What is an Author?

by Michel Foucault

What is an Author? is an influential lecture given by French philosopher, sociologist and historian, Michel Foucault, on literary theory. The work considers the relationship between author, text, and reader; concluding that:
“The Author is a certain functional principle by which, in our culture, one limits, excludes and chooses: (…) The author is therefore the ideological figure by which one marks the manner in which we fear the proliferation of meaning.”

For many, Foucault's lecture mirrors much of Roland Barthes' essay Death of the Author.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Essays, Theory, Literary Criticism, France, French Literature

15 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Paul-Michel Foucault was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationships between power and knowledge, and how they are used as a form of social control through societal institutions. Though often cited as a structuralist and postmodernist, Foucault rejected these labels. His thought has influenced academics, especially those working in communication studies, anthropology, psychology, sociology, criminology, cultural studies, literary theory, feminism, Marxism and critical theory.
Born in Poitiers, France, into an upper-middle-class family, Foucault was educated at the Lycée Henri-IV, at the École Normale Supérieure, where he developed an interest in philosophy and came under the influence of his tutors Jean Hyppolite and Louis Althusser, and at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where he earned degrees in philosophy and psychology. After several years as a cultural diplomat abroad, he returned to France and published his first major book, The History of Madness (1961). After obtaining work between 1960 and 1966 at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, he produced The Birth of the Clinic (1963) and The Order of Things (1966), publications that displayed his increasing involvement with structuralism, from which he later distanced himself. These first three histories exemplified a historiographical technique Foucault was developing called "archaeology".
From 1966 to 1968, Foucault lectured at the University of Tunis before returning to France, where he became head of the philosophy department at the new experimental university of Paris VIII. Foucault subsequently published The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). In 1970, Foucault was admitted to the Collège de France, a membership he retained until his death. He also became active in several left-wing groups involved in campaigns against racism and human rights abuses and for penal reform. Foucault later published Discipline and Punish (1975) and The History of Sexuality (1976), in which he developed archaeological and genealogical methods that emphasized the role that power plays in society.
Foucault died in Paris from complications of HIV/AIDS; he became the first public figure in France to die from complications of the disease. His partner Daniel Defert founded the AIDES charity in his memory.

Reviews

[Théo d'Or]

- So, Mr. Foucault, what is an author ? Is it a plane ?

- Nooooo !

- Is it a bird ?

- Noooooo !

- Okay, I give up. Tell me, what is an author ? I won't tell anyone, I promise.

- But it's no secret, mon pote. An author is a function of discourse, a construct that helps organize and classify texts.

- Ah.. so, it is not a human being, but a function.. I always suspected that, but I wasn't sure. So, if the author is just a function, anyone can be an author, hein ? Even my cat, isn't it ?

- Mmm...Technically, if your cat could produce a text that fits within the discourse, it could be considered an author. The key is the function the text serves, not who or what created it.

- Aha... Are you an author, Mr. Foucault ?

......

[ Embarrassing pause ]

- I mean, some say you're the "Father of Sexuality", despite Freud's lamentations. Can you be this, and an author at the same time ? Like Schrödinger's cat ? I mean, it's like driving in fifth gear at the same time as reverse gear.

- Oh, much like Schrödinger's cat, I suppose I can exist in multiples states simultaneously. As the Father of Sexuality, I explore what others don't even dare to dream of. As an author, I construct and deconstruct. So, in a way, I am both the observer and the observed, the writer and the written, all at once.

- Waw ! Almost a God..

- Tout à fait , mon pote. And, à propos ,speaking of speed , you're in a big confusion. There was another Foucault, Léon, known for his experiments measuring the speed of light. I only deal with the coefficient of copulation speed. When the male int...

- No détails, s'il te plaît...Alors, Mr. Foucault, if I understand correctly, my cat can be a function, right ?

- In fact, there is a historical precedent for this. In '75, a Siamese cat named Chester, under the pen name F.D.C. Willard, co-authored a physics paper. This illustrates that the author function is more about the role and the text's impact than the individual behind it.
So, theoretically, the answer is yes.

