Introduction

In 1475, Conrad von Megenberg authored one of the first illustrated natural history books, Das Buch der Natur. It is supposedly one of the first printed books to mix words and images. What hasn’t changed since then is how, as soon as an author decides to resort to two media instead of one, a form of organization, even of articulation has to be found, and, almost as a corollary, how the notion of imbalance is constitutive of text/image hybridity. Logically, when it comes to autobiography, these choices and effects must fulfil a self-narrating purpose, which is fundamentally distinct from hybridity in a fictional framework and its “playful, shared pretence” (“feintise partagée ludique,” Schaeffer 102). However, words and images in any autobiographical work similarly establish a balance of power, one that requires investigation as the autobiographical narrative hinges on it. From a historical point of view, this balance of power may also result from the evolution of each medium’s status, as an art form or cultural artefact.