Altered Egos: Authority in American Autobiography

In this work, Couser explores the authority of American autobiography in several related senses. First, the idea that autobiography is authoritative writing because it is presumably verifiable. Second, the idea that one's life is one's exclusive textual domain. Third, the idea that, because of the apparent congruence between the implicit ideology of the genre and that of the nation, autobiography has a special prestige in America.