Abstract
This study focuses on the relation between the genre of autobiography and tradition: in the first part, we concentrate on the theoretical concepts of literary genre, especially on the genre of autobiography, which is situated on the unclear border-line between fiction and history, fact and fiction, truth and lie. In the second part of the paper we focus on the influence of the genre models on the form of the particular texts.
We ask a question, what role the ideal models play in the case of subjective memories and what it means for autobiography as a non-fictional narrative. Our theses are demonstrated primarily in the texts of Roland Barthes (Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes; 1975) and Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; 2000).
We show how the authors deal with the older influential books that create the genre. These models could be not only imitated or rejected - there are more possibilities of the intertextual relations.