarities and differences of fictional biography with other historical, documentary, fake documentary and biographical novels as well as . . . . . . . . and this is why I will concentrate my attention on the discussion of the main points regarding “fictional biography”? such as definition and explanation of the term and the relationship of fictional biography with reality and history.
2. The most important classification of biography writing is biography / autobiography and fictional / non fictional biographies. But in this article I do not deal with autobiography, fictional or non – fictional; because autobiographies as the beginners of change and alteration in fictional biography and as an effective factor in the coming to being to being of a new method in fiction and novel, needs other conditions, other introduction and epilogues as well as a separate discussion which is too long to be included in this article; it is not also related to what we are going to talk in here. Paying attention to the recent autobiographies such as Gunter Gross “Peeling Onion”? Fuentes’s In Myself with others”? or those of Graham Green, Paolo Koeillo and Marques and others show their concern with this issue.
On the other hand this article has been written on the basis of hundreds of fictional biographies about the martyrs of the holy defense war (the eight years that Iraq imposed on Iran) all of which are considered biographies written by others. And basically supposing biography for the martyrs (unless they are written by the martyrs before their deaths) is not logical.
3. About fictional biography is there an ambiguity and some different points of views among literary experts the basis of which rests on the ambiguity in the relationship and the ratio of reality and imagination in combining biography as the explanation of what happened and fiction as having imagination as an ingredient. The differences in the points of view are because some writers and experts do not accept fictional biography as an independent sub – genre of literary biography; one should find the origins of this point of view in not considering literary biography valid. It is why some think that it is better not to mix fictional biography and literary biography and these people think that it is better if it is categorized as a sub – genre of story.
Determining fictional biography as a sub – genre of Biography or fiction or story has a very important role in the advent of the fictional biography including research in the sources of writing and biographical resources, the methodology of writing and the structure of the text of the work as well as the authority of the text and the way of dealing with the audience. Therefore it is necessary to demystify and deal with the different points of view about fictional biography. But because such discussions needs two historical and philosophical points of view when speaking and discussing about the imaginary roots of biography as well as its relation with reality and since basically it is an endless but interpretable discussion based on the historical and philosophical perspectives, we do not come to their discussion in terms of the etymology and interpretations of the words and just because of this reason in the section the relationship of biography with story, reality and history, I have dealt with this issue from literary point of view.
Etymology:
Fictional Biography is composed of three main parts: fiction taken from the Latin word “finguere”? and bio again from Latin word “bios”? meaning the life of human being and graphy meaning writing and drawing.
Fiction is a part of the imaginative literature and includes fictional and narrative prose and it does not include lyrical and epical works of the ancient Greece or Rome and it has an inseparable relationship with reality and truth. Fiction derived from the word finguere means creating and making and it has very close affinity in origins and in roots with the word fact derived from the term facere i. e. making. On the other hand story as the major component of different kinds of fictional works has been taken from the word history. History has been a derivation from a Greek word which meant research and search but in the course of history it has been discussed as narrative and report of the issues which are supposed to have happened and this shows the relationship of fiction with history and reporting the real issues.
Bio has derived from a Greek word “Bios”? (the real human life experienced or thought) means human life and it is different from the Greek word Zoe meaning mere biological life (natural animalistic or humanistic life) because bios is the interpreted reaction to life that is different from reaction to the fact and devoid of the intuitive understandings. This characteristic is gained through the human characteristics such as wisdom, emotion, and psyche and such reactions can be narrated and they are appropriate with the fictional characteristics.

As Hanna Arndt, a 20th C. theorist has said: The main characteristic of the human beings in fact . . . . . . is that he is full of events that are in the end appropriate to be retold in the frame of a story . . . . . As Aristotle has said, this life or Bios, is different from a kind of reaction or praxis.
The order of story telling through change in time, by passing through soulless moments to a model, a plot or a mythos i. e. story, gives time a human aspect. 1
But the most important thing to which I should hereby refer is that since the invention of the bios (human life) by the Greeks as meaningful interpreted cause (praxis) to the newest description of existence as times narrative and ever – lasting cognition and this indicates that existence has a fictional nature. Life is full of stories. Life is a new plot to be explored. Because there are some minor narratives in the inner part of the human beings and they have tried to narrate them. As Asedir Macintyre has explained, the lives of human beings have special forms i. e. special fictional forms. Poetry and different sagas do not just narrate what has happened to men and women rather it can be said that poetry and sagas in their forms and narrative shapes reach a form and a shape that have been extent in the lives that they describe. 2 .
Fictional biography unlike its component parts (fictional literature and biography) does not have a long history because fictional literature in its general meaning is the raw material of all literary forms including story – myth – legend – tale and novels as well as . . . . . . ); it is a general term to narrate or explaining the narration of the events 3 and telling what has happened in the order they happened 4 and like biographies and memoirs has its origins in the human tendency to appreciate himself and to interpret the world around him; it has a history as old as that of the human life. But the advent of the fictional biography refers to the 19th C. and it occurred after the rise of the literary biographies and combining the self – written biographies with the most important kind of fictional literature in the special meaning that is Novel.

