Collaboration in Theodore Zeldin’s life writing

This essay discusses Theodore Zeldin as a writer of collaborative autobiographies, addressing two of his books (The French and An Intimate History of Humanity) and the Oxford Muse Portrait Database, a project which, although founded by Zeldin, has many contributors.

The Introduction discusses Zeldin’s notion of the “assisted autobiography”, examining his ideas about collaboration and introducing the three texts, showing briefly how they differ from one another in approach.

The second and third chapters focus on the role of conversation in Zeldin’s writing: Chapter 2 discusses the conflict between the idea that conversation can draw the truth from inside a person, and the suggestion that it actually influences the truth that is revealed; Chapter 3 examines the inevitable distortion involved in transforming an oral narrative into a written text.

The fourth chapter considers the interplay between writer and autobiographical subject, showing the different ways in which Zeldin asserts his authorship over the life stories he is helping to tell.

The fifth chapter examines various alternatives to Zeldin’s model of portrait-writing on display in the Oxford Muse Portrait Database, comparing them with Zeldin’s writing in the light of Paul John Eakin’s ideas about “the story of the story” in collaborative autobiography.

The final chapter concludes the discussion by addressing Zeldin’s ideas about collective memory, and the links between his life writing and the historical writing that accompanies it.  An underlying concern is the extent to which Zeldin’s texts obscure their status as collaborations, and the principal aim of the dissertation is to explore the consequences of this.