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    • DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL
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HOME > Archives > 2025 > Volume 11 Number 3 (2025) >
IJLLL 2025 Vol.11(3): 140-144
DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL.2025.11.3.588

From Rational Construction to Emotional Co-creation: A Comparative Study of Biographical Narrative in Boswell's The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Contemporary Fan Culture

Zou Weiying*, Sima Xiaoyu, and Tong Yuanxian
China University of Mining & Technology-Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
Email: 2539759331@qq.com (Z.W.Y.)
*Corresponding author

Manuscript received February 7, 2025; accepted March 12, 2025; published June 13, 2025.

Abstract—The 18th century was the golden age of Western biographical literature, and James Boswell’s The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides is a prime example of a travelogue biography. Through literary narrative strategies, it constructs the intellectual authority and contradictory human nature of Samuel Johnson. This study uses this work as a starting point to analyze the characteristics of biographical literature in the cultural context of the Enlightenment era. It then shifts to Taylor Swift: Love Story by Triumph Books, discussing the biographical writing characteristics of fan culture in the 21st century. By comparing these two cultural contexts, this study identifies the cross-era features of biographical literature. The 18th-century biographies focus on rational worship and multidimensional depictions, emphasizing authenticity and detailed accounts. Contemporary fan biographies, on the other hand, rely on digital media, idol worship, and emotional interaction, presenting characteristics of immediacy, participation, emotional resonance, and mass appeal. Through textual analysis and theoretical investigation, this study explores the different features of biographical texts across cultural contexts and attempts to understand the historical causes of these differences: the alienation of spiritual life due to modern society’s high pressures and fast pace, the development of media technology in the digital age, and the redistribution of culture under the power discourse and technological empowerment.

Keywords—biographical literature, fan culture, rational worship, emotional interaction, media transformation

Cite: Zou Weiying, Sima Xiaoyu, and Tong Yuanxian, "From Rational Construction to Emotional Co-creation: A Comparative Study of Biographical Narrative in Boswell’s The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Contemporary Fan Culture," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 140-144, 2025.

Copyright © 2025 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).

 

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