Definition of the Term and Its Interpretation:
The term fictional biography from the point of view of terminology in the professional book and dictionaries has been categorized in to two groups of fictional and non – fictional kinds 5 and under fiction and non – fiction literature; in addition it is classified as one of the three methods of biography writing (documented – semi – documented and imaginary – fictional ) 6.
The definition of fictional biography is important from the points of view of identity writing and structure and now I come to their discussion: The fictional biography from the point of view of identity deals with the combination of reality and imagination and it is : “a biography in which the author has tried to make it more effective by adding the elements of a story.
The way that these elements are combined depends on the innovation of the writer. In such biographies historical elements and imaginative elements combined together so that the information is transferred and the book is attractive as well.
The way that these two elements of reality and imagination combine has created a number of different books in this regard. On the other hand there are books in which imagination is the dominant element and there are also examples in which reality is the dominant factor; in the good biographical books it is avoided to make the book just a reservoir for documents. 7
Fictional biography from the point of view of the science of writing as well as style, is the selection of the style of the story (narrative, dramatic or a combination of both) in narrating the lives of person or people who are following the characteristics of the fictional language (tone and the point of view of the narrator, rhythm and tempo and words as well as . . . . . . . . ). In this perspective one should note that “the more the writing style of the biographies are beautiful and the more they use oratory devices the more their biographical aspect of them will be in comparison to their historical aspects. But it is possible that the overstatement of the author in literary arts as well as in definitions and explanations lead the author away from reality because he is then more concerned with the beauty of the sentences and less with stating the main points that is main the aim of writing biography. 8
Fictional biographies, along with all the documentary biographies, in which every detail is presented based on documents and proofs, quotations, letters and memories as well as memoirs; such as the life of Beethoven, the life of Michael Enje and Mahatma Gandhi by Roman Roland 9 and the semi – documentary biographies that are a mixture of reality and story but the story part of it is based on the documents and testimonies that are narrated and it is possible that they are presented in the end 10. it is “a free understanding of the lives of the characters and with the help of imagination they have given lives to the secondary events. In such biographies the border between reality and imagination is not clear and it is possible that the addressee consider all these as reality; like Suffering and Happiness by Irving Stone which is complete story of the life of Michel Enge. 11
Definition
As it was mentioned fictional biography is a kind of biography in which literary aspects such as immense aspects such as fictional narrative and the minor aspects such as description, interview and its plot along with the real documents that have happened in the real life of a special person. If we want to achieve at a valid definition of the term we have to consider this sentence by Lojoun: “the only difference of story and biography is a non – written commitment that exists between the reader and the writer about the reality of biography. 12 In this way we can accept a valid and settled definition of biography as: “fictional biography is a narrative text based on a documentary life of a special person by the use of fictional language and fictional technique which have been gained through a combination of history of event writing (personal or individual history, historical backgrounds, personality growth and the formation of the events as well as . . . . . . . ) and fictional literature.
Fictional biography is a literary text that is like documentary literature and is based on documents, testimonies evidences as well as quotations and etc. about a real thing and it tries to state a historical reality. Although historically, it is not valid to be quoted as evidence it is made use of by the researchers just as a cultural evidence and document. In other words fictional biography is a literary text but an ethnographic one (the method of thinking – the method of life – customs and behaviors) of the real and documented events of a special person that deals with the offering and presenting the values and norms that have achieved in a society in an effective way in the character of the hero / heroine and history maker and paradigm. Such a text that states the historical events and the history makers is not regarded as a historical document and text because the way that a fictional biography is stated is based on the aesthetic and emotional literary factors and it is hence different from the determined and specified historical realism. It is why it is not a documented statement and a historical statement rather it is a literary statement while in the historical text and document statement and explanation are of the same kind. Fictional biography is literary text that has used imagination and imagery in form and language and it is a part of the non – fictional and documented literature.
The concepts that have some similarities and closeness of meaning with fictional biography:
In order to understand and differentiate the word fictional biography from the other genres we have to understand the concepts that are close to fictional biography from the point of view of meaning and form. Of the most important kinds of words close to fictional biography are:
1. Literary Biography:

More than anything we should know that fictional biography is considered as a sub – genre of literary biography. Biography with all the variety that it might have is a long – time - known literary kind. In as much as this kind of literary kind is more concerned with the historical continuum and the documentary justifications, it is considered as a part of the historiography until the efforts of the historiographers in different cultures have transcended the biographies to a great extent. It reached the level of being considered as literature. 13 .
Although some famous theorists such as Rene Wellek believed: “. . . . . . . . . The issues of the historiographers are like those of the historians. The biographer should interpret the authority and validity of the documents, letters, the speeches of the witnesses, memoirs, soliloquies of the poet or the writer; he should judge about the truthfulness and the trustfulness of the witnesses as well as. . . . . . . . While he is busy with writing the issues related to the priority or recency of the issues, he is faced with how to choose a method of selection and secrecy. Those who have dealt with biography writing as a literary genre and those who have taken their times with answering such questions, have faced questions which have no relationship with literature in any way.”? 14
But the reality is that “biography is the narration of the past events that have occurred for a person or for people.”?
Biography sometimes comes close to literature because in some biographies imagination is an influential factor which is sometimes comes close to stories in similarity. 15

2. Documentary Biography:

The complete documentary biographies in which every detail is presented based on documents, quotations, letters and notebooks as well as memoirs; the relationship between narration and footnotes, quotations, pictures as well as testimonies and . . . . . . . is regularly on stop; such as the biography of Beethoven, Michael Ange and Mahatma Gandhi by Roman Rolan.