- One last question, Mr. Foucault. If you're the "Father of Sexuality"...huh.. who's the Mother ?

.................

[ embarrassing pause ]

[Narjes Dorzade · Rating 4 out of 5]

اثر که روزگاری غرض از آن بی‌مرگ کردن بود، اکنون مانند مورد فلوبر و پروست و کافکا، حق دارد بکشد و قاتل پدیدآورنده‌ی خود باشد. اما مطلب به همین ختم نمی‌شود: رابطه نوشتن و مرگ همچنین در نابودی ویژگی‌های فردی فاعل نویسنده متجلی است که انواع وسایل را میان خود و آنچه می‌نویسد تعبیه می‌کند تا نشانه‌های فردیت خاص خویش را از بین ببرد. در نتیجه، هیچ علامتی از او غیر از نبود شگفت‌انگیزش برجای نمی‌ماند، و او باید در بازی نوشتن نقش نعش را ایفا کند.


بکت این موضوع را با ظرافت این‌گونه بیان کرده:
«چه اهمیتی دارد که چه کسی حرف می‌زند.»

[Sajjad thaier · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘What difference does it make who is speaking?’

هل يهم من كتب العمل؟ لحظة ما هو " العمل" بالضبط؟ هل يمكننا أضافة الوصفات الطبية التي كان يكتبها تشيكوف لمرضاه إلى مجلد أعماله الكاملة؟ لم لا فهو من قام بكتابتها ونحن مهتمين بكل ما كتبه.

مقالة قصيرة وبسيطة -إلى حد ما- لكل محب للأدب يرغب بالقليل من المنظور المختلف في التعامل مع الأدب.

[نیلوفر رحمانیان · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this text especially after reading Barthes The Death of the Auhor.

Foucault claims that the existence of author is a result of individualism and by announcing his death we open the doors of interpretation and even if he is dead we should stop repeating ourselves and start to really locate the empty space caused by the disappearance of the author.

Then he says that the name of the author doesnt have only one signification (the person) but also refers to his works, his thoughts... and it doesnt seem to be about someone outside but about someone present in the text. And we also dont accept anonymity today. And author is also the principle of a certain unity in the text. Plus the fact that text always contains signs referring to the author directly or indirectly.

By reading his ideas i say that he is somehow polishing the death of the author idea, he is omitting the radical theoretical aspects of that article and is making it a more useful and more applicable idea.

i also liked how he used A Thousand and One Nights in which Shahrzad is to tell a story every night in order to postpone her death. Foucault compares Shahrzad to every author, and he discusses how anonymity can be out of discussion because isnt writing about immortality of the author and postponing his death?

[Elliot A · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was surprised how easily I was able to work myself through this one, relatively speaking.

I have read other articles by Foucault that had me question my abilities in the English language. This one I could actually follow and will be able to use in an argument without having to research the meaning of it.

I was intrigued by his argument, although I hoped he could have been a bit more specific with respect to some topics he addressed.

Overall, it wasn't bad and certainly worth a read for any English major.

ElliotScribbles

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Throwing stones with Foucault ;; other transgressions too but we won't get into that.

Still on strike.

But here's the text(pdf-link) :: https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/dow...

[Sor3na · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating this article must be one of the top absurd things I've done in my life because this article is not written to be rated, specially not in a 0-5 scale. The article basically gives you a fresh insight on literary criticism and no wonder it's a must read for all those interested in the subject matter. I only marked it at Goodreads, so maybe those in my friend list would be reminded of the value of this article. I will warn you however that one read would not be enough, even 10 times reading it might not be enough to grasp all the theories.

Definitely a must read!

[Anthony]

I don't know man.

This seemed like 16 pages of Foucault making the directors cut of Roland Barthes "The Death of An Author" with a few extra thoughts but nothing radically different.

