56-532: Fever Pitch: A Fan's Life is a 1992 autobiographical essay by British author Nick Hornby . The book is the basis for two films: Fever Pitch (1997, UK) and Fever Pitch (2005, US). The first edition was subtitled "A Fan's Life", but later paperback editions were not. Fever Pitch , first published in 1992, is a memoir and Hornby's second book. It tells the story of the author's relationship with football , and with Arsenal Football Club in particular. It consists of several chapters in chronological order, from
112-502: A ghostwriter, are routinely published. Some celebrities, such as Naomi Campbell , admit to not having read their "autobiographies". Some sensationalist autobiographies such as James Frey's A Million Little Pieces have been publicly exposed as having embellished or fictionalized significant details of the authors' lives. Autobiography has become an increasingly popular and widely accessible form. A Fortunate Life by Albert Facey (1979) has become an Australian literary classic. With
168-512: A member of Parliament, rose in the House of Commons on 14 March to attack him. In a spirited response Southey wrote an open letter to the MP, in which he explained that he had always aimed at lessening human misery and bettering the condition of all the lower classes and that he had only changed in respect of "the means by which that amelioration was to be effected." As he put it, "that as he learnt to understand
224-683: A million copies in the United Kingdom. It won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 1992 and was reprinted with a new cover and made available as part of the 2005–06 Arsenal F.C. membership pack as part of the "Final Salute" to Highbury Stadium. The book was made a Penguin Modern Classic in August 2012. A 1997 film version of Fever Pitch , with a screenplay adapted by Hornby, fictionalised
280-533: A moral and intellectual suicide." His friend John Rickman, a Commons clerk, noted that "prudential reasons would forbid his appearing in London" as a Member. In 1835, Southey declined the offer of a baronetcy , but accepted a life pension of £300 a year from Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel . Charles Lamb , in a letter to Coleridge, stated, "With Joan of Arc I have been delighted, amazed. I had not presumed to expect of any thing of such excellence from Southey. Why
336-446: A number of examples of this genre, including works by Sir Edmund Ludlow and Sir John Reresby . French examples from the same period include the memoirs of Cardinal de Retz (1614–1679) and the Duc de Saint-Simon . The term "fictional autobiography" signifies novels about a fictional character written as though the character were writing their own autobiography, meaning that the character is
392-509: A post he came greatly to dislike. In 1821, Southey wrote A Vision of Judgment , to commemorate George III , in the preface to which he attacked Byron who, as well as responding with a parody, The Vision of Judgment (see below), mocked him frequently in Don Juan . In 1837, Edith died, and Southey remarried, to Caroline Anne Bowles , also a poet, on 4 June 1839. The marriage broke down, not least because of his increasing dementia. His mind
448-710: A yearly stipend from them, he vigorously supported the Liverpool government. He argued against parliamentary reform ("the railroad to ruin with the Devil for driver"), blamed the Peterloo Massacre on an allegedly revolutionary "rabble" killed and injured by government troops, and spurned Catholic emancipation. In 1817 he privately proposed penal transportation for those guilty of "libel" or "sedition". He had in mind figures like Thomas Jonathan Wooler and William Hone , whose prosecution he urged. Such writers were guilty, he wrote in
504-884: Is William Hazlitt 's Liber Amoris (1823), a painful examination of the writer's love-life. With the rise of education, cheap newspapers and cheap printing, modern concepts of fame and celebrity began to develop, and the beneficiaries of this were not slow to cash in on this by producing autobiographies. It became the expectation—rather than the exception—that those in the public eye should write about themselves—not only writers such as Charles Dickens (who also incorporated autobiographical elements in his novels) and Anthony Trollope , but also politicians (e.g. Henry Brooks Adams ), philosophers (e.g. John Stuart Mill ), churchmen such as Cardinal Newman , and entertainers such as P. T. Barnum . Increasingly, in accordance with romantic taste, these accounts also began to deal, amongst other topics, with aspects of childhood and upbringing—far removed from
560-560: Is a self-written biography of one's own life. The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English periodical The Monthly Review , when he suggested the word as a hybrid, but condemned it as "pedantic". However, its next recorded use was in its present sense, by Robert Southey in 1809. Despite only being named early in the nineteenth century, first-person autobiographical writing originates in antiquity. Roy Pascal differentiates autobiography from
