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n. 1. The retrospective study, often by a physician, of the possible influence and effects of disease on the life and work of a historical personage or group. 2. A style of biography that overemphasizes the negative aspects of a person's life and work, such as failure, unhappiness, illness, and tragedy: "[It] falls into pathography's technique of emphasizing the sensational underside of its subject's life" (Joyce Carol Oates). |
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