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| - | == Katharina Lescailje: another Sappho == | + | == Female authorship and social networks in XVIIIth-century Lisbon == |
| <br><br><br> | <br><br><br> | ||
| + | The question «What is a female author?» reminds us of the more general question, «What is an author?» (Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur?) presented by Michel Foucault in 1969, and again, by Roger Chartier, in the year 2000, by the Société française de Philosophie (Foucault 1994; Chartier 2000). The way each of these scholars answered the question can be taken as a starting point for the discussion presented here.<br> | ||
| + | Michel Foucault (in a way continuing the discussion opened by Roland Barthes in 1968 with the announcement of the «Death of the author» (Barthes 1984) postulates the existence of a «function» called ‘’author’’, which he considers «characteristic of the way of existence, circulation and functioning of certain «discourses» («discours») inside a given society». This postulate enabled him to bring to attention the distance between the subject of a text and the biographical writer, as well as to emphasize the way in which an author’s name, or an author’s reputation can condition the reading of texts assigned to this function. On the other hand, speaking in general terms, but having in mind the French cultural reality, Foucault associated the emergence of this author function to the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, and associated it to the new rules of the property system in the bourgeois society, to the certification of certain discourses, as well as to their «penal appropriation» (the expression is Chartier’s) by censorship. In the hypothesis put forward by Foucault the need and the consequences of the «author function» would vary if applied to literary discourses or to scientific ones, being essential for reading the former and not always relevant for the reception of the latter.<br> | ||
| + | When returning to the subject almost thirty years later, Roger Chartier retained the idea of the «author function», but tried to integrate this concept in a more precise historical approach, confronting Foucault’s theoretical proposal with facts related to librarian’s privileges, the invention of copyright, the emergence of the concept of originality and the association of the «author function» with published texts. In doing so, Chartier was able to redefine Foucault’s assumptions, and to integrate the concept of authorial property in the framework of the old-regime society and in the privilege-system from which librarian rights and the notion of copyright emerged, as well as the aristocratic models of validation of scientific, as well as literary texts. On one hand, Chartier draws attention to the fact that in the period between the twelfth and the eighteenth centuries, the name of the patron often had a function similar to that of the author’s, especially in the case of scientific texts. On the other hand, he recalls the weight given to the author’s name in the sixteenth century Spanish Inquisition indexes of forbidden books, and describes it as a prefiguration of the «author function». In doing this, he points out to the existence of modalities of authorship that are not necessarily linked to printed works: he speaks of an «author function» constructed not on the basis of the economical market, but built upon the aristocratic values of disinterest (the «economy of symbolic goods»). He concludes that the «genealogy of the «author function» for literary texts is of much longer durée than Foucault has suggested» (Chartier 2000, 22) and states that it is connected to the materiality of texts. <br> | ||
| + | Even if Foucault’s opinions have been contested along the years by other scholars (for example: Foster 2002), the issues he raised, as well as their refutation by Chartier, can help us proceed to the discussion on female authorship:<br> | ||
| + | First the emergence of the «author-function» is a concept of longue durée in the history of text transmission, and is historically and socially determined. <br> | ||
| + | Second there can be various modalities of authorship not necessarily dependent upon printing. <br> | ||
| + | We would like to stress these points, for they allow us to escape from the framework of one particular conjuncture – like, let’s say, relations between authors and the book market in eighteenth-century France –, and move across time and space, to look into the ways authority can be constructed in a given society at a given point of time. Dynamic theoretical models relating the literary phenomena with different areas of cultural life, as well as with the forces of attraction and repulse between groups or individuals competing in a market of both material and symbolic goods, like the ones proposed in Bourdieu 1991 or in Even-Zohar 1990, allow for a diversified approach, capable of taking into account the kind of strategies adopted by authors in different cultures at different times. <br> | ||
| + | Following this kind of reasoning, we could say that an author is whatever person a given society at a given time considers to be an author, independently of this person’s relationship to printing, to the book market, to the size of his audience, etc. This implies, obviously, to accept that neither texts, nor author’s names have specific intrinsic value in themselves: elements like literary appreciation and author’s reputation are also understood as social constructs, interrelated to the various configurations of the social space and subject to the interference of the institutional powers (political, ecclesiastical, academic, financial, etc., cf. Bourdieu 1991 and 1992). In this sense, may-be we should reformulate the initial question, and instead of asking «What is a female author?» or «Who is a female writer?» ask: «What, or who is a female author or writer at a given time in a given society? We would like to illustrate this point of view with the Portuguese case.<br><br> | ||
Revision as of 16:41, 8 January 2008
Female authorship and social networks in XVIIIth-century Lisbon
The question «What is a female author?» reminds us of the more general question, «What is an author?» (Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur?) presented by Michel Foucault in 1969, and again, by Roger Chartier, in the year 2000, by the Société française de Philosophie (Foucault 1994; Chartier 2000). The way each of these scholars answered the question can be taken as a starting point for the discussion presented here.