'Who is the real author?'
'Have we proof of his authenticity and originality?'
'What has he revealed of his most profound self in his language?'
New questions will be heard:
'What are the modes of existence of this discourse?'
'Where does it come from; how is it circulated; who controls it?'
'What placements are determined for possible subjects?'
'Who can fulfill these diverse functions of the subject?'
Behind all these questions we would hear little more than the murmur of indifference:
'What matter who's speaking?'

No real answers here but an essay of questions. Worth revisiting once I'm back in a classroom but I just feel like this really didn't leave us with anything different.

[Tuhin Bhowal · Rating 5 out of 5]

"'Who really spoke? Is it really he and not someone else? With what authenticity or originality? And what part of his deepest self did he express in his discourse?’ Instead, there would be other questions, like these: ‘What are the modes of existence of this discourse? Where has it been used, how can it circulate, and who can appropriate it for himself? What are the places in it where there is room for possible subjects? Who can assume these various subject-functions?’ And behind all these questions, we would hear hardly anything but the stirring of an indifference: ‘What difference does it make who is speaking?’"

[Másha (maria)]

Acho que vou escrever uma carta hoje à noite 💌

[Airácula · Rating 2 out of 5]

Está dando alumno universitario defendiendo la Unidad IV (Roland Barthes) del Seminario de Análisis del Discurso Literario.
Y esto, por si pasa desapercibido, está expresado en un sentido peyorativo

[Meg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Crusty

[nat boeken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creo que para cualquier persona que dedique su tiempo a estudiar obras literarias, artísticas o filosóficas debería leer esta conferencia.

Michel Foucault, como buen amante del método de deconstrucción de Jaques Derrida, propone si bien no una tesis alrededor del rol del autor, una serie de preguntas importantes que debemos mantener todo el tiempo presentes. Se podría pensar que Foucault busca restarle importancia al autor respecto a su obra, yo pienso todo lo contrario. Considero que en ocasiones solemos dar por sentado que cada obra tiene un autor, un personaje creador, todopoderoso que ejerce la única función de añadir materia nueva a un espacio (material o intelectual) que se encontraba vacío. Relegando al autor a este papel, nos perdemos de la emocionante operación que Foucault propone: descubrir la función-autor dentro de su obra, desentrañar al narrador como un sujeto no del todo ficticio pero no del todo real, estirar los límites de la autoría de conceptos modificables como el marxismo o el psicoanálisis que han permitido la escritura y reescritura una y otra vez de tantas voces.

Sin duda habrá personas más capacitadas a generar un anlálisis a profundidad de este texto, me quedo con recomendarlo a cualquiera interesado en cuestionar los conceptos antropológicos que solemos aceptar sin mucha curiosidad y que a través de la filosofía nos son devueltos como rompecabezas interesantísimos que armar.

[Josean · Rating 3 out of 5]

What is a Homer?

[Annie Bose]

{some excerpts from notes made on Michel Foucault's essay, "What Is An Author?" (1977)}
{hmu for complete review, not enough space the to complete the review here}

... Foucault’s inquiry deals with the function the author serves. He notes that a feature of ‘classification’ has become one of the function of the name of the author, and only certain texts are accompanied by the name of the author, not all texts (for instance, the name of the author is omitted or not important in a pamphlet, or a circular, or a contract). He examines the author within a culture. The name of the author functions as more than just a proper noun. The name of the author plays a functional role in the grouping of or differentiating between texts. This establishes varying relationships between texts. Texts that are not linked to the personhood of an Author establish relationships of “homogeneity, filiation, reciprocal meaning, authentication or common utilisation.” Discourse that posses an Author are less likely to be forgotten after immediate consumption. The cultures in which the text and the author-name exists ensure the status and reception of both. The name of the author continues to—even after the production of the text—define (and therefore, differentiate) texts, characterising their mode of existence. Furthermore, these “functions” performed by the name of the author act as a set of beliefs or assumptions governing the production, circulation, classification and consumption of texts. Through an empirical examination limited to texts that have authors, Foucault isolates four characteristics common to what he terms the “author function”.

