In the article on authorship,it is asked "What difference does it make who is the speaker"(12)? Supposedly the author has died and yet there remains differences of opinions about that thought. The text can be examined "through its structure, its architecture, its intrinsic fom and the play of internal relationships" (203). This suggests that the role of author is not vital, as the author "appropriates" other's material and resides in absense to the text itself. I know that one can look at text in this manner but I would content that we choose a text often by our experience with the author, what the author is known for,the awards an author has received, the place the author hails from, the expertise known of the author, etc. There remains an interplay between the author and reader, however much one might want to deny it. The fact that the author "limits, excludes, and chooses, by which one impedes the free circulation, the free manipulation, the free composition, decomposition and recomposition of fiction" certainly suggests that the author is alive and well (119). What difference does it make? Their voice represents a voice of a certain community, a time in space of a whole civilization, experiences unique to a particular life. A text can be understood both through the text itself and through the author's life, influences and beliefs. It is like the right and left side of the brain--one can attempt to understand a person through cognitive and rational thought but the emotional side, of dreams and mystery is just as real and necessary in the understanding of the whole person. Just as blogging is a social action,"...allowing people to experience the plasticity and multiplicity of self"and to ..." construct an identity that is real," the author has desires and multiple uses of expression in text that could include a desire to express an identity within the text for themselves, becoming integral with the story, literally and figuratively (Miller and Sheppard 1469).
Miller, Carolyn R and Dawn Shepherd. "Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog." Miller, Susan. The Norton Book of Composition Studies." New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. Print. 1450-1473.
"What is an Author?" Print.101-120.
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I like to learn about the lives of my favorite authors but generally not until after I have read and fallen in love with their work, but I am not convened that knowledge of the author's life is required to understand or analyze their work. I can see connections between an author’s life and their work but was that really their intent or do we see it because we want to see it. I also feel that much literature survives because it is relevant in our time and not just its own.
ReplyDeleteMy first impression of Foucoult's article, "What is an Author," was "here we go again." And, bristle I did! Yet upon further reflection I began considering his statement, "Even when an individual has been accepted as an author, we must still ask whether everything that he wrote, said, or left behind is part of his work (103). Tricky business---I am reminded of Nietzsche's work published after his death. Where does the authorship begin in a text? Where does an editor wield the publishing perogative? How much of who we are transfer to what our characters become? Sometimes these questions give me a headache. Enter Elbow with the Excedrine. His clear vision of what writing is and isn't helps clarify some of these questions as I wrestle with my pedagogy statement. Pure and simple "Writing is a struggle and a risk"(498). Composition instructors that invoke personal narrative in the classroom are demanding a leap of faith from their pupils. A leap that promises validation of their experience-not judgment of the person who held the pen or typed the keys. According to Foucault,published authors ask for that same validation.
ReplyDeleteLooking at it from Heidegger's POV it makes sense. As I will discuss on Tuesday, Heidegger's theory of Dasein focuses on how we view beings -- being able to see them in the past, present, and future makes us human. Poems, works of any kind are "beings" according to Heidegger and the past present and future of that being is what is important -- not its creation. More to come on Tuesday -- Consider this a teaser-trailer!
ReplyDeleteI must admit to being extremely conflicted by this issue. Is understanding the author crucial to understanding the work? Can you remove the author without taking something away from the work? My inclination is to answer yes and no, respectively, but it's really something I will have to study further. What I found most interesting about the article was the proposition that retaining the author can be damaging to the work, that it influences the work too much. I'm not entirely sure how that is possible, or what exactly is meant by that, unless you compare it to the fame and personal trials of a modern day athlete, for example, which overshadow the game. Personally, I agree with you Linda. The work doesn't spring spontaneously out of the void as literature and we must give some acknowledgment to that fact or we are being deliberately obtuse.
ReplyDeleteI think it depends on what we are talking about. When looking at scholarly works the author definately matters. Who is going to hire a professor who has no experience to teach a graduate level class? Who is going to cite a paper from someone with no ethos? In these circumstances the author matters greatly. But, and this is personal opinion, I don't want to think about the author and their role in the literature books I read, I want to get lost in the novel. Poems, however, are a different matter. It helps to understand a poem's true meaning if you have an idea about the author's state of mind and what was going on when the author wrote it. The signficance of the author depends on the genre.
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