Morte D'author: an Autopsy Harvey Hix
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Masthead Logo The Iowa Review Volume 17 Article 39 Issue 1 Winter 1987 Morte D'Author: An Autopsy Harvey Hix Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Hix, Harvey. "Morte D'Author: An Autopsy." The Iowa Review 17.1 (1987): 131-150. Web. Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0021-065X.3482 This Contents is brought to you for free and open access by Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in The oI wa Review by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Morte D'Author: An Autopsy Harvey Hix me to "it would be enough for know who is writing this" ? W. S. Merwin IN 1968, ROLAND BARTHES proclaimed the death of the author in a manner reminiscent of Nietzsche's proclamation of the death of God. manner two are Yet, similarities in notwithstanding, the proclamations nature. an radically different in Nietzsche's proclamation is obituary; an one Barthes' is a suicide note, and enigmatic at that, for "this enemy of an a authors is himself preeminently author, writer whose varied products a worse reveal personal style and vision."1 And what is than the fact that an Barthes, himself author, proclaimed the death of the author, is that he to not proclaimed it in writing. Assent Barthes' claim has been, surpris recent ingly, far from universal; however, in years increasing attention has to it to been given the phenomenon attempts describe. one nor In the investigation of any mysterious death, of the first steps is Yet seems to mally the positive identification of the body. this step have one been left out of the investigation of the death of the author. No (in as as seems to sure cluding Barthes himself well his detractors) be who to an died. For this reason, I shall attempt in this paper perform autopsy in senses a both of the word.2 I shall examine the author's corpse with special concern to establish its identity, and I shall study the event of the author's to death by analyzing texts relevant it. at Barthes only hints the history of the author; he says that the "author a our as it is modern figure" which society produced discovered (under the influence of British empiricism, French rationalism, and the Reformation) a ac "the prestige of the individual."3 Michel Foucault gives slightly fuller an count in his essay "What Is Author?" noting two features of the author's history. First, in apparent agreement with Barthes' characteriza as tion of the author "the epitome and culmination of capitalist ideology" (p. 143), Foucault says: was a it at the moment when system of ownership and strict copy right ruleswere established (toward the end of the eighteenth and 131 University of Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to The Iowa Review ® www.jstor.org beginning of the nineteenth century) that the transgressive prop act im erties always intrinsic to the of writing became the forceful perative of literature.4 The intrinsic transgressive properties of writing result from its being "an action situated in a bipolar field of sacred and profane, lawful and It came to con unlawful, religious and blasphemous" (p. 124). only be a or to of sidered product possession be "assigned real authors" instead or to mythical religious figures when "the author became subject punish out is of ment" (p. 124). The second feature Foucault points that the role over we now texts the author has changed time. What call "scientific" were were, in the Middle Ages, only considered truthful if they sanctioned name an by the of author; however, this changed in the seventeenth and to so texts came to eighteenth centuries, according Foucault, that these be on own texts we now "accepted their merits." On the other hand, call were once concern "literary" accepted without for the author's identity; " texts so then the attitude toward literary shifted that 'literary' discourse was it an acceptable only if carried author's name" (pp. 125-26). are If Barthes and Foucault right about the author's history, then the a or fact that the author is modern figure raises questions about his her as as place in larger historical movements, well questions about whether a the death of the author is not merely result of the decline of the historical or factors that created her him. But the history of the author is not the main concern of Barthes or Foucault, nor will it be my concern in this to essay. Iwill mention the history of the author only in order further my to as are attempt identify the author, just Barthes and Foucault interested as to "in our in this history only insofar it points the fact that day, literary are works totally dominated by the sovereignty of the author" (Foucault, an p. 126). Barthes makes this his first real criticism. After only introduc at tory paragraph and brief hints the author's history, he says: The author still reigns in histories of literature, biographies of as men writers, interviews, magazines, in the very consciousness of of letters anxious to unite their person and their work through to diaries and memoirs. The image of literature be found in ordinary on culture is tyrannically centered the author, his person, his life, his ... tastes, his passions (p. 143) 132 to new The attempt dethrone the author, though, is hardly with Barthes. to It is easy find examples of this project in many earlier twentieth-century critics. For instance, T. S. Eliot said, "The progress of an artist is a con a tinual self-sacrifice, continual extinction of personality."5 To the New was a Critics, the "intentional fallacy" mortal sin. And Northrop Frye in Criticism: says Anatomy of The absurd quantum formula of criticism, the assertion that the to a critic should confine himself "getting out" of poem exactly what to aware the poet may vaguely be assumed have been of "putting in," one is of the many slovenly illiteracies that the absence of systematic to criticism has allowed grow up. This quantum theory is the liter ary form of what may be called the fallacy of premature teleology.6 How, then, is Barthes' proclamation of the death of the author any as different from such statements these? Gregory T. Polletta points out one most way in which Barthes is different: critics expelled authorial in to ensure correct tention "in order the interpretation of literary works. Barthes, on the other hand, excludes the author's declared intention in or order to release the text from any authoritarian control interpretative we can or circumscription."7 Before isolate any further differences evaluate Barthes' claim, it will be necessary to decide just who the author is. seems to to Traditionally, the author have been credited with (and have two source taken credit for) primary functions: being the of the work and/or the channel through which the work flows. Any random survey of to see literature will confirm this, and it is especially easy in the tradition of invocation. the The Iliad and Odyssey strongly emphasize the channel function. The Odyssey begins: Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel. some From point our here, goddess, daughter of Zeus, speak, and begin story.8 to a in an It is not surprising find the bard claiming such role oral tradition, comes not even where the story almost "ready-made," only in plot but in 133 the formulae which are the basic units of composition. Ovid's invocation to the author as source: the Metamorphoses, though, emphasizes My intention is to tell of bodies changed To different forms; the gods, who made these changes, me?or a Will help I hope so?with poem runs to our own That from the world's beginning days.9 are Here it is the poet who is doing the telling. The gods only helpers; the not even sure or poet is of their help, and capable of writing with without In Troilus and the roles are more Chaucer them. Chaucer's Criseyde, equal: as seems to takes the poem his project, but he also need the help of Thesiphone. I have intentionally avoided questions about the purpose of the invoca seems to tion because it fair say that, regardless of its role within the poem, to as source as the invocation still points the conception of the author and ex channel.10 But there are other questions which cannot be avoided. For ample, is the bard really the author of theOdyssey? IsChaucer himself really on or a account calling Thesiphone, has he created persona? To for the as to problems raised by such questions these, and evaluate properly "the death of the author," amodel of the author is necessary, one which tradi not tion will supply. The following diagram represents the model of the author I propose. scribe 'real" // "fictional" / / / / / / poet proxy x = source axis = y channel axis 'creative" / "created" / / narrator 134 narrator are The poet, scribe, proxy, and four "aspects" of the author, are sense. are and differential entities in Saussure's That is, they "defined not by their positive content but negatively by their relations with the other terms of the system. Their most precise characteristic is in being as what the others are not."11 In any given text, itmay be that not all four are or are pects of the author present, it may be that two of the aspects in as text.