Firstly, texts with authors are “modes of appropriation” controlled by the penal code. The “author-function” is linked to the legal system, that arises as a result of the need to punish those responsible for making transgressive statements. This happened when the author became subject to punishment and the text became “transgressive”. Foucault observes that earlier, discourse existed in a bipolar field of sacred and profane and no one owned discourse. And what once was a gesture of risk got caught up in a system of property laws. Towards the end of the 18th and the 19th centuries, a system of ownership and strict copyright rules were established to restrict the transgressive properties intrinsic to the act of writing, which then became forceful imperative of literature. Imbued in this new social order of property, the author gets the benefit of property but continues to reinforce the older bipolar field of discourse by writing in various degrees of transgression. The authorial function served the purpose of institutional systems that sought to articulate, circumscribe and determine the realm of discourse.

Secondly, the “author-function” does not affect all texts in a uniform manner. For instance, knowing the name of the author does not seem to affect scientific texts the same way it affects literary texts. In the Middle Ages, texts began to require authentication through the presence of the author, unless an author name was indicated. Authority was the proof it required. In the 17th and 18th century, scientific discourse attained a state of priority and gained significance and became a part of a “coherent conceptual system of established truths and methods of verification.” At the same time, “literary discourse was acceptable only if it carried an author name.” Meaning and value was attached to the author’s personhood, the date, the time and the circumstance of writing in literary texts, unlike scientific texts. In this point, Foucault shows how the name of the author assumes a function in the case of literary texts.

The third “author-function” is evident in the criteria used to attribute a text to an author. He says that the name of the author functions as a rational entity that is constructed as a result of complex operations, that it is not spontaneous. The “creative genius” lauded in authors are merely projections of what the (dominant ideologies of) culture deems important, traits that it values, and in the continuities (of requiring an origin to define) and exclusions (necessarily so, a universal explanation that is perfectly inclusive has not yet been arrived at) it practices. therefore, the author-function will vary in varying periods and forms of discourse. Foucault writes:

"There are some transhistorical constants in the rules that govern the construction of the author."