616-473: Is considered one of the great masterpieces of western literature. Peter Abelard 's 12th-century Historia Calamitatum is in the spirit of Augustine's Confessions , an outstanding autobiographical document of its period. In the 15th century, Leonor López de Córdoba , a Spanish noblewoman, wrote her Memorias , which may be the first autobiography in Castillian . Zāhir ud-Dīn Mohammad Bābur , who founded
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#1732851257910672-429: Is followed by a justification of his actions as a Jewish rebel commander of Galilee. The rhetor Libanius ( c. 314 –394) framed his life memoir Oration I (begun in 374) as one of his orations , not of a public kind, but of a literary kind that would not be read aloud in privacy. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) applied the title Confessions to his autobiographical work, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau used
728-510: Is unsurprising that less successful contemporaries who kept the faith attacked Southey. They saw him as selling out for money and respectability. In 1817, Southey was confronted with the surreptitious publication of a radical play, Wat Tyler , which he had written in 1794 at the height of his radical period. This was instigated by his enemies in an attempt to embarrass the Poet Laureate and highlight his apostasy from radical poet to supporter of
784-669: The 1826 general election , as an opponent of Catholic emancipation, but Southey refused to sit, causing a by-election in December that year, pleading that he did not have a large enough estate to support him through political life, or want to take on the hours full attendance required. He wished to continue living in the Lake District and preferred to defend the Church of England in writing rather than speech. He declared that "for me to change my scheme of life and go into Parliament, would be to commit
840-579: The Lake District . In 1799, Southey and Coleridge were involved with early experiments with nitrous oxide (laughing gas), conducted by the Cornish scientist Humphry Davy . While writing prodigiously, he received a government pension in 1807, and in 1809 started a long association with the Quarterly Review , which provided almost his only income for most of his life. He was appointed laureate in 1813,
896-531: The Mughal dynasty of South Asia kept a journal Bāburnāma ( Chagatai / Persian : بابر نامہ ; literally: "Book of Babur" or "Letters of Babur" ) which was written between 1493 and 1529. One of the first great autobiographies of the Renaissance is that of the sculptor and goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571), written between 1556 and 1558, and entitled by him simply Vita ( Italian : Life ). He declares at
952-493: The Quarterly Review , of "inflaming the turbulent temper of the manufacturer and disturbing the quiet attachment of the peasant to those institutions under which he and his fathers have dwelt in peace." Wooler and Hone were acquitted, but the threats caused another target, William Cobbett , to emigrate temporarily to the United States. In some respects, Southey was ahead of his time in his views on social reform. For example, he
1008-594: The Satanic School among modern poets in the preface to his poem, A Vision of Judgement , written after the death of George III . While not naming Byron, it was clearly directed at him. Byron retaliated with The Vision of Judgment , a parody of Southey's poem. Without his prior knowledge, the Earl of Radnor , an admirer of his work, had Southey returned as MP for the latter's pocket borough seat of Downton in Wiltshire at
1064-465: The final game of the season on 26 May 1989, in which a last minute Michael Thomas goal gives Arsenal the 2–0 win they need to win the title. Fever Pitch compares Hornby's life at Arsenal and other football clubs. A 2005 film remake of Fever Pitch , directed by the Farrelly Brothers with Hornby as an executive producer, starred Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore . In this adaptation (based on
1120-478: The "life and times" of the writer, a memoir has a narrower, more intimate focus on the author's memories, feelings and emotions. Memoirs have often been written by politicians or military leaders as a way to record and publish an account of their public exploits. One early example is that of Julius Caesar 's Commentarii de Bello Gallico , also known as Commentaries on the Gallic Wars . In the work, Caesar describes
1176-411: The 1997 film, not the 1992 book), the action is moved from London to Boston , the focus of the protagonist's obsession is shifted from football to baseball and the story is based on the 2004 Boston Red Sox season, which culminated with the team's first Major League Baseball World Series victory in 86 years. This championship was entirely coincidental; the 2005 version was being filmed during
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#17328512579101232-507: The 2004 regular season, including scenes filmed at Fenway Park during actual games. As the Red Sox continued to progress through the playoffs, the Farrellys rewrote the script to include the historic moment. The movie was renamed The Perfect Catch outside North America to avoid confusion with the 1997 film. Autobiographical An autobiography , sometimes informally called an autobio ,
