Contents:
Beyond linguistically created works, the term author is also used for works in other media such as music and the visual arts as well as for comics, photography, film, radio and television programs, and computer games. A broader understanding of the term author is used in the following contexts, among others: During the 20th century, a broad spectrum of how the author is understood was developed in scholarly circles: The arrangements of autofiction within literary autobiography, e. Authorship is to be seen as a status attributed to a work with culturally differing author constructs bound up with authorial self-reflection and self-presentation in a spectrum ranging from self-assurance to skepticism as to the validity and scope of claims to authorship.
Independent of such typologizing expressions, particular author constructs also hold good for the reception of works in specific periods e. Since the 18th century, there has been a culturally significant need to fall back on the author for interpretative processes and value judgments of an artistic work based on the creative act, authenticity, individuality, originality, unity of the work and its depth of meaning. A culturally and legally important result of this is that the authenticity of a work is attested with reference to the real author as its originator, which is significant, for instance, in the editing of texts cf.
An author-related reception focuses on the intention, attributed to the author, to convey a particular understanding of his work. In particular, differing conceptions of author and authorship determine, alongside the concerns of historiographic, classificatory and editorial practices, ascription of meaning to literary texts within scholarly cf. Spoerhase and non-scholarly circles as a result of biographical reference to the author, e.
In practical criticism, inclusion of the author as a category for textual interpretation is accepted cf.
In a way that varies historically and culturally, the author is integrated into discursively ordered functional contexts, such as proprietary or legal concerns, or into classifications of cultural communication. The resulting author functions are thus not to be related to concrete individuals, but rather assigned, for example, to discourses or to intertextual constellations. These and other aspects e. Author collectives with at least two partners can be found in various combinations of media cf.
During Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, e.
Since the late 18th century, popular prose fiction has often been written by anonymous or pseudonymous groups of authors and highbrow literature by authors in cooperation, usually declared. Collective authorship specific to the medium is the rule in musical theater, cinema cf. Kamp and television. Numerous historical and cultural variants can be found for anonymous, pseudonymous and fictitious authorship cf. Schaff ; until well into the 20th century, these practices were often resorted to in literary publications by women authors.
The following European overview focuses on the author as the creator of literary texts, and in particular of narrative fiction. Since Antiquity, terminological ambiguity in the concept of author and competing concepts of author and authorship have been apparent cf.
The underlying tendency from Antiquity to the modern era can be described as a shift from an instrumental-performative understanding of authorship to personalization characterized by creative individuality cf. Author in the literal sense is of Roman origin auctor , and has no Greek equivalent. New ways of conceiving of the production of poetic works arose as a result of the complex of meanings surrounding the term auctor in the ancient Roman legal system: In this respect, the author model of the poeta faber was upgraded to the poeta eruditus or poeta doctus.
Use of the Latin term auctor Eng. Autor was extended to cover the creatorship of factual and fictional texts. In general, it was only from the late 15th century onwards that scholars and occasionally poets were referred to as auctores , a practice that continued up to the early decades of the 18th century. Viewed from a cultural-historical perspective, the classical model of the poeta vates was re-interpreted as an extension into the sphere of knowledge of the promises and teachings of Christianity so that where this commitment was supplemented by poetological knowledge, the result was to link up the author model with the poeta doctus.
In contrast to scientific texts, literary texts in the broader sense as in epics or in the Minnesang were often handed down without the creator being named, so that individual or collective anonymity prevailed. Minnis , with far more emphasis being placed on group identity: With the invention of the printing press, a public sphere based on written language was established for which, both in the dominant scholarly literature and in the diversified sphere of belles lettres , the individuality of the author as well as the authenticity of the single work and reliable copies guaranteed by printing gained progressively in importance.
In literature, the author model of the poeta eruditus and the poeta doctus dominated starting from the time of Humanism. Also revived was the model of the poet moved by inspiration, sometimes in the sense of an alter deus cf. Initially, creatorship remained legally undefined. It was not until the turn of the 18th century that the first contractual arrangements between publishers and authors were devised concerning royalties, etc. A broad spectrum of patterns of individual and collective authorship developed cf. Thus, the author could be defined legally, materially and intellectually cf.
New facets of the concept of author emerged from scholarly engagement with works of the poetic art, their theory and history which got underway after cf. The author together with the story of his life and work became a reference point for expert textual analysis biographical criticism , scholarly editions, literary- historical re constructions and evaluations for establishing the canon with practical cultural consequences, particularly for education and teaching. Toward the end of the 19th century, methodological debates emerged which, in different ways, fell back on the author as an interpretative norm for ascribing meaning, above all in the scholarly handling of texts.
