Writing Strategies

Abstract

For biographical collections to form a coherent whole, literary choices had to be made and writing strategies applied to the individual segments (lives) of what was conceived as an overarching narrative or a textual ensemble. In this chapter we analyse the genres, models and traditions upon which authors, compilers and editors relied to assert the authority of the text and create a product meeting the expectations, tastes and textual practices of the community within which and for whom the biographical collection was written. We furthermore explore authoriality to establish the ways in which an author’s opinions, social entanglement and participation in scholarly networks contributed to shaping not only the content but also the style of his or her work. The comparative analysis of the written texts studied in this volume shows that authors also made consistent use of strategies of persuasion. These constituted powerful tools to build and convey a sense of trustworthiness encompassing both texts and authors: modesty (topos humilitatis) and self-confidence were, for example, put on show to strengthen the authority of a text, while prophecy provided a means to boost the legitimacy of the institution, the dynasty or the community celebrated by the biographical collection. Tropes and rhetorical devices can be identified in texts written in distant cultural regions – from Carolingian Brittany to the 14th-century Tibetan Plateau – as they allowed authors and compilers to showcase their learning and make sure to arouse and keep their audience’s attention. Focusing on writing strategies thus, surprisingly, reveals an unexpected degree of literary proximity between texts composed across Medieval Eurasia.