ABSTRACT
When discussing the function of the biography – especially scientific biography – as a genre, we often find ourselves debating its merits as history, literature or didactics, or even as an edifying, ethical and existentially authentic genre (Söderqvist, 1996, 2006). Based on examples taken from Danish-language biographies of the Danish seventeenth-century anatomist, geologist and theologian Niels Stensen (a.k.a. Steno), I will suggest that biographies can also fulfil a programmatic function. The term ‘programmatic’ is broadly construed as an underlying agenda, as a conscious attempt to influence readers’ attitudes, as a tactic, and as a means by which different groups of intellectuals protect their own interests. Several of Stensen’s biographers use their texts to promote certain views or programmes concerning areas, such as religion, national policy, research policy and aesthetics. This programmatic (or argumentative) function manifests itself in certain storytelling strategies that are visible in a variety of rhetorical manoeuvres and methods aimed at seducing the reader.