1288-560: The Tory establishment. One of his most savage critics was William Hazlitt . In his portrait of Southey, in The Spirit of the Age , he wrote: "He wooed Liberty as a youthful lover, but it was perhaps more as a mistress than a bride; and he has since wedded with an elderly and not very reputable lady, called Legitimacy." Southey largely ignored his critics but was forced to defend himself when William Smith ,
1344-456: The anti-sex and anti-marriage Manichaeism in attempts to seek sexual morality; and his subsequent return to Christianity due to his embracement of Skepticism and the New Academy movement (developing the view that sex is good, and that virginity is better, comparing the former to silver and the latter to gold; Augustine's views subsequently strongly influenced Western theology ). Confessions
1400-466: The author the ability to recreate history. Spiritual autobiography is an account of an author's struggle or journey towards God, followed by conversion a religious conversion, often interrupted by moments of regression. The author re-frames their life as a demonstration of divine intention through encounters with the Divine. The earliest example of a spiritual autobiography is Augustine's Confessions though
1456-676: The battles that took place during the nine years that he spent fighting local armies in the Gallic Wars . His second memoir, Commentarii de Bello Civili (or Commentaries on the Civil War ) is an account of the events that took place between 49 and 48 BC in the civil war against Gnaeus Pompeius and the Senate . Leonor López de Córdoba (1362–1420) wrote what is supposed to be the first autobiography in Spanish. The English Civil War (1642–1651) provoked
1512-443: The critical and commercial success in the United States of such memoirs as Angela’s Ashes and The Color of Water , more and more people have been encouraged to try their hand at this genre. Maggie Nelson 's book The Argonauts is one of the recent autobiographies. Maggie Nelson calls it autotheory —a combination of autobiography and critical theory. A genre where the "claim for truth" overlaps with fictional elements though
1568-481: The earlier tradition of a life story told as an act of Christian witness, the book describes Margery Kempe 's pilgrimages to the Holy Land and Rome , her attempts to negotiate a celibate marriage with her husband, and most of all her religious experiences as a Christian mystic. Extracts from the book were published in the early sixteenth century but the whole text was published for the first time only in 1936. Possibly
1624-511: The enmity of many, including Hazlitt as well as Byron, who felt he had betrayed his principles in accepting pensions and the laureateship, and in retracting his youthful ideals. Defunct Although originally a radical supporter of the French Revolution , Southey followed the trajectory of his fellow Romantic poets Wordsworth and Coleridge towards conservatism. Embraced by the Tory establishment as Poet Laureate, and from 1807 in receipt of
1680-572: The establishment for money and status. He is remembered especially for the poem " After Blenheim " and the original version of " Goldilocks and the Three Bears ". Robert Southey was born in Wine Street, Bristol , to Robert Southey and Margaret Hill. He was educated at Westminster School , London (where he was expelled for writing an article in The Flagellant , a magazine he originated, attributing
1736-572: The first publicly available autobiography written in English was Captain John Smith's autobiography published in 1630 which was regarded by many as not much more than a collection of tall tales told by someone of doubtful veracity. This changed with the publication of Philip Barbour's definitive biography in 1964 which, amongst other things, established independent factual bases for many of Smith's "tall tales", many of which could not have been known by Smith at
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1792-485: The first-person narrator and that the novel addresses both internal and external experiences of the character. Daniel Defoe 's Moll Flanders is an early example. Charles Dickens ' David Copperfield is another such classic, and J.D. Salinger 's The Catcher in the Rye is a well-known modern example of fictional autobiography. Charlotte Brontë 's Jane Eyre is yet another example of fictional autobiography, as noted on
1848-560: The front page of the original version. The term may also apply to works of fiction purporting to be autobiographies of real characters, e.g., Robert Nye 's Memoirs of Lord Byron . In antiquity such works were typically entitled apologia , purporting to be self-justification rather than self-documentation. The title of John Henry Newman 's 1864 Christian confessional work Apologia Pro Vita Sua refers to this tradition. The historian Flavius Josephus introduces his autobiography Josephi Vita ( c. 99 ) with self-praise, which
1904-484: The institutions of his country, he learnt to appreciate them rightly, to love, and to revere, and to defend them." Another critic of Southey in his later period was Thomas Love Peacock , who scorned him in the character of Mr. Feathernest in his 1817 satirical novel Melincourt . He was often mocked for what were seen as sycophantic odes to the king, notably in Byron 's long ironic dedication of Don Juan to Southey. In
