Prudence: Using John Aubrey's Brief Lives for Initial Research

Abstract

Through the methodologies of new historicism and close reading this essay focused for the most part on Aubrey's biographies of Thomas Hobbes and John Milton to explore the different investigative styles that Aubrey employed to compile a "life" in Brief Lives. Various factors in the two descriptions help inform this essay, as well as a brief look at a third life account (that of John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester) to help solidify a sense of Aubrey's ethos and methodology. It would be nave to describe Aubrey as a great biographer, just as it would be inaccurate to dismiss him as simply idiosyncratic and erratic. If his accomplishment is best described as partial, it is an incompleteness of a special kind and one to which later scholars have long been indebted. Indeed, Aubrey's methodology and research notes constitute one of the earliest examples of primary, archival-related research. His interviews remain prototypes for investigative reporters and journalists to learn from; and his contributions to the emerging discipline of life writing and biography stand on firm ground.