| In this project I argue that traditional eighteenth- and nineteenth-century autobiography, biography, and diary writing assume a stable, coherent, and narratable self introduced, examined, and concluded in the text and, sometimes, produced by the medium of text, even in the realm of fiction. In contrast, the works I examine here assume or produce an unstable, displaced self. In this project I juxtapose fictional and non-fictional texts in an attempt to expand the definition of life writing. I conclude that this type of writing from the years 1780-1900 produces what readers today think of as the Modernist and postmodern self. |