1960-460: The invention of flogging to the Devil), and at Balliol College, Oxford . Southey went to Oxford with "a heart full of poetry and feeling, a head full of Rousseau and Werther , and my religious principles shaken by Gibbon ". He later said of Oxford, "All I learnt was a little swimming... and a little boating". He did, however, write a play, Wat Tyler (which, in 1817, after he became Poet Laureate,
2016-480: The next three hundred years conformed to them. Another autobiography of the period is De vita propria , by the Italian mathematician, physician and astrologer Gerolamo Cardano (1574). One of the first autobiographies written in an Indian language was Ardhakathānaka , written by Banarasidas , who was a Shrimal Jain businessman and poet of Mughal India . The poetic autobiography Ardhakathānaka (The Half Story),
2072-452: The periodic self-reflective mode of journal or diary writing by noting that "[autobiography] is a review of a life from a particular moment in time, while the diary, however reflective it may be, moves through a series of moments in time". Autobiography thus takes stock of the autobiographer's life from the moment of composition. While biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints, autobiography may be based entirely on
2128-555: The poem Southey is dismissed as insolent, narrow and shabby. This was based both on Byron's lack of respect for Southey's literary talent, and his disdain for what he perceived as Southey's hypocritical turn to conservatism later in life. Much of the animosity between the two men can be traced back to Byron's belief that Southey had spread rumours about him and Percy Bysshe Shelley being in a "League of Incest" during their time on Lake Geneva in 1816, an accusation that Southey strenuously denied. In response, Southey attacked what he called
2184-503: The poem is alone sufficient to redeem the character of the age we live in from the imputation of degenerating in Poetry [...] On the whole, I expect Southey one day to rival Milton ." Regarding Thalaba the Destroyer , Ernest Bernhard-Kabisch pointed out that "Few readers have been as enthusiastic about it as Cardinal Newman who considered it the most 'morally sublime' of English poems. But
2240-438: The principles of "Cellinian" autobiography. From the 17th century onwards, "scandalous memoirs" by supposed libertines , serving a public taste for titillation, have been frequently published. Typically pseudonymous , they were (and are) largely works of fiction written by ghostwriters . So-called "autobiographies" of modern professional athletes and media celebrities—and to a lesser extent about politicians—generally written by
2296-604: The same title in the 18th century, initiating the chain of confessional and sometimes racy and highly self-critical autobiographies of the Romantic era and beyond. Augustine's was arguably the first Western autobiography ever written, and became an influential model for Christian writers throughout the Middle Ages . It tells of the hedonistic lifestyle Augustine lived for a time within his youth, associating with young men who boasted of their sexual exploits; his following and leaving of
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2352-400: The start: "No matter what sort he is, everyone who has to his credit what are or really seem great achievements, if he cares for truth and goodness, ought to write the story of his own life in his own hand; but no one should venture on such a splendid undertaking before he is over forty." These criteria for autobiography generally persisted until recent times, and most serious autobiographies of
2408-541: The story, concentrating on Arsenal's First Division championship-winning season in 1988–89 and its effect on the protagonist's romantic relationship. Paul Ashworth, played by Colin Firth , the character based on Hornby, a teacher at a school in North London and his burgeoning romance with Sarah Hughes ( Ruth Gemmell ), a new teacher who joins Ashworth's school. The film culminates with Arsenal playing title rivals Liverpool in
2464-451: The time of writing unless he was actually present at the events recounted. Other notable English autobiographies of the 17th century include those of Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1643, published 1764) and John Bunyan ( Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners , 1666). Jarena Lee (1783–1864) was the first African American woman to have a published biography in the United States. Following
2520-541: The time the author first became a football fan as a child until his early thirties. Each chapter is about a football match that he remembers watching, most but not all at Arsenal Stadium , Highbury, and how it related to the events that were going on with his life. As well as recounting Arsenal's highs and lows, Hornby talks about other football clubs that play in London, and his interest in the contrasting surroundings of Cambridge United and Cambridge City , whose matches he attends while at university. Fever Pitch sold over
