Biography on Biography

I'm wondering to what extent our author's own views of biography are relevant to the paper? Kelsey's comments in class last Wednesday on Gaskell and biography got me thinking, and now it seems like every book I read (or maybe it's just because I'm reading Rosemarie Bodenheimer's biography of Eliot and she seems so concerned with it) talks about Eliot's views on biography. Like everything else in her life, they're complicated (also starting to think this woman never had a simple thought in her life) - she read biography extensively and grappled with her own feelings about autobiography. Eventually she wrote of biography "The best history of a writer is contained in his writings - these are his chief actions." I'm wondering how relevant Eliot's own views of biography are to this paper? I feel like, on the one hand, they are peripheral, but at the same time, if she was conscious of her complex feelings about biography, I feel like that would affect the way she portrayed biographical elements in her own writing. Any other Eliot-ers have thoughts about this?