Same but different. On biography re-writing

This article discusses scientific biographies of Jan Kochanowski in the context of a wider phenomenon involving the adaptation of various documentary texts by the biographers to a life story standard acceptable at a particular period. In the case of writers from earlier historical periods, a special role in the process of the construction of these narratives was played by their own literary works. Moreover, the earlier, re-fictionalized biographies were often the point of reference for subsequent ones. Both the recognition of a story to be true and the rejection of its claims come mainly from these intertextual relationships. The cognitive value of a biographical narrative therefore results from the possibility of it referring to other texts and not to someone’s actual life.