hagiographies
Holy life accounts
Hagiographies are biographies of saints or revered figures, traditionally written to inspire devotion rather than provide balanced accounts.
The term now often carries a critical edge, suggesting excessive praise or uncritical admiration: The book reads more like hagiography than serious history.
A hagiographer writes such works; hagiographic describes the adulatory tone.
Canonized religious figures
- martyrsThose killed for convictions
- canonizationOfficial declaration of sainthood
- beatificationDeclaring someone among blessed
- relicsPreserved items from antiquity
veneration · miracles · devotion · sanctity · holiness · blessed · confessor · mystics
Accounts of events
- biographyWritten life account
- legendUnverified traditional tale
- miracle talesStories of supernatural occurrences
- edificationMoral or intellectual improvement
rhetoric · allegory · symbolism · typology · genre · tropes · conventions · topoi
Regarding as perfect
- glorificationElevating praise or worship
- flatteryExcessive insincere praise
- adulationExtravagant, servile praise
- whitewashingConcealing unpleasant facts
reverence · uncritical · fawning · worship · propaganda · mythmaking · embellishment · sanitizing
Accounts of people's lives
- leadersThose with authority
- foundersThose who begin institutions
- dictatorsRulers with total control
- propagandaBiased information for influence
cult of personality · revolutionary · nationalist · state-sponsored · authorized · official · mythologizing · heroic
saints
Canonized religious figures
- martyrsThose killed for convictions
- canonizationOfficial declaration of sainthood
- beatificationDeclaring someone among blessed
relics · veneration · miracles · devotion · sanctity · holiness · blessed · confessor · mystics · ascetics
narratives
Accounts of events
- biographyWritten life account
- legendUnverified traditional tale
- miracle talesStories of supernatural occurrences
edification · rhetoric · allegory · symbolism · typology · genre · tropes · conventions · topoi · panegyric
idealization
Regarding as perfect
- glorificationElevating praise or worship
- flatteryExcessive insincere praise
- adulationExtravagant, servile praise
whitewashing · reverence · uncritical · fawning · worship · propaganda · mythmaking · embellishment · sanitizing · lionizing
biographies
Accounts of people's lives
propaganda · cult of personality · revolutionary · nationalist · state-sponsored · authorized · official · mythologizing · heroic · liberation
- biographiesbiography, biographies, autobiography, autobiographies, memoir
- biographical writingsautobiographies, biographical sketches, vitae, confessions, character sketches
- Christian SaintsCatholic martyrs, confessors, mystics, hermits, holy women
- faith fictioncontemporary Christian, Bible stories, biblical tales, biblical drama, miracle stories
- Historical Sourceschroniclers, annalists, historiographers, biographers, medieval scribes
- Sufismtariqa, fana, sufi, Sufism, dervish
hagiographiesexposés
Reports uncovering hidden truths
hatchet jobs · takedowns · muckraking · character assassinations · hit pieces
hagiographieshit pieces
Damaging articles about someone
diatribes · screeds · polemics · denunciations · indictments