3. Historical Novel: History is a great source for stories without any doubt and it can include what ever story that can be supposed. But the treasure of history has been locked with this caution on it that: The past should be changed and altered to the present. In the Britannica and Webster encyclopedias the historical novel has been defined as: A novel that is dealing with a special historical era and tries to transfer the spiritual and behavioral as well as social conditions of the past while the realistic details as well as historical realities are taken in to consideration. It is possible that the historical novel deal with the real historical characters or to have a combination of the fictional and historical characters in itself.”? 16 of the historical novelists one can name Walter Scott , Alexander Dumas , Haworth Faust and . . . . . . .
4. Biographical Novels:

This genre that is very close to historical novels, instead of dealing with a special era and historical period, deals with a special person. But it should not change into simple event writing. That the human being has done some notable deeds from the beginning of their lives to the end of their lives can be a subject for a scientific or a historical study and no more than that. The biographer should interpret and paraphrase the events in a way as if he is dealing with fictional and imaginative events; in other words he should understand the character in the real life and then he should present him as the hero of his biography. What we have so far said about the biographical novel is exactly the same as what is applicable about the self – written biography as a sub – genre of biography. 17
5. Documentary Novel:
One f the other genres close to the historical novel is the documentary novel that deals with the happenings of the present and contemporary times instead of those of the past. 18 “Documentary novel is a novel that is written based on the documented events and happenings. The writer just re – writes these events and happenings and rearranges them. The documentary novel has been founded by the French Gonkor Brothers; they have chosen the term documentary novel for their novels but their documentary novels have been different from those of their predecessors. In the 20th C. such novels, like documentary plays, have their bases in the documentary events and they have been written by the use of the articles printed in the newspapers, law reports as well as the official letters; sometimes they are called momentary stories. One of the most notable examples of this genre is the American Tragedy written by Theodore Dreiser, the American writer. The other kind of the documentary novels includes novels that have been dealing with the important and noticeable issues of the contemporary times; such as “The Silent American”? written by Graham Green. 19
6. Apocryphal Documentary Novels:

This genre claims to have its origins in realities and memories and it has similar characteristics with documentary novels and biographical one but it is all in all imaginative and apocryphal. 20

7. Non – Imaginative novels:

These novels are included as sub – categories of the documentary novels. The term Non – Imaginative novel was for the first time used by Truman Capote for his novel “In Complete Indifference”?. In this novel the events are narrated based on the historical documents (based on a terrible crime that has happened in Kansas, a state in the United States of America); in presenting the events the writer has made use of the techniques of the novels. The time in this novel is not linear and in contrast to the documentary and historical writings the internal and external characteristics and features of the characters are felt. Norman Mailer, the American novelist, has made use of the characteristics of these kinds of novels in his “Night Soldiers”? and his other works. These novels are indebted to the works such as Ernest Hemingway’s “Green Hills of Africa”?. These novels have mostly the characteristics of Naturalist novels. “Tangsir”?, written by Sadique Choobak, is one of the novels that can be considered as a documentary novel. 21

Confessional Novels: A confessional novels is a novel that is similar to writing one’s own deeds and biography; it is narrated from the first person point of view. In such novel the emphasis is on the points of view, inner movements of the characters and the development of one’s condition and situation in life, religion and art. In the beginning of the rise of the novels, the confessional novel which is sometimes called the memory novels, was common and some great literary works have been written such as Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, the British Novelist, the Downfall by Albert Camus the, French writer. 22 .

8. Memory Novels:

Memory novels is similar to the “self – written biography”? but it is imaginative and un – real. The method of writing it is similar to the memory writing; it is just a literary convention and it has a fictional technique. Daniel Defoe, the British Novelist, is seemingly the fist writer who has used this method of writing in his novel “Robinson Crusoe”? ( 1719 ). In the 18th C. some examples of this kind of novel have come into existence but this method of writing has been less used in the 19th C. 23 .

9. Buildungsroman:

It is a novel that is about the growth and formation of the character since his or her childhood until he or she come of age and then he or she tries to be aware of the nature of this world; he tries to discover meaning and paradigm in the world so that he or she can find a philosophy for life and learn how to lead a good life; sometimes this kind of novels follow the life of the character to the end of his or her life. The best example of this kind of novels is David Copperfield written by the British Writer, Charles Dickens. Also novels such as Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, “Emotional Education”? by Flaubert, and “Catcher in the Rye”? by J . D . Salinger and the “Human Obstacles”? by William Somerset Moam as well as “The Sons of Violence”? written by Doris Lessing . 24 .

10. The Factitious Story:
The real English word has been composed of two other terms of fact and fiction. This term is used to describe a story that is based on a special event and it is written on this basis. The notable example of this kind include: “In Complete Peace”? by Truman Capote and “Night Soldiers”? by Norman Mailer and “Roots”? by Alexis Hill, American writers. 25.

