why biography

I’m back.

I’ve now done a couple short biographies of some real polymaths, but I thought that it might useful to discuss why biographies are so interesting. I like them, and obviously many people do as well because, for millennia, people have found inspiration from hearing poets, story tellers and writers sing, talk, and write about the lives of the great men (and, sometimes, women) of the past.

For example, the British writer Thomas Carlyle, father of the now discredited Great Man theory, wrote in On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History that “we cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man without gaining something by him.”

Historian and writer Carl Van Doren believed that all humans feel the need to study, know, and commune with the truly great or important men. Biographer H.W. Dickinson wrote that the “study of biography is valuable, as it broadens the mind, quickens the imagination, fires the ambition and strengthens character.” Modern writer Nigel Hamilton has suggested that learning about the past greats can give the listener or reader “insights into human nature.” And  poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in A Psalm of Life, “Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime.”

I completely agree. I hope that learning about real polymaths who have such fascinating abilities and accomplishments inspires you to follow their example and learn. While not everyone can lay claim to true polymath status, anyone with just a little extra time on his or her hands to pick up a book and learn can at least take a few steps down Polymath Road.

Whether you launch an autodidactical quest in the library, return to school for more formal education, or decide to sit down for some intellectual internet surfing (always remembering that not everything you read on the internet can be trusted), you should follow the motto of good old Faber College of Animal House fame – Knowledge is good.