Foucault criticises contemporary criticism by pointing out the similarities in the practice of modern criticism and St. Jerome’s distinctions for what should constitute an author. He accuses modern critics of having allowed traditional methods of defining the author—strongly “reminiscent of the Christian exegis”—to proliferate into modern criticism not recognising it, which included four main criteria that made authorship exclusive: it presupposes that the author defines a standard level of quality, the author is a source and propagator of coherent concepts, the author provides a stylistic uniformity and the author is a specific “historical figure” who is a collection of a series of events for a particular period of time. Although modern criticism does not concern itself with the task of dispelling suspicion against authentication (a need eliminated by the emergence of property laws), it still employs St. Jerome’s strategies to define the author.
Another rampant assumption that was made at the time was that there was a presupposed authorial intention in the reading/understanding of the author—a transcendental meaning ascribed to the author which assumed that this authorial intention was a unity, a transcendental space where all contradictions are nullified. The author serves to diffuse the contradictions found in the text (because in the structuralist system that this discourse is posited in—and the system this essay attempts to critique and unravel—exists in the belief that there is a single point of origin where all differences are resolved and this centre provides the discourse with a singular and uniform meaning). Foucault sheds light on a grave assumption that modern criticism has been making thus far—that the author is perfectly manifested in the text, that the identity of the author is completely, and without fault, recoverable from the text.
Having assumed this ‘unity’, the singular meaning that the author is supposed to represent, whenever met with contention or a divergence is attributed to the influence of an external cause. From this, he conceptualises the author-ego. He hypothesises that multiple egos could have written the same text by engaging with it in various measures. A text is the “simultaneous dispersion of egos”, which is the premise for this fourth point.
The author, however, is not simply “reconstructed” from a text. In texts there are signs that bear reference to the author. Foucault calls these signs “shifters”. Shifters include personal pronouns, words that indicate to a time, tense, place, the act of writing. The role of shifters is complex for a text with an author. The shifters don’t only indicate to an author, but also to a “second self” who is not necessarily consistent with the author at all times. The “Author” is much like the “narrator”, Foucault suggests, in that he/she can be an “alter ego” for the actual flesh and blood “writer”. Therefore, he term “author” does not refer purely and simply to any real individual. To seek the author through the second self would be a futile attempt because it would necessarily blur the differences between the two ‘selves’. Foucault’s argument for the fourth author function lies in these differences, in the “division and distance” between the author and the second self, which manifests as a plurality of egos. The author-function operates to simultaneously disperse these egos, and one ego does not negate the existence of another. Foucault claims that the “author-function” emerges at the scission of the author and the actual writer, as well as the author and the fictional narrator.
So far, Foucault has delved into a discussion of an author to whom a text can be attributed. In the remainder of the essay, he introduces his investigation into the other as a creator of a new tradition, or a system of thought, or a discipline. These authors, he calls “transdiscursive” authors. Foucault proceeds to a ‘schematic’ discussion of the more complex problems raised by ‘the initiation of discursive practices’, that is, the distinctive form of authorship associated with the paternalistic figures of Marx and Freud. These “initiators of discursive practices” (not to be confused with he authors of canonical religious texts, founders of sciences and “great” literary authors) not only produced work of their own but also introduced the possibility of tracing similarities and differences in discourse. Their theories were critically integrated into the development of new texts and discourse. Finally, in a brief concluding passage, Foucault linked his argument with a series of wider themes: the analysis of discourse; the question of ‘the privileges of the subject’; and the anonymity of discourse which he envisaged for the future, an anonymity evoked by recalling his earlier quotation from Beckett: ‘What matter who’s speaking?
In The Death of the Author, Barthes’ main argument was to replace the figure of the Author with the figure of ecriture ( the “modern scriptor”). He developed a little history of writing and authorship and replaced the collusive Author-Critic pair with the “modern scriptor” and the sovereign reader. In What Is An Author?, Foucault proposed to examine the author as “a function of discourse”, replacing the conventional figure of the “author” with what he termed “author-function”, which authorises the very idea of the “author”. Like Barthes, albeit in a manner different to his, Foucault was seeking to herald a new, post-Authorial culture.
One may find an echo of Marxism in Foucault, which often tends to see individual tastes and preferences as products of larger social forces. This essay fitted right in with the contemporary anti-capitalist critiques of the bourgeois cult of the author. In The Death of the Author, Barthes introduces the notion of individual subjectivity under capitalism by positing the individual as a capitalist subject. Marxist theorists added the notion of the author as a capitalist “owner” or proprietor of their texts, who can control the use and consumption of their text by limiting the ways in which they can be interpreted. This essay also hints at Marxism's challenge of entrenched ideas of ownership and property (which generates the question: who is the owner of the text?).

... In the end, Foucault, too, denies that the author is the source of a unified or even infinite meaning, for even the author is a part of a larger system of ideology the serves to limit and restrict meaning. Barthes frames the question of authorship as a question of authority. Foucault investigates this question as a gap left behind in Barthes’ effacement of the Author.

A dialogue between Barthes and Foucault may be envisioned thus:

Barthes: The author is dead. Writing is the space where the subjectivity of the author disappears.

Foucault: The author, although dead, serves a function regardless of its effacement. The social structures that influence us have ensured so. Surely the subject should not be entirely abandoned. It should be reconsidered, not to restore the theme of an originating subject, but to seize its functions, its intervention in discourse, and its system of dependencies. We must understand author-function before we replace it with a new approach, a new vocabulary. Is it not possible to reexamine…the privileges of the subject?

Barthes: The text is written by a neutral, hypothetical entity: a scriptor. The scriptor has no personhood or biography important (or relevant) to the text and therefore does not limit the meaning of the text. Texts are inscribed, not created, for ideas are not original.

Foucault: Ideas interact with each other in the realm of discourse and the nuanced relationship between these need to be developed and explored.

Barthes: There exists an ideal formless ‘reader’ with no body, history, psychology and biography as the space where the multiplicity of the meaning of a text lies.