In this process, plausibility was legitimized in a variety of ways on the basis for example of: Approaches to ascribing meaning to texts in scholarly circles were developed in competition with these concepts from the early 20th century onwards, based on the assumption that all information relevant to meaning could be drawn from the text in question alone cf.
It was in this context that categorial distinctions between the real author and speaker instances internal to the text cf. Friedemann [] ; Susman and accepted in the s, gained in importance. In this phase, both author-centric and author-critical approaches to textual interpretation have been further clarified in scholarly debates on literary theory, and the resulting competition between them was intensified.
Hence, the intentio operis or the intentio lectoris Eco , e. This position is taken up in various ways in the concepts developed by empirical literary criticism cf. Hence, the intentio operis or the intentio lectoris Eco Eco, Umberto The Limits of Interpretation. This position is taken up in various ways in the concepts developed by empirical literary criticism cf.
Schmidt Schmidt, Siegfried J. Foundations for the Empirical Study of Literature. The Components of a Basic Theory. Barthes Barthes, Roland [] In a further step, the boundaries of the author-oriented work were cancelled out in intertextual constellations cf. Kristeva Kristeva, Julia [] A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art. Foucault Foucault, Michel [] Perspectives in Post-Structuralist Criticism. The debate on the curtailed potency of authorship was carried on through the concepts of poststructuralism and the New Philology. The broader the medial spectrum for communication with text and with representations analogous to text grew during the second half of the 20th century, the greater the interest in the contribution of the material conditions of production and communication to the ascription of meaning became: Complex constructions of authorship are assigned to cinematic works cf.
Chatman Chatman, Seymour The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Winko Winko, Simone Autorkonzepte und neue Medien. What is an Author? Fragen nach dem Autor.
www.farmersmarketmusic.com: Das Konzept literarischer Autorschaft bei Roland Barthes und Michel Foucault (German Edition) eBook: Adam Galamaga: Kindle Store. 13Since Antiquity, terminological ambiguity in the concept of author and . point for expert textual analysis (biographical criticism), scholarly editions, Barthes and Foucault announced the “death of the author” (cf. . Von der schwierigen Autorschaft der Frauen. Versuche über literarische Kreativität.
The debate took place with reference to the problematic relevance of origin, biography and types of experience to the processes of writing and forms of expression in concepts of gender studies e. Walker Walker, Cheryl Von der schwierigen Autorschaft der Frauen. Women Writers and Narrative Voice. Interest in the circumstances of authorial creativity and its scholarly investigation has intensified cf. Ingold Ingold, Felix Philipp Der Autor am Werk. Wolf Wolf, Norbert Christian Zur Wiederkehr des empirischen Autor- und des Werkbegriffs in der neueren Literaturtheorie.
Jannidis Jannidis, Fotis Which of the six empirically determined author-oriented interpretative strategies proposed by Winko Winko, Simone Is the implied author a meaningful analytical category only for literary texts, or also for journalistic and historiographical texts? He has published on the theory and practice of the social history of literature with an emphasis on structural and functional text-theoretical models ; on the history of the humanities and on problems of literary theory and methodology.
Create an automatic citation reference by selecting the relevant passage in the article with your mouse, then copy and paste the reference from this text box. The author real or empirical can be defined in a narrow sense as the intellectual creator of a text written for communicative purposes. A broader understanding of the term author is used in the following contexts, among others: During the 20th century, a broad spectrum of how the author is understood was developed in scholarly circles: Authorship is to be seen as a status attributed to a work with culturally differing author constructs bound up with authorial self-reflection and self-presentation in a spectrum ranging from self-assurance to skepticism as to the validity and scope of claims to authorship.
Since the 18th century, there has been a culturally significant need to fall back on the author for interpretative processes and value judgments of an artistic work based on the creative act, authenticity, individuality, originality, unity of the work and its depth of meaning. An author-related reception focuses on the intention, attributed to the author, to convey a particular understanding of his work. The horizon as a compound of meaning describes the entirety of possible meanings originating with the author inner horizon or the sum of meanings that can be drawn by a comparison of the work with any other context outer hori- zon.
The structuralist approach also relativizes the empirical author in regard to the mean- ing of his work in an attempt to more precisely render the concept of authorship. While reduc- ing the importance of intention, literary structuralists still gave the empirical author credit for providing a historical context and for the work itself but not as the ultimate solution for deci- pherment of the text. For that reason, the use of biographical data - if existent - opens the door to a text but does not provide information directly pertaining to its meaning.
