In both Foucault's What is an Author? and Barthes' The Death of the Author, the role that the Author (capital A) plays in literature and society is called into question. Foucault and Barthes go so far as to demand its destruction. This argument seemed a bit overzealous to me during my first readings, but when looking at the text more closely, I realized that my definition of the term Author didn't match up with theirs, that I was missing out on some important context. Foucault and Barthes capitalized author for a reason (or, as sometimes is the case, italicized it or encompassed it in quotations). There is a distinction between Author and writer, and I think it is an important one to consider. Where do we make the separation between these two terms? What questions does this separation raise?
First, let us look at how these theorists define Author. Barthes says, "The author is a modern figure, a product of our society insofar as... it discovered the prestige of the individual" (pg. 875). He refers to the Author as a tyrant, a looming shadow that is constantly referenced and sought out in order to find the true meaning of their works. Foucault seems to be in agreement. In his essay, he seeks to examine "the relationship between text and author and the manner in which the text points to this 'figure' that at least, in appearance, is outside it and antecedes it" (pg. 904). Foucault and Barthes' use of the word figure really solidifies their definitions. They are not attacking authors as people or as creators. But when we consider them as figure-heads, when we look at their titles and the influence those titles have, we begin to see a problem.
But how do we separate writers from Authors? Foucault gives us great examples: "A private letter may well have a signer - it does not have an author; a contract may well have a guarantor - it does not have an author. An anonymous text posted on a wall probably has a writer - but not an author" (pg. 908). Authors are their titles. Their existence depends upon the circulation of their creations. And so this is where some questions are raised. A writer is obviously a person that creates a work or text, and arguably remains a writer when they participate in discourse. But once their work has circulated to a broad audience, once their name has become well-known and inseparable from their creations, they are brought into the realm of Authorship. Does this mean that as soon as a writer's work has been seen and associated with their name, they are an Author?
Barthes' and Foucault are greatly invested in the death of the Author. Is the solution to read texts without knowledge of those who created it? What does this mean for copyright? One could argue that it is important that a writer maintain ownership of their creative work. We place a strong emphasis on intellectual property in our society. The proposition to strip a work of its Author would certainly meet a lot of criticism.
And when we consider these complications, we must also think about the role of the writer. Must they die along with the Author? Or can a writer continue to play a role in their work after its creation? I would argue that they can. In order to ease the concerns of Barthes and Foucault, the role could be one of an observer. They can release their creations into a society of readers and passively await criticism on the work itself. But of course, even this level of involvement could lead to the association of their name with their work. It is a slippery slope, and where the line is drawn is a bit blurry to me.
There is most certainly a difference between an Author and a writer. This difference is defined within the Foucault and Barthes readings, but as shown in the paragraph above, it comes with many complexities. And I believe it raises just as many questions as it answers.
I agree with your distinction between capital-a-Author and writer. Your blog post helped me to understand the differences better. There IS a difference - the Author is more of a figure-head, while a writer doesn't really have an established identity in the mind of the reader. I think that the idea of the Author as a figure-head is bad because it can be distracting. A reader might read something just because a certain Author wrote it and convince themselves that they enjoyed it just because of who wrote it. Even worse, a publishing company might feel more compelled to publish a particular person's work just because of their position in society. For my mass media communications class, I just finished reading a chapter about book publishing. It talked about "brand name authors" who are published because they will attract readers and profits, not necessarily because of the quality of their writing. For example, Snooki and Justin Timberlake have both published books in the past few years. They would probably be given the distinction of being an Author as opposed to a writer because they are public figure-heads as opposed to people in the writing/publishing industry.
ReplyDeleteThe distinction between Barthes's and Foucault's definitions of author and our usual definition of the author as a writer is an important detail I'm glad to see you mentioned, However, you have to keep that distinction in mind while reading the entirety of both their essays. When Barthes and Foucault suggest the death of the author as a solution for the problems that arise out of an author having too much power, I'm not so sure they are actually suggesting removing the author's name all together from a text because that would be targeting the author as a writer rather than the author as a figure head. Perhaps their idea of the death of the author has more to do with taking power away from the author as a figure-head rather than completely removing the author from a text. That way it would not bring up issues of copyright and ownership. However, removing power from an author is a difficult thing to do without removing their name from a text as the writer.
ReplyDeleteI hope that makes sense - Kayla Goldstein