2576-426: The tradition has expanded to include other religious traditions in works such as Mohandas Gandhi 's An Autobiography and Black Elk 's Black Elk Speaks . Deliverance from Error by Al-Ghazali is another example. The spiritual autobiography often serves as an endorsement of the writer's religion. A memoir is slightly different in character from an autobiography. While an autobiography typically focuses on
2632-430: The trend of Romanticism , which greatly emphasized the role and the nature of the individual, and in the footsteps of Jean-Jacques Rousseau 's Confessions , a more intimate form of autobiography, exploring the subject's emotions, came into fashion. Stendhal 's autobiographical writings of the 1830s, The Life of Henry Brulard and Memoirs of an Egotist , are both avowedly influenced by Rousseau. An English example
2688-537: The work still purports to be autobiographical is autofiction . Robert Southey Robert Southey ( / ˈ s aʊ ð i , ˈ s ʌ ð i / ; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets , William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge , Southey began as a radical but became steadily more conservative as he gained respect for Britain and its institutions. Other romantics such as Byron accused him of siding with
2744-480: The writer's memory. The memoir form is closely associated with autobiography but it tends, as Pascal claims, to focus less on the self and more on others during the autobiographer's review of their own life. Autobiographical works are by nature subjective. The inability—or unwillingness—of the author to accurately recall memories has in certain cases resulted in misleading or incorrect information. Some sociologists and psychologists have noted that autobiography offers
2800-558: The young Shelley reckoned it his favourite poem, and both he and Keats followed its lead in some of their verse narratives." While Southey was writing Madoc , Coleridge believed that the poem would be superior to the Aeneid . Robert Southey had a notable influence on Russian literature . Pushkin highly appreciated his work and translated the beginning of the Hymn to the Penates and Madoc , and
2856-439: Was also a prolific letter writer, literary scholar, essay writer, historian and biographer. His biographies include the life and works of John Bunyan , John Wesley , William Cowper , Oliver Cromwell and Horatio Nelson . The last has rarely been out of print since its publication in 1813 and was adapted as the 1926 British film Nelson . He was a generous man, particularly kind to Coleridge's abandoned family, but he incurred
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#17328512579102912-453: Was also inspired by the plot of Roderick to create an original poem on the same plot ( Родрик ). At the beginning of the 20th century, Southey was translated by Gumilyov and Lozinsky . In 1922, the publishing house "Vsemirnaya Literatura" published the first separate edition of Southey's ballads in Russia, compiled by Gumilyov. In 2006, a bilingual edition prepared by E. Witkowski was published,
2968-544: Was an early critic of the evils the new factory system brought to early 19th-century Britain. He was appalled by the living conditions in towns like Birmingham and Manchester and especially by employment of children in factories and outspoken about them. He sympathised with the pioneering socialist plans of Robert Owen , advocated that the state promote public works to maintain high employment, and called for universal education. Given his departure from radicalism, and his attempts to have former fellow travellers prosecuted, it
3024-565: Was composed in Braj Bhasa , an early dialect of Hindi linked with the region around Mathura .In his autobiography, he describes his transition from an unruly youth, to a religious realization by the time the work was composed. The work also is notable for many details of life in Mughal times. The earliest known autobiography written in English is the Book of Margery Kempe , written in 1438. Following in
3080-424: Was giving way when he wrote a last letter to his friend Walter Savage Landor in 1839, but he continued to mention Landor's name when generally incapable of mentioning anyone. He died on 21 March 1843 and was buried in the churchyard of Crosthwaite Church , Keswick, where he had worshipped for forty years. There is a memorial to him inside the church, with an epitaph written by his friend William Wordsworth. Southey
3136-780: Was published, to embarrass him, by his enemies). Experimenting with a writing partnership with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, most notably in their joint composition of The Fall of Robespierre , Southey published his first collection of poems in 1794. The same year, Southey, Coleridge, Robert Lovell and several others discussed creating an idealistic community (" pantisocracy ") on the banks of the Susquehanna River in America. In 1795 he married Edith Fricker, whose sister Sara married Coleridge. The same year, he travelled to Portugal, and wrote Joan of Arc , published in 1796. He then wrote many ballads, went to Spain in 1800, and on his return settled in
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