The relationship of the Fictional Biography with Biography, Reality and History:
What is the relationship between Biography and story, reality and history? Does story act as a framework to narrate reality as the real life and the real characters in the real world can be taken in to the words of fiction as fictional characters and fictional life? In this case how close such biography is to reality? And How much is it valid as a document? And more such similar question. . . . . . . We have to refer to the history of literature and the literary theory. But before that we have to remember that the combination of biography with story is the product of modernism.
Literary Biography Is the Product of Modernity Period:
Biography writing is always based on the individuality of the person concerned. Biography, both personal and group biographies, is based on the personal characteristics of the people and the narration of the biographer is based on the individuation of the individual that is gained through documents, quotations as well as interpretations.
Before Renaissance and in the Middle ages in which personal Humanism is not concerned and the western individual was used to interpreting the world based on the teachings of the church and thinking combined with myth and mythology; a person was known in terms of his class, clan and tribe and etc. Therefore the biography of those people could have been written that were attached with the high class, kings and saints as well as . . . . . .The lives of the saints were used to be written in overstatement.
In ancient Greece, due to the belief of the Greeks in fate and human beings (not individual), the biographies were a mixture of reality and fiction. The Greek biographers used to write the biography of the great men in order to reflect and register their lives in order to make use of them as paradigms. Biography writing in Europe, in the Middle Ages, had a religious aura; in this age the biographies of the martyrs and Saints were highly paid attention to and it was in a religious mode more than anything else.
But after the Renaissance and with the humanist movement as well as change in the outlook of human beings to life and the inclination to understanding existence and life through the subjective mind, the biography changed. Because biography writing that is based on registering and discovering the “real event”? (historical event or concept) by the use of documents, quotations and understanding of the writer; this is done through the outlook of subjective mind of the modern human to the world and universe as well as its realities as objects. The human being, after Kant, did not see the way to see the reality of the world; and seeing this wonderful and surprising world he tried his hands in science and replaced wonder with technique.

Biography writing after the Renaissance, therefore, is due to a subjective look in which it takes the real event (Historical event) its object and technique and in order to understand it and to decipher it he has to look at it from different points of view of the narrators and people in order to get different degrees of its understanding. In addition the fate of the human being is no more interpreted on the basis of what God has specified for people. What ever is there is what the biographer has understood based on the experiences and the human sciences he has had / experienced in the world.
The subjective point of view of the world transfers all powers in a center called subject and it bases understanding of the nature and existence on understanding of the “I”? in the world which is the maker and at the same time taken from the modern thinking and originating from the Humanism which considers reality and truth not bestowed on the human beings; rather it considers truth as something that is about to come and not the thing that was or the one that might be. “Reality is discovering what I have accepted and I accept it and I understand it and I think it is true.”?.
In the modern world, “the real event”? is objective that is meaningful with “my “ understanding and acknowledging of it and this understanding is more understood and explained with my new understanding that I acquire.
In this period people get individuation and this individuation causes the advent of a new era in biography writing, confessions and self written biographies as well as novels.
In the history of biography writing two era or periods are important: one is the period that begins with the confessions of St. Augustine and the other is the Confessions of Jean Jack Rousseau. In the confessions of St. Augustine the mediator in speaking with God is omitted and in the Confessions of Jean Jack Rousseau the god is lowered to the ground and an innate God is replaced him. From the twentieth century onward biography writing in the west has had some ramifications and different applications in different areas of anthropology, ethnography, history and literature as well as. . . . . . . .
Biography Writing a Method in Anthropology:
One of the important uses of biography writing is presenting anthropology information as a famous method in anthropology and ethnography. Biography Writing in Ethnography: It is a method in research and a form in narration. The most common form in writing biography in ethnography is monologue. Monologue writers are the narration of methodological observations from a personal point of view. For this reason, at the present time biography writing is more than a historical document and the literary genre and it is for the development of the creativities; nowadays biography writing has changed in to a method.
In the “Interpretation of Cultures”?, Gertez has discussed this point that it was not possible to explain the cultures and to set rules for it. Because the culture is not like nature rather it can just be interpreted. In order to understand this we have to identify the people’s understanding and then interpret this understanding i. e. to see how people are interpreting and understanding their behaviors then it is possible to interpret this same interpretation and understanding. This is what an interpreter of culture does. Basically from the point of view of Gertez, the specialists of cultural sciences are just interpreters of culture and not scientists; the look of Gertz at culture is a cultural look at a text. From his point of view, the anthropologists, the ethnographers as well as sociologists are all social interpreters who read the culture of a society as a text; they are in search of interpreting, understanding and clarify this text. These meanings are expressed in the forms of symbols and some of these symbols are expressed in terms of our behaviors such as the behavior of the body, eating food, wearing clothes and in the language with which we speak. And in the end some of it shows itself in the productions of culture; the end of these interpretive approaches – all of which are the product of the human lives and methodologically they are in search of finding a way to jot down or to write the experiences which the human beings lived – is biography writing. This means that an anthropologist or ethnographer who is doing a circus research in a society and lives some time with a group in a village or a factory or any where else and then he writes his observations and experiences, his writing of these experiences is exactly like a person’s biography which is written by himself; it has just this difference that the biographer and ethnographer in his biography describes that time span in which he done his research which was conducted in a systematic methodology. For this reason many people believe that the ethnography or anthropology data are related to the biography writing and according to one of the anthropologists, anthropology is nothing more than biography writing. 26
Biography and Story:
Biography, or the explanation of the events of a person’s life, is the report of the personal or group life whose writer is somebody else. In ancient Greek and Rome biography writing was considered as a branch of history. Biography is a consecutive narration of the past events that have happened for a person or for people. “Biography is the narration of a person from the people of the society through drawing the cycloid of that person’s life cycle from birth to death, about the dead and until the time of writing biography about those who are alive. The biography writer arranges the documented and substantiated as well as proven data related to the sensible realities of the life of the main character and the hero of his work through or by the use of his constituent mentality and imagination. The role of the documented and substantiated data in its formation on one hand and the role of the formative imagination in its narration on the other hand have so far placed biography somewhere between history and story or in a more precise word in the word novel.”? 27 .
Sometimes biography comes close to literature because in some biographies the elements of imagination are involved and this makes them similar to stories. 28 .
As it was mentioned before the word biography is an old term and its verb root means making or forming and even in some cases it has come to mean pretending or playing roles. In contrast to the realist – non – imaginative – writer who places just the events, information reports and realities beside each other, of course, in a way that he / she sees them. The story writer or the playwright or the short story writer create, forms and imagines and with what he make he is intended to get at a reality or he thereby makes the reader achieve at a reality.
Reality and truth in the second half of the twentieth C. is more interesting and more exciting than imagination; therefore the demand for non – imaginative and documentary subjects is increasing; it is while the market of the imaginative writing is decreasing (the only imaginative branch that is developing is the science fiction stories.) It is surprising that the real theme of the non – imaginative stories have not changed. Maybe from the first day in which the human beings were explaining his stony pen the theme and the main components of the non – imaginative stories have not changed and they remained the same; the most important issue about these subjects and themes is the issue of permanency and everlasting. 29 .

