Hagiography (pronounced hag-ee-og-ruh-fee or hey-jee-og-ruh-fee)
(1) The
writing and critical study of the lives of the saints; hagiology.
(2) A
biography of a saint.
(3) In
biographical publishing & criticism, works essentially promotional or
otherwise uncritical; any biography that idealizes or idolizes its subject; a
biography which is uncritically supportive of its subject, often including
embellishments or propaganda.
1805–1820:
A compound word, the construct being hagio-
+ -graphy. Hagio
was from a combining form of the Ancient Greek ἅγιος (hágios)
(holy, saintly) and the -graphy element was from the Ancient Greek -γραφία (-graphía) (writing), thus “sacred
writing”. In English, the word was first
used in the 1820s of studies (strictly speaking often not biographies by modern
standards) of the lives of saints, use later extended to “sacred writing” in
general and only (and scholars are not in accord about quite when) sometime in
the late nineteenth century to biographies and other secular works which were
uncritical (especially if some criticism was obviously justified). The suspicion is that such works would have
been referred to as “hagiographic” before the idea of “the hagiography” came to
be accepted as a definable category; it’s now an accepted slur among book
reviewers. The hagiography as a device
of propaganda has a long tradition and there are studies of saints who,
although known to have lived not wholly saintly lives, certainly seemed to have
after some medieval hagiologists had finished with them. The earlier forms were hagiographer (1650s), hagiographical
(1580s) and Hagiographic (1809). Hagiography,
hagiologist, hagiology & hagiographer are nouns, hagiographic &
hagiographical are adjectives and hagiographically is an adverb; the noun plural
is hagiographies.
Because of the inherent limitations in the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, their not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of trends and patterns. The assumption is the use of the word "hagiography" increased as it came to be applied to secular literature and (especially from the early twentieth century onwards) both the volume of biographies and reviews & criticism of them became more frequent.
Among
the earliest forms of formally structured propaganda, the use can be traced to Hagiographa, the Greek designation of
the Ketuvim, the third part of the
Jewish Scriptures and the modern idea of the hagiography is that of a work which
treats ordinary, flawed human subjects (as all the saints of course were) as
saintly. One outfit for which hagiography
has been perfected is the DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (or
North Korea)). It’s often referred to as
a hermit state shrouded in mystery but the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA),
the regime’s official state news agency is surprisingly energetic in its
production of information about the nation for both domestic &
international consumption. In 2008, the
KCNA issued the “official biography” of Kim Jong-il (Kim II, 1941-2011; The Dear
Leader of DPRK (North Korea) 1994-2011), making clear that from the moment of
his birth, truly he was amazing. He was
born inside a log cabin beneath Korea’s most sacred mountain and in the moment
of delivery, a shooting star brought forth a spontaneous change from winter to
summer and there appeared in the sky, a double rainbow. That year there was no spring because the
appearance of The Dear Leader on Earth brought sunlight and prosperity, the
finest summer the nation has even known.
Exceptional from his first breath, The Dear Leader was not subject to
bowel movements, never needing to defecate or urinate although this seems not
to be an inheritable genetic trait of the dynasty because Kim Jong-un (Kim III,
b 1982; The Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011) is known to be accompanied
on his travels always by some form of portable toilet. So discriminating was the palette of The Dear
Leader that he employed staff to inspect every grain of rice by hand to ensure
each piece was of uniform length, plumpness, and color, The Dear Leader eating
only perfectly-sized rice. Although,
just to illustrate the pointlessness of the capitalist pursuit, he only ever
played one round of golf and that on the country’s notoriously difficult 7,700
yard (7040 m) course at Pyongyang, he took only 34 strokes to complete the 18
holes, a round which included five holes-in-ones. Every word the KCNA released was said to be true but in
the West, it was labelled as “beyond hagiographic” (except for the bit about
the rice which was judged “plausible”).
Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.
Apparently
the author of 39 books on topics as diverse as travelling in Africa and a
multi-language illustrated dictionary of photography & cinematography
(including a glossary of terms), author Derek Townsend was obviously prolific
but it may be that in one volume, he produced what the English literature &
political science departments in any university could use as the definitive
case study of the hagiography. Townsend’s
Jigsaw: The Biography of Johannes
Bjelke-Petersen : Statesman - Not Politician (Sneyd and Morley, Sydney,
1983 (ISBN-13: 9780949344007)) was the “authorized biography” of Sir Joh
Bjelke-Petersen KCMG (1911–2005; premier of the Australian state of Queensland
1968-1987) and it was an extraordinary book in that not one reviewer could find
one fragment of text which was anything but complimentary and gushingly
so. To be fair, the facts (dates and locations
etc) all appeared to be correct. What
was best part however was for the hardback edition, a biographical piece
(thumbnail sketch just not sufficient) describing the author was included in
which he was described as:
"...professional traveller, acclaimed
explorer, technologist, government strategist and one of the most diverse
business entrepreneurs... an international best-selling author [whose]
non-fiction books have sold millions of copies". Said to have been "...one of the first visitors allowed into Zanzibar after the
'revolution'... numerous government leaders have extended their hospitality -
presidents Jomo Kenyatta, Julius Nyerere, Milton Obote, Dr Eric Williams and
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to mention but a few". He was also "...actively concerned with sophisticated design technology of early
commercial turboprop aircraft as well as involvement with many aspects of Britain’s
first defensive surface to air (SAM) guided missile, the ramjet powered
Bloodhound. For the Rank Organization,
one of his many achievements was the initial responsibility for developing not
only the marketing strategy but also the techniques of utilization for a
revolutionary dry electrostatic 'copying' process now commonly known as
Xerox". Surprisingly, he didn't
bother describing himself also as a "scientist" which he'd earlier
done in a piece for a magazine in which he extolled the benefits of Castrol GTX
motor oil. Again, to be fair, Castrol GTX
was and remains a fine lubricant. An
analysis by artificial intelligence (AI) might now help but for readers then,
it was hard whether the biography or the blurb about the author was the more
hagiographic.
Jigsaw (1983), a classic and perhaps the definitive book of its kind.
Someone
who could write like that of themselves was clearly just the chap the premier
needed for a his authorized biography which could be released during the 1983
state election and Mr Townsend didn’t disappoint, his text including phrases
which lauded his subject as a “statesman
extraordinaire” & “protectorate
of Queensland and her people”.
Whether despite or because of Jigsaw,
Mr Bjelke-Petersen’s National Party government enjoyed an extraordinary
victory, defeating not only the official Australian Labor Party (ALP) opposition
but securing such a majority that the Nationals no longer needed the support of
the troublesome Liberal Party to form a government.
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