Theories of Authorship and the Novel

Theories of Authorship and the Novel

At its most basic level, literature is commonly regarded as a kind of communication between author and reader. Just as in ordinary linguistic communication where a speaker conveys a message to an addressee, so in literature an author sends a message to a reader. The component elements of this definition are, however, open to criticism. Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes and Julia Kristeva explore the position and role of the author in relation to the text. This essay will investigate and critique their varying theories of authorship whilst highlighting their points of similarity and difference.

I argue that Bakhtin’s theory of the polyphonic novel produces a conception of the author that is untenable in James Joyce’s Ulysses, which Kristeva terms ‘polyphonic’[1]. Joyce retains a surplus of knowledge about the narrative voices, so that he effectively comments on them. Bakhtin’s theory of individually existing consciousnesses in the polyphonic novel can, however, be applied to the protagonists in Ulysses. I will show how Joyce presents the reader with individual, autonomous voices in a manner that affirms the interpretive responsibilities of the reader, supporting a conventional reading of Barthes’ ‘The Death of the Author’.

Comparing Kristeva’s theory of the absorption of the writer into the text in ‘Word, Dialogue and Novel’ with Barthes’ concept of the ‘amicable return of the author’[2] in Sade Fourier Loyola, I will argue that a biographical author may be constructed from the text through what Barthes terms ‘charms’. Yet, such identification depends upon an experiential intertext, a shared experience uniting author and reader. The question thus arises whether a cooperation exists between author and reader in the reception of a text. From Barthes’ theory of ‘charms’, I will argue that the reader functions as a point of convergence. However, in relation to the concept of intertext expounded in ‘The Death of the

Bibliography: - Secondary Allen, Graham, Intertextuality, (Routledge: Oxford, 2000) Jefferson, Ann and Robey, David, Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative Introduction, (Barnes & Noble Books: New Jersey, 1982) Macey, David, The Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory, (Penguin: London, 2000) Vice, Sue, Introducing Bakhtin, (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1997) ----------------------- [1] Julia Kristeva, ‘Word, Dialogue and Novel’ in The Kristeva Reader, ed. Toril Moi, (Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1986), p. 42. [2] Roland Barthes, Sade Fourier Loyola, tr. Richard Miller, (Jonathan Cape: London, 1976), p. 8. [3] Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, ed. Caryl Emerson, ‘Theory and History of Literature’, Volume 8, (University of Minnesota Press: Minnesota, 2006), p. 65. [6] Sue Vice, Introducing Bakhtin, (Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1997), p. 126. [7] James Joyce, Ulysses: Annotated Student Edition, (Penguin: London, 2000), p. 32; all subsequent references to Ulysses are to this edition, incorporated in the text. [8] Bakhtin, 2006, op. cit., p. 9. [11] Bakhtin, 2006, op. cit., p. 72. [12] Kristeva, 1986, op. cit., p. 45. [13] Roland Barthes, ‘The Death of the Author’ in Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader, ed. David Lodge, (Longman: Essex, 1988), p. 171. [14] Kristeva, 1986, op. cit., p. 45. [19] Barthes, 1976, op. cit., p. 3. [20] Seán Burke, The Death and Return of the Author: Criticism and Subjectivity in Barthes, Foucault and Derrida, (Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 1992), p. 34 [21] Barthes, 1988, op [22] Barthes, 1976, op. cit., p. 3. [34] Seán Burke, 1992, op. cit., p. 38. [35] Barthes, 1976, op. cit., p. 7. [40] Kristeva, 1986, op. cit., p. 36. [46] Barthes, 1988, op. cit., p. 168. [48] William Shakespeare, Hamlet, ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor, (Thomson: London, 2006), I.i.138. [50] Bakhtin, 2006, op. cit., p. 124. [52] Barthes, 1976, op. cit., p. 165. [57] Barthes, 1988, op. cit., p. 170. [59] Burke, 1992, op. cit., p. 25.