Biography, story and Reality:
Biography writing is the lived experience of the human beings. “Almost all the human beings have lived this experiences; the most important positive characteristics and beauties of methods such as biography writing, autobiography, memory writing, and memento writing is that they preset that lived experience of us in an organized and creative manner.”? 30 .
Biography is the narration of the real events and the documented reactions of the people and the story is the narration of an imaginary act as well as the possible reaction of the person. At the first glance it seems that the biography writer is dependant on and bound to reality and document or testimonies and the story writer is independent and devoid of it and there is not the possibility of establishing a logical and real relationship between the two forms of biography and story. Therefore in the first glance, the term Fictional Biography is something nonsense and obscure or deceptive. Because Biography is writing which reports or explains a special life 31 and narrates the events that took place in the past for a special person or for a group of people continually 32 and it includes a written text in which the events that took place in the lives of well – known characters such as famous religious men and scientists as well as great men of literature or politics are explained and described 33; it is a book that is about the adventures or the history of the daily life of a person. In other words and quoting Sir Hard Nixon: “Biography should be history”?. This means that it should be precise and it should present a picture of the person concerned that is in close relationship with his time. Biography should explain and describe the person concerned with all his / her human characteristics. 35 . As Rene Welleck has written in The Theory of Literature: “. . . . . . . The issues of the biography writers are like those of the historians. The biographer should interpret the documents, letters, the speeches of the eye – witnesses, memoirs and the soliloquies of the writer or the poet and decide about the truth of the documents and the degree of the truthfulness of the witnesses and etc. . . . . . While he is writing biography he is facing with issues such as preference and recency of the events in resenting the events, the methods of selection and secrecy. Some of those who have dealt with biography as a literary genre have dedicated their times to answer such questions; questions that are never related to literature. 36 .

