The Birth of the Author Cally Ingram Tim Mollotte Alex Plattner Laurel Stewart.

The Birth of the Author

Cally IngramTim MollotteAlex Plattner

Laurel Stewart

It all starts with 2 people…

Then…

the magic happens

9 months later…

…and out pops our little author…

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Saint Bonaventura said… A man might write works of others, adding and

changing nothing, in which case he is simply called a “scribe” (scriptor). Another writes the work of others with additions which are not his own; and he is called a “compiler” (compilator). Another writes both others’ work and his own, but with others’ work in principal place, adding his own for purposes of explanation; and he is called a “commentator” (commentator)… Another writes both his own works and others’ but his own work in principle place adding others’ for the purpose of confirmation; and such a man should be called an “author” (auctor).

Fixation of Text

Recognition of individual innovation

Claiming invention, discoveries, creations

Writers/publishers gain immortality

Maps of New World discoveries

Rights of inventor/author legally fixed

Personal Celebrity

Drive to fame - immortality

No easy change or loss(in contrast to pen/manuscript)

The Raise of Piracy

Competition over right to publish text“Possessive Individualism” of author to their works

“Plagiarism and copyright did not exist for the minstrel. It was only after printing that they began to hold significance for the author.” (Kline)

Unforeseen Side Effect

Quest for discovery and knowledge

Immortality vs. monetary

Author’s audience sometimes authors

Author Mindset

With printing press, author gains abilitiesPlan and outline

Revise and proofread

Author’s audience is not listening somewhere

He is alone in his own world

Important Printing Dates

1535: Coverdale prints 1st complete English Bible

1536: Paracelsus publishes The Great Surgery Book

1537: John “Thomas Matthew” Rogers prints 2nd complete English Bible

1539: first bible published for public use

1555: Nostradamus pulishes Centuries, book of predictions

1573: Saxton publishes first atlas (37 countries)

1596: Kepler publishes Mysterium Cosmographicum

A Few Important Authors

Richard Carew (1555-1620)

Thomas Kyd (1558-1595)

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Thomas Kyd

William Shakespeare

Christopher Marlowe

Francis Bacon

Richard Carew

Christopher Marlowe

First great poet of theatre’s second ageAttended King’s School, Canterbury, and Corpus Christi CollegeKnown to be impulsive and wear elaborate, bejeweled clothesWrote Tambuliane, 1st noteable English play in blank versePaved way for Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

English poet/playwright

Educated at local grammar school (?)

Most special presentations of his plays to Queen Elizabeth I and King James I

Four main periods of work, each with theme

Tracking the Author

Pre-Birth through Death

Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom

InformationFacts provided or learned about something or someone

KnowledgeWhat is known in particular field or in total; facts and information

WisdomThe quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment

Orality and Manuscripts

“There was a time when the texts that we today call “literary”

(narratives, stories, epics, tragedies, comedies) were accepted, put into circulation, and valorized without any question of their author; their anonymity caused no difficulties

since their ancientness, whether real or imagined, was regarded as a

sufficient guarantee of their status” (Foucault, 109)

Orality and Manuscripts

Manuscripts

Oral compositions

Anonymity of composer

Proportionate knowledge,

wisdom

Weight of productions

Vetted, guaranteed

Information

Knowledge

Wisdom

Printing Revolution: Mass Production of Text

“A man born in 1453, the year of the fall of Constantinople, could look back from his

fiftieth year on a lifetime in which about eight million books have been printed, more perhaps

than all the scribes of Europe had produced since Constantine founded his city in AD 330”

(Clapham)

“The coming into being of the notion of “author” constitutes the priviliged moment of

individualization in the history of ideas, knowledge, literatute, philosophy and the

sciences” (Foucault)

Printing Revolution:Mass Production of Text,

Birth of the “Author”

Information

Knowledge

Wisdom

• Birth of “Author”

• Books 400 times cheaper than manuscripts

• Information inevitably outpaces knowledge, wisdom

Internet Age:Return to Anonymity

Revolution of information

Updates, news, forums

Raw information

“Author” inaccurate

What authority?

Anonymity

Information

Knowledge

Wisdom

Full Circle: Death of the Author

Ouroboros

Irony

What’s next?

AnonymityAnonymity

“Birth of ‘Author’”“Birth of ‘Author’”

Death of the Author

Roland Barthes’ theory Why death of author

is necessary

Where does voice come from?

Actual character

Author as person

Author as writer

“universal wisdom”

When does author die?

As soon as reality expands in your brain

Process can happen for youMediators

Shamans

Other “relators”

Idea of Author-God

BAD (according to Barthes)

Words produce single meaning given by author

Culture & Criticsm look to authorLife, tastes, passions

Visual art, music, writing…

Then how do we look at text?

Meaning based purely on text

Blending and clashing of ideas

No background contentWriting not recording, notation, representation, or depiction

“Every text is externally written here and now”

Scriptor simply has tons of words

So… no “deciphering”

Giving text an author imposes limit on texti.e. literary criticism

Text cannot be “explained”

Only way to “analyze” is to look at text on same plane

Called “disentangling”

Disentanglement = reader’s job

Reader cannot look to author to disentangle text

Therefore…

When the death of the author

occurs, it brings…

the birth of the reader

Or…

… the end.