To illustrate this point, Foucault develops what he describes as “the author function”. He argues that the author exists as the creator of a work but his individuality becomes irrelevant upon the coming together of the text, because it is language which defines a text; an author is simply a name, not a code of meanings.
Foucault maintains that the author himself is a character; a work of fiction, who, in the process of writing, adopts certain personas and emotions: “Everyone knows that, in a novel narrated in the first person, neither the first person pronoun, nor the present indicative refer exactly either to the writer or the moment in which he writes” .
This conclusion serves as an expansion upon Barthes original argument that: “The author is never more than the instance writing, just as I is nothing other than the instance saying I” . What is an Author? argues that a writer who acts with the same authenticity as a fictional character, carries the same authority that a reader would attribute to the characters the author creates.
Read more at Suite101: Author Theory --The Work of Barthes and Foucault: What is the Position and Importance of the Author in Literature? | Suite101.com http://chris-woolfrey.suite101.com/author-theory-the-work-of-barthes-and-foucault-a82687#ixzz1sCfXAWtP
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Reconciling the Author With the Text
To illustrate this point, Foucault develops what he describes as “the author function”. He argues that the author exists as the creator of a work but his individuality becomes irrelevant upon the coming together of the text, because it is language which defines a text; an author is simply a name, not a code of meanings.
Foucault maintains that the author himself is a character; a work of fiction, who, in the process of writing, adopts certain personas and emotions: “Everyone knows that, in a novel narrated in the first person, neither the first person pronoun, nor the present indicative refer exactly either to the writer or the moment in which he writes” .
This conclusion serves as an expansion upon Barthes original argument that: “The author is never more than the instance writing, just as I is nothing other than the instance saying I” . What is an Author? argues that a writer who acts with the same authenticity as a fictional character, carries the same authority that a reader would attribute to the characters the author creates.
Read more at Suite101: Author Theory --The Work of Barthes and Foucault: What is the Position and Importance of the Author in Literature? | Suite101.com http://chris-woolfrey.suite101.com/author-theory-the-work-of-barthes-and-foucault-a82687#ixzz1sCfXAWtP
Foucault maintains that the author himself is a character; a work of fiction, who, in the process of writing, adopts certain personas and emotions: “Everyone knows that, in a novel narrated in the first person, neither the first person pronoun, nor the present indicative refer exactly either to the writer or the moment in which he writes” .
This conclusion serves as an expansion upon Barthes original argument that: “The author is never more than the instance writing, just as I is nothing other than the instance saying I” . What is an Author? argues that a writer who acts with the same authenticity as a fictional character, carries the same authority that a reader would attribute to the characters the author creates.
Read more at Suite101: Author Theory --The Work of Barthes and Foucault: What is the Position and Importance of the Author in Literature? | Suite101.com http://chris-woolfrey.suite101.com/author-theory-the-work-of-barthes-and-foucault-a82687#ixzz1sCfXAWtP
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