In this way he has mentioned in his book, The Art of Writing, that: “For the non – imaginative works objectivity or not taking side as well as complete indifference is something important. Event thought he writer has to present a theory by himself and in the end reach some conclusions. The majority of the issues should be written in a way that one feels the writer has prepared and presented his issues in complete indifference and without taking sides. Finally, an objective work should have a spirit or a shade of a theorist. The reader should feel that the writer has conducted all the necessary researches and studies in writing these subjects. It is enough if the writer in his introduction registers his own degrees and achievements in writing a work about a character that is changing his society. The work itself should justify the reader that the writer in informed about the subjects that he has discussed and he has a commanding knowledge about it and in this regard he is trustful and his ideas and judgments and his ideas are valid and acceptable. The feeling of the writer as a theorist is necessary for the articles of the magazine but with regard to the non – imaginative long works, depending on the size of a complete book, it is of vital importance. 37 .
But, story in its two levels of Common and Special, has different definitions and examples; in its special meaning it includes novel, short story and romance and thereby challenges fictional biography with some questions. Story is a prose kind of writing and it includes imaginative narrations . . . . . . and it deals with subjects that are created by the creative minds; the show actions through imagination and in other words story in its specific meaning is equivalent with the fictional literature and it indicates those prose works that have imaginative identity. Story in its special meaning is a metaphor for life 38 and it is a literary narration of a tale [tales, consecutive events] with the help of a narrator and this narration is based on two elements of imagination and literariness.
Story in its common and extensive level includes every kind of writing in which the life’s events are told in a consecutive way. According Forster in his Aspects of the Novel story is the narration of events and happenings based on the order they had happened. 39 and story is the basis of an narration or any creative play and in all kinds of these two groups story is a the sequence of events that happen in time orders and thus story is the common elements of all literary creative works.
This understanding of the story is very inclusive and this means that story includes all kinds of story such as “myth and legend”?; it also includes tale in its contemporary use i. e. time or what Paul Recouer writes in his Time and Story: “All the narrative arts, especially those which have written origins, are imitating a special form of story which are used in the daily communications”?. 40
As we are seeing biography is the narration and explanation of the real event on the basis of document and evidences; it is a work that, based on reality and with the help of the documents and evidences, memories as well as accessible testimonies, narrates the lives of the famous and outstanding figures of the society and draws their features. It is based on the exact events and examples. According to what Carlyle has said “only history is the real biography.”? 41 “but story is the narration of the imaginative act based on the inclination and research of the writer to tell the truth; it is the result of the influences of the inner and outer events that took place in the writer’s life.
If the story writer chose its subject matter from the surrounding realities or from the historical past events and through the uses of his suppositions, thinking, fancy and delusions as well as imagination change the sequence of the events and happenings and thereby create a fictional narrative that is different from the experimental and documentary biography. On the other hand in the narration of biography we are facing with the reporting and the narration of an individual or some special people at a specific time span but in the narration of a story one or a few characters are identified and recognized through the language and point of view of the narrator and through his use of creative capability.
Hereby we refer to the relationship of biography and story in the fictional biography which is discussed in an article and then we will briefly refer to the possible and given relationships.
In the end we have to mention (and thereby put an end to the discussion) that the fictional biography has got four major characteristics:
It is not biography.
It is not story.
It is biography.
It is story.
1. It is not biography because it does not report the life of a special person or persons based on the historical sequence and the result of his work becomes the history of the life of the person concerned. Therefore all those works which report or explains the history of the life of a character in a historical manner are not to be included in this literary genre.
2. It is not story; this means that it is not mere and sheer story in which the author can fly his imagination and his suppositions any where he wishes and make the best use of his imaginative power so that to create a complete new story in a way that he does not make any commitment to the reality of the life of the hero’s life. Therefore if a work is written by a writer when he is under effects of some aspects of the life of the character and especially if in presenting those aspects the author has had no regard for their adapting to reality and especially if in some cases some parts of the character’s life dopes not accord with his reality and one feels the difference, then his work is not regarded as a fictional biography of the concerned person.
3. Fictional biography is not a story because the writer is not responsible to abide by all the rules and criteria of story writing while he is writing his work and then he is not responsible to adapt the work from the beginning to the end with literary criteria. For example the author’s track should not be seen in the in the story and especially in the novel. It is while the presence of the author in some part of the fictional biography has not contrast and discrepancy with the rules of this genre.
4. It is biography and this means that after the work is read by the reader what is left in the his mind is to some extent a complete picture of the life of the hero including the real and documented aspects of his life during years and in different times and places; this includes the main events of the lives of the hero.”? 42

Separate from the correctness of the above – mentioned subjects about the possible relationships in the combination of fictional biography one can consider four cases as follow:

1. Fictional biography as a biography that is narrated like the fictional method from the point of view of method and writing.
2. Fictional biography like the biography of person or a group that have similar nature and structural formation i. e. they have an imaginative narration about a real event. That means that the life adventures of person should have its beginning, critical points and down moving paths without the interference of the narrator or the author.
3. The fictional biography that has become a fertile ground for the creation of story in a free way and in fact it is a story that has taken its narration of events and the creation of its characters from biography.
4. Fictional biography is equal with the life a famous person from the point of view of the people. Here story has been used to be equal with statement, tale as well as fate and in fact it is biography that is the major point of the discussion and not a story or a fictional biography rather it aims at narrating and stating biography.

According to what has been mentioned it is clear that we are mostly concerned with cases No. 1 and 3; in the first case we would come close to the novel – like or fictional biographies and in the third case we would come close to the historical novel.
Another important issue with regard to biography and story is the way the events in the story form. In biography the concepts are formed under the influence of the outer reality of the characters and are interpreted and explained on the basis of the behavior and fate of the character and the understanding of the addressee; but in story the events of the lives of the characters are structured on the basis of the concepts and under the influence of the realities of the minds of the writer and they are formed in order to explain and to interpret the issues. In other words in biography the theme is pre – structured by the reality but in story the themes are made by the characters and the events.
Reality in Biography is only related to the person concerned but in novels reality is some thing that can be generalized and this is why the story tries to draw an ideal and possible character to the real domains to make them possible; it is while the fictional biography tries to transfer the existing character, who seems to be an ideal and inaccessible character due to his supreme and great characteristics and feature, to the believable domain of the society.

Biography and History:
As it was mentioned biography and history have had common origins and since the 19th C. onward and with the combination of fictional literature with biography the values and the historical authenticity of biographies have dwindled. Nowadays biographies, especially the self – written biographies which were sometimes regarded as a notable historical document, are regarded as a culture document and have no more uses. According to Foucault biography writing is basically that thinking which is forged while it is described; not every biography is written. In other words there is no such thing as self – written biographies. 43 . In fact according to Carlyle it was only the real history which is regarded as biography and it is not valid. The reason for this event is the closeness of the fictional biographies to the genre called novel. But the fact is that biographies have never been without historical references and one can always see the historical tracks of the individuals or groups as well as etc. in the fictional biographies.
In order to know these tracks it is important to pay attention to the historical and fictional narration. “Mythical or Fictional Narrations, based on time, are divided into two groups: Historical and fictional.

