Reader-Author Relations Flashcards
What does Gier Farner say is the responsibility of the author?
‘the the author does not inform the reader that the story is not ture, the result will be a fraud, not fiction’
What does Roland Barthes insist about the author?
It is ALWAYS impossible to identify the speaking ‘voice’ in literature
The ‘author’ as concept was born in modernity due to the increasing ‘prestige of the individuals’
‘the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the Author’
What does Roland Barthes say changed with the ‘death of the Author’?
Conception of time changed; also ‘liberates’ the meaning of the text, as there is ‘no secret’ behind it
‘the bird of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the Author’
What does Michel Foucault say writing now is?
‘writing is now a voluntary obliteration of the self’
What does Michel Foucault problematise?
The boundaries of what constitutes an author’s work
[cp Genette, paratexts]
What does Michel Foucault note about the ‘author-function’?
The ‘author-function’ is contextually variable - not inherent
What does Michel Foucault identify distinct from authors?
‘initiators of discursive practices’, or ‘fundamental’ authors
These initiators make both ‘analogies’ and ‘differences’ from their works possible - there are ‘no ‘false’ statements’ in their work, and later work uses a ‘return to the oirign’
this ‘return to the origin’ constatnly ‘introduces modifications’, a practice which is crucial to ‘trasnformning discursive practices’
What does Michel Foucault say about the subject?
The subject itself is ‘a complex and variable function of discourse’ - author, reader and otherwise
Which text does Foucault identify the ‘visible invisible’ in, and in relation to what?
The Birth of the Clinic - the disappearance of the patient from medical conceptualisation
thus showing variable position of the subject in relation to evolving discourse
What do Wimsatt and Beardsley argue about the author and their text? [New Criticism; from formalism]
The poem is “detached from the author at birth”
What are the different types of evidence Wimsatt and Beardsley identify, what do these imply? [New criticism; from formalism]
“internal” and “external” evidence of meaning; suggesting poem has an inside and an outside
Internal meaning is “recoverable” - criticsm can identify the “stable” “emotions” which the text induces in all readers [if they are “sufficiently informed readers”]
What does WImsatt and Beardsley suggest are the two fallacies, and what do they cause?
the “intentional” and “affective” fallacies - and both “cause the poem to disappear”
What does Wimsatt and Beardsley insist IS possible?
The ‘objective critic’ is possible - BUT poets should not be critics and vice versa
What do Wimsatt and Beardsley insist about poems over history?
“though cultures have changed and will cahgne, poems remain and explain”
What does Roman Jakobson [structuralism] identify?
6 functions of language identified - “literariness” occurs when “the poetic function” dominates
