February 9, 2001

'Literary Lives: Biography and the Search for Understanding'

By NINA C. AYOUB

When hagiographers wrote saints' lives, God provided the providential outline. "Any life conceived within the framework of a single world view is likely to seem coherent," says David Ellis, adding that in our time, it's "the orthodox Marxist biographer who perhaps comes closest to enjoying the same advantages. ..."

But most biographers are more dogged than dogmatic. They approach their subjects' behavior, he writes, with a grab bag of "explanatory codes." And while eclectic, the codes

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