Historical narration, through its clinging to the reality hidden in the past events, corrected the traditional fiction. Story tellers such as Herodotus, Tusidice in Greece have tried to describe natural events instead of the supernatural events; they made use of the Homeric devices such as horrible and empty scenarios. Alexander and Iranians took the places of Odyssey and Cyrene. The first historians tried to offer a descriptive narration of time, place and real action; in recounting the events the writers narrate them in a way that they seemed they really happened. This, about special characters, led to the creation of the genre of biography or autobiography; on the level of the social human beings it led to the creation of history in its general meaning and narrative retelling of the real and lived experiences (Res Gestae).
The second branch of narration, narrative fiction, has also drifted away from the traditional story, but in a different path to historical branch. Fictional narrative tried to describe the events in an ideal, beautiful and good as well as nice way. This narrative branch reached its apex in the form of a romance.
But it was with the emergence of the novel in the age of Post – Renaissance that the fictional romance reached its apex. What differentiates novel from the previous novels kinds of novels is its singular combi9national characteristics: this literary kind is derived from different traditions such as lyrical (personal voice), drama (exposure of the human reaction), epic (description of the heroes or anti – heroes) and adventure (description of the objective and experienced details).
But let me once more discuss the genealogy of story – telling. The common point between historical and fictional narration is tragic application. Since the time of Aristotle to Auerbach it is known that imitative tragedy something more than imitation and re – showing of reality. As it is made clear by Aristotle in his Poetics, tragedy is an imitation of action. He means to describe the word once more and in a creative way that the hidden models and meanings that are not described so far are described and made clear. In this frame and form, tragedy is related to story as a genre which has a plot in which the scattered events are changed in to a new model (or what Paul Recoer calls “Dissimilar Combinations”?). This belief has no tie with the strict naturalistic point of view which says “art is a mirror hold up to nature”?.
Therefore, it is narration which relates the double role of tragedy – story in order to prepare us with a new imaginative to be in the world. . . . . . . . . . .
Any human being is a life in search of a narration. The reason for his is not because the human beings need to discover a model to solve the experience of anarchy and turbulence. It is also this fact that the life of any human is more than anything else and always an implied story. Mortality make us creatures, if we want to say it barely, that come to life in the beginning and die in the end. It is in the form of referring to the past (memory) and predicting the future (generalization). In a way that can be said that our lives always interpret themselves – pre – consciously – and this interpretation is done within a continuum of beginning, middle and end (of course not necessarily in this way). All in all our existence has pre – determined plot and before we may find a narration for them in a conscious way through which we try to give our lives an aura of history – life. 44 .
As we have previously mentioned fictional biography is the narration and stating of realities on the basis of a combination of experience and fiction. It is while history and biography are based on experimental narration.

Fictional Biography; the picture of reality and history in Literature:
Fictional biography is a fictional biography!
In the end, fictional biography is a fictional biography! A biography imparts the pleasure of a story and its structure has accepted a fictional narrative although the world has created its events based on the documented and real life. In other words, fictional biography is the reflection of social and psychological realities of the characters who are more than average in their characteristics, values as well as the norms of the society. In situation like wars they have been paradigmatic and ideals. The narration of these reflections deteriorates the boundaries of experimental, historical and real as well as imaginative narrations as a result of which we have to call such biographies fictional biographies, although this does not indicate the imaginative and non – documented fictional biographies. Rather the events in fictional biographies are imaginative because of the unusual characteristics as well as idealistic features and they accept fictive narrations for them to be retold. And such characteristic is the de – familiarization of the real events in our repetitive daily lives. In fictional biography there is no need for familiarization and realism because the real events need no enticement or encouragement because they are real themselves and in their breaking down of the structure of the real life they seem imaginative and not real.
Te end .
Sources:
1. Richard , Crony . On Story . Trans . By : Sohail Somi . Gaghnoos . 1384 . P . 12
2. Ibid . P . 153 .
3. Mirsadeghi – Jamal . Fictional Literature . Scientific . 1382 . Vol . 4 . P . P . 27 – 19 .
4. Forster . Aspects of the Novel . Trans . By : Ibrahim Younsei . Negah Pub . Co .1384 . Vol . 5 P . 42 .
5. Biography is divided into two great branches of Fictional and Non – Fictional :

Non – Fictional Biography: this biography has a point of view that is more than the objective point of view. The narrator is not the all – knowing to discuss everything about the character ( s ) that are going to be discussed. The writer is satisfied with the sensations as well as the thoughts of the characters of his book and thus he is just giving information about them in report – like manner. He does not show that he is aware of the intentional as well as internal subjects of the characters of his book. The good biographies are possible to ignore some of their characters behaviors that are to be criticized but they do not try to ignore their negative characteristics. This damages the realism of the biography writing and damages the attractiveness of the book.
Fictional Biography: IN some biographies the writer has tried to add fictional elements to his work in order to make his work more attractive. In such biographies reality and story are combined.
The way each of these elements is combined is dependant on the capability and innovation of the author. In such biographies historical samples are mixed with the imaginative elements in order for the information to be transferred and the book is more attractive.
The way the two elements of reality and imagination are combined has created a range of different books in this area. On the other side of this range are books which are more imaginative and on the other side are the books that are based more on reality. In the biographical good books it is avoided to change the book to a reservoir of the documents.