Foucault: A text gives rise to multiple egos and also to a series of subjective positions that individuals of any class many come to occupy in order to perform the author-function.

Barthes: A new kind of interpretation will only take birth with the sovereign reader.

Foucault: The author-function will come to its inevitable end but even this will not bestow upon us complete freedom on interpretation. One set of limitations will give way to another, since there must always be some system of constraint working on us.

[Solihin]

Michel Foucault is not completely pleased with Roland Barthes saying that the writer is dead. "Dead" here means that the writer is no longer as great or important to writing as people thought. Foucault agrees that the writer could very well be dead, but that death, he believes, should not be the end. Through the writer's death, he wants to learn more about how a writer works, the writer's position in larger-conversations and what made the writer so important anyway.

Foucault points out that a writer's name is not the same as their real-name. A writer's real-name works by drawing attention to the writer as a real person while a writer's name has many writer-uses. He singles out four main facts on how these writer-uses work. First, a writer's name is part of following the law, allowing the not-accepted-things they write about to be more real. Second, these writer-uses do not always work the same way in different larger-conversations. Third, the belief that the writer is tied to their work is how readers manage writings using their minds and does not happen at once. Finally, writer-uses are not narrowed down to only a single writer’s/person's view.

Foucault also believes that there are two kinds of writers who add to larger-conversations - writers whose writings start larger-conversations and writers whose writings go beyond larger-conversations. Writers whose writings go beyond larger-conversations are seen as more than writers because their writings help push others to write, shaping these new writings while still opening up to different ideas. On the other hand, writers whose writings start larger-conversations will always only be the building block people fall back upon and not be changed for the better.

Foucault does not write in an open way on why the writer became so important. However, by learning about how writer-uses work and the different kinds of writers, we usually find out that it is the systems of many-peoples (which writers are part of) that made writers seem so great. Only by thinking and writing seriously about writing over time do writers appear less important and die.

Appendix:

Larger-conversation: discourse
Real-name: proper name
System of many-peoples: societal system
Writer-use: author function

[Ramin Azodi · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author is not just the person who wrote something. There are special rules for how we think about the "author" of different types of writing.

For stories and poems in the past, we didn't need to know the actual name of the person who wrote it. But for science writing, we always wanted to know the scientist's name so we knew it was true.

Now, it's different - for stories, we always want the name, but for science, the writing can stand on its own without a name.

The "author" is also not just one person. When you read a story, the "author" is not exactly the real person who wrote it. It's more like a character in the story.

And big thinkers like Freud and Marx didn't just write one book - they started whole new ways of thinking called "discourses". Returning to their original books can help us understand those discourses even better.

[Lukas · Rating 3 out of 5]

if read in a certain context, this could be interpreted as one of foucault's more explicit political texts. Basically, it argues that history is a source of denaturalization of categories. one of those categories is, of course, the author...

[Kyaw Zayar Lwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What does it matter who is speaking,"someone said,"What does it matter who is speaking"

[Palmina]

prime tautological experience

[alyssa]

Another no rating because I read this for a class and it took up my time that I could have spent reading books for my yearly goodreads count.

[Neri]

I understood some of that

[Bec · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate that this subject is interesting but please god just let this module finish, I can’t read about this stuff anymore

[Mario · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una nota al pie típicamente lautréamontiana sería: ¡el autor sí es una función social, mujer!

[Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

«¡El autor no es una función social, hombre! El autor es el que construye las ideas que ustedes y yo leemos, objetivadas en obras literarias, que nos sobrevivirán a todos nosotros. ¡Qué coño de una función social! ¡Qué coño de que el autor ha muerto, si [Foucault] está más vivo que Dios!»

[Blanca]

Pa Ya So

[cäty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Foucault dando cátedra una vez más

[Ali Amiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

How very insightful.

[♡ Piff ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I have to read this, then my goodreads has to see it too.

[Ramanqu · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first reading that span over several days. A constructive deconstructive treatise that redeems the faults of so much nonsense in such a discipline.