Biographical criticism is a form of literary criticism which analyzes a writer's biography to show the relationship between the author's life and their works of literature. Biographical criticism is often associated with , a critical method that "sees a literary work chiefly, if not exclusively, as a reflection of its author's life and times". This longstanding critical method dates back at least to the Renaissance period, and was employed extensively by Samuel Johnson in his Lives of the Poets (1779–81).