6. Ghezl Oyagh – Sorayya . The Literature of the Youths and children and the promotion of Reading . 1381 . Vol . 1 . P . P . : 258 – 259 ( with some changes ) .
7. Pooladi – Kamal . The Approaches and the Methods of Promoting reading . The History of Child Literature . 1387 . P. : 280 . ( With some changes ) .
8. Imami , Nasr Allah . Promotion of Knowledge. Khordad and Tir 1369 . P : 42 .
9. Ghezl Oyagh – Sorayya . The Literature of the Youths and children and the promotion of Reading . Samt Pub . Co . 1383 . Vol . 1 . P . p . 258 – 264 . ( With some changes ) .
10. Ibid .
11. Ibid .
12. Yavari – Hoora . Life in the Mirror . Niloofar . 1383 . Vol . 1 . P . 24 .
13. Imami , Nasr Allah . Danesh Pub . Co . Tir and Khordad 1369 ( June and July 1990 ) . P . 42 . Quoted from “Memory”? by Ali Reza Kamari .
14. Kamari Ali Reza . Ba Yade Khatere . Mehr Surah . 1383 . Vol . 1 P . P . 74 – 84 .
15. Jamal Mir Sadeqi , Maimanat Mir Sadeqi , A Dictionary of the Art of Atory Writing . Mahnaz Book . 1377 . Vol . 1 .
16. Al – Shokri Fadavi . Realism in Contemporary Literature . Negah Pub . Co . 1386 . Vol . 1 P . 128 .
17. Mac Kei , Robert . Story : The Method and Style of Film Writing , Trans . By . : Mohammad Gozar Abadi . Herms . 1382 . P . P . 57 – 59 .
18. Ibid .
19. Mir Sadeqi , Jamal . Fcitional Literature . Elmi Pub . Co . 1382 . Vol . 4 . P . 470 .
20. Mac Kei , Robert . Story : The Method and Style of Film Writing , Trans . By . : Mohammad Gozar Abadi . Herms . 1382 . P . P . 57 .
21. Mir Sadeqi , Jamal . Fcitional Literature . Elmi Pub . Co . 1382 . Vol . 4 . P . P . 461 – 471 .
22. Ibid .
23. Ibid .
24. Ibid .
25. Jamal Mir Sadeqi , Maimanat Mir Sadeqi , A Dictionary of the Art of Atory Writing . Mahnaz Book . 1377 . Vol . 1 .
26. The Meeting of Dr . Nemat Allah Fazeli – Ali Reza Kamari – Faranak Hamshidi . Source: Personal Website of Dr . Fazeli . Printed in the Book of the Month .
27. Dr. Hooshang Rahnama in the weekly meeting of (Azar 6 , 1386 (Nov . 27th 2007 . ) . Source : Khabgard Web.
28. Ali Reza Kamari . Ba Yade Khatere .
29. Zigler , Isabel . The Art of Creative Writing . Trans . by : Khodad Movaghar . Panoos Pub . Co . : 1368 . Vol . 1 . P . P . 30 – 38 .
30. Nemat Allah Fazeli . Ibid .
31. Ibid .
32. Ibid .
33. Persian Literature Encyclopedia .
34. Alireza Kamari , Ibid .
35. Ibid .
36. Ibid .
37. The Art of Writing. P . 160 .
38. Mac Kei , Robert . P . 18 .
39. Forster . P . P . 40 – 43 .
40. Persian Literature Encyclopedia .
41. Ghezel Ayagh . Ibid .
42. Haddad Hussein . Fictional Literature ; a Monthly magazine .
43. Alireza Kamari , Ibid .
44. Richard Kreny . On Story . Trans . By . Ghoghnoos . 1384 . P . 150 – 155 .
45. Definition of Document denotatively.
- Base
- What is one put his back on ( Deh Khoda ) .
- What is to be trusted . Documentary (Moshiri Dict. ) .
- A written text that can is to be brought as a document .
- The sign and signature of a judge and the decree or order of a king, a cheque and a hand written document based on which a job or a property is given to someone. ( Moein Dictionary ) .

The Definition of Document from the Point of View of Civil Law No . 1284 :
Document is any written text that can be used to defend something.
The Definition of Document from the Point of View of the Library Science:
Any hand – written or printed text or pictures or in other formats as well as any other thing that one can get some information from it .
After studying the differences and similarities of the above – mentioned definitions the following is proposed as a definition of document:
A document is the recorded information including written , seen and heard one that is produced by others and has the value to be kept.”?

Kinds of Document based on Value:
The Values of the Documents: Their value is due to their information and from the official point of view that is available in the documents that are created in the archive of the office that created it.
Primary Value (Officially or Documentary) :
The value from the point of view of the creator, that is current or semi – current according to time . Such as official , economical and legal documents . . . . . . .
Secondary Value (Archival or Information)
This information is valuable for the scientists, researchers and the archivists.

Source : Shafi Pour Foomani . Mohammad Ismaeil . Brief Writing . Navid – e – Shiraz Pub . Co . : 1386 . Vol . 1 : P . P . 59 – 63 .