Other theo- retical schools that use selective biographical data about the author are feminism and intercul- tural literary science. The diversity of approaches towards the quest for authorship in texts did not stop after applying the author as the most important variable of the text. As Jannidis et al. Beardsley and Wimsatt departed from the valid question of why an interpreter should have to find out what the author wanted to express in the first place. Consequently intention is marginal- ized to a point where it is left with no evidentiary value.
Yet another differentiation has to be made that pushes the author as subject in the text out of the picture. Fictional texts always show different layers of authorship with the first-person narrator, the narrator and the empiri- cal author. These three are intertwined in a way that is almost impossible for the interpreter to grasp. Conclusions drawn from psychological or biographical pretext may or may not be true to intention and actual meaning of the text, and are hence untenable.
It is the text itself, with criteria like coherence and narrative economy, which provides demonstrable information to rely on. Examining this fragmented idea of the author in the text, Wayne C. Booth coined the term implied author to re-establish the author as point of reference for a text-centered theory of interpretation.
Ultimately, a third position took shape, placing the reader in the forefront of aesthet- ical judgment and interpretation. Barthes and Foucault have been situated as the quintessential protagonists of this model, evolving from post-structuralism to post-modernism Once the Author is removed, the claim to decipher a text becomes quite futile. To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing.
Such a conception suits criticism very well, the latter then allotting itself the important task of discovering the Author or its hypostases: Hence there is no surprise in the fact that, historically, the reign of the Author has also been that of the Critic, nor again in the fact that criti- cism be it new is today undermined along with the Author.
In the multiplicity of writing, everything is to be disentangled, nothing deciphered […]. The author function influences all these discourses due to the fact that all subjects including the author are the product of a sum of societal discourses, which in return makes all actions by such subjects discursive actions; not independent, creative, original, etc.
The reader constructs the author from within the text. Text is not just a literary unit. It is critical consensus that films - as with the other arts - may be analyzed as a text, which in return opens up all art forms to the discourse of authorship as it has been established for literature. In fact, drawing on already established theoretical con- structions of authorship allowed early film scholars to bring their own arguments to the table.
Foremost, the discrepan- cies between film and literature in terms of the medium itself - written words vs. So where do we find the author in film? The collaborative effort of film production renders the answer to this question significantly more complicated than for any other art form. Most influential during the second half of the twentieth century was the auteur theory which I will discuss in more detail in the next chapter. Other factors that may be held responsible for auctorial meaning - intentional or not - are the studio environment, general societal discourse on gen- der roles, ethnology, etc, or the biographical background of the individuals involved i.
In order to avoid redundancy I will only try to point out positions which differ from the ones already introduced in the previous chapter. Challenging the auteur theory were other structuralist methods of categorization of films or criteria of cinematic evaluation - foremost genre and narrative.
A distinctive role that appears to me still not positively defined is the role of the critic. The critic finds himself in the lost space between auctorial agent, textual historian, and ideal reader. This being a sheer impossible endeavor renders the figure of the critic and its elevated position in film history a paradox. Especially pressing is the question of where meaning is produced. However, for this thesis I will concentrate on the influential auteur theory which is foremost concerned with the author figure, bringing in the reader only as one side of the critic.
Realist literary adaptations, that is, were looked upon as superior to original film scripts and their artistic importance in the eyes of the critic resulted from the fidelity of the authors towards the spirit of the literary text while in- venting new dialogue and scenery for non-filmable parts of a novel.
Truffaut takes a clear stance against such practice of applying the central role in filmmaking to the writer, and refers to the unique abilities of cinema as medium and art form, evident in the films of the French Nouvelle Vague. The French debate over auteurism being little more than a polemic opposition as well as proposi- tion to critical practice, it was Andrew Sarris 23 who lifted the ideas of Cahiers into the rank of a theory.
Also revived was the model of the poet moved by inspiration, sometimes in the sense of an alter deus cf. While Truffaut, Bazin, and Rohmer saw their own development towards the maturing art form of cinema as a work in progress and anti-dogmatic, Sarris made it clear that he would foster the approach as theoretical means to grasp the authorial greatness of the individual in respect to the superiority of American cinema:. He has published on the theory and practice of the social history of literature with an emphasis on structural and functional text-theoretical models ; on the history of the humanities and on problems of literary theory and methodology. Kamp Kamp, Werner Author collectives with at least two partners can be found in various combinations of media cf. But beyond this inner hori- zon any meaning has an outer horizon; that is to say, any meaning has relationships to other meanings; it is always a component in larger realms. Authorship as Cultural Performance.
In his widely quoted essay in Film Culture from , he states: Not only was the original politique of Cahiers somewhat less than a theory; it was itself only loosely based upon a theoretical approach to the cinema which was never to be made fully explicit.