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PARTISAN REVIEW
an author's name, the fact that one can say" this has been written by a certain
person" or' 'a certain person is its author" indicates that the author's name is
not an ordinary proper noun, but one which must be received in a certain
mode, and which, in a given culture, must be accorded a certain status.
Finally, one comes to the conclusion that the author's name does not
refer to a real person but that it exceeds the limits of the texts, that it organizes
them, that it reveals their mode of being, or at least characterizes them.
Though it clearly points to the existence of certain texts, it also refers
to
their
status within a society and within a culture. As a result, one could say that in a
civilization like our own there are a certain number ofdiscourses which require
the function of an author whereas there are others which are deprived of this
function. A private letter certainly bears a signature, but it does not have an
author ; a contract certainly has a signer, but it does not have an author; an
anonymous text which one can read on a wall in the street has a creator, but it
will not have an author. The function of the author is thus characteristic of the
mode of existence, circulation, and operation of certain discourses within
a society.
* * *
In our culture, how do we characterize a discourse which has this function
of authorship? In what way is it contrasted with other discourses?
First of all, the author is an object of assimilation . Texts, books, dis–
course, really began to have authors (other than mythic personages or sancti–
fied and sanctifying figures) to the degree to which the author could be
punished. Historically, discourse was a gesture charged with risks before it
became a commodity included in the general circulation of property. When
regulation as property was established for texts-at the end of the eighteenth
and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries-through the enactment of
strict rules governing the rights of the author, the relationship between authors
and editors, and the rights of production, the possibility of breaking the law
through the act of writing assumed the aspect of a literary imperative. From
the moment he was placed within the system of property which characterizes
our society, the author compensated for his new status by systematically
engaging in violations, by restoring the original danger to writing.
Second, the function of authorship is not exercised over all discourses. In
our civilization, the same texts did not always require an attribution . There
was a time when those texts we call literary (narratives, epic poems, tragedies,
comedies) were received, circulated, and evaluated without the question of
their authorship being raised; their anonymity presented no difficulty, their
ancientness, real or supposed, was a sufficient guarantee. On the other hand,
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