Michel Foucault (in a way continuing the discussion opened by Roland Barthes in 1968 with the announcement of the «Death of the author» (Barthes 1984) postulates the existence of a «function» called ‘’author’’, which he considers «characteristic of the way of existence, circulation and functioning of certain «discourses» («discours») inside a given society». This postulate enabled him to bring to attention the distance between the subject of a text and the biographical writer, as well as to emphasize the way in which an author’s name, or an author’s reputation can condition the reading of texts assigned to this function. On the other hand, speaking in general terms, but having in mind the French cultural reality, Foucault associated the emergence of this author function to the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, and associated it to the new rules of the property system in the bourgeois society, to the certification of certain discourses, as well as to their «penal appropriation» (the expression is Chartier’s) by censorship. In the hypothesis put forward by Foucault the need and the consequences of the «author function» would vary if applied to literary discourses or to scientific ones, being essential for reading the former and not always relevant for the reception of the latter.
When returning to the subject almost thirty years later, Roger Chartier retained the idea of the «author function», but tried to integrate this concept in a more precise historical approach, confronting Foucault’s theoretical proposal with facts related to librarian’s privileges, the invention of copyright, the emergence of the concept of originality and the association of the «author function» with published texts. In doing so, Chartier was able to redefine Foucault’s assumptions, and to integrate the concept of authorial property in the framework of the old-regime society and in the privilege-system from which librarian rights and the notion of copyright emerged, as well as the aristocratic models of validation of scientific, as well as literary texts. On one hand, Chartier draws attention to the fact that in the period between the twelfth and the eighteenth centuries, the name of the patron often had a function similar to that of the author’s, especially in the case of scientific texts. On the other hand, he recalls the weight given to the author’s name in the sixteenth century Spanish Inquisition indexes of forbidden books, and describes it as a prefiguration of the «author function». In doing this, he points out to the existence of modalities of authorship that are not necessarily linked to printed works: he speaks of an «author function» constructed not on the basis of the economical market, but built upon the aristocratic values of disinterest (the «economy of symbolic goods»). He concludes that the «genealogy of the «author function» for literary texts is of much longer durée than Foucault has suggested» (Chartier 2000, 22) and states that it is connected to the materiality of texts.
Even if Foucault’s opinions have been contested along the years by other scholars (for example: Foster 2002), the issues he raised, as well as their refutation by Chartier, can help us proceed to the discussion on female authorship:
First the emergence of the «author-function» is a concept of longue durée in the history of text transmission, and is historically and socially determined.
Second there can be various modalities of authorship not necessarily dependent upon printing.
We would like to stress these points, for they allow us to escape from the framework of one particular conjuncture – like, let’s say, relations between authors and the book market in eighteenth-century France –, and move across time and space, to look into the ways authority can be constructed in a given society at a given point of time. Dynamic theoretical models relating the literary phenomena with different areas of cultural life, as well as with the forces of attraction and repulse between groups or individuals competing in a market of both material and symbolic goods, like the ones proposed in Bourdieu 1991 or in Even-Zohar 1990, allow for a diversified approach, capable of taking into account the kind of strategies adopted by authors in different cultures at different times.
Following this kind of reasoning, we could say that an author is whatever person a given society at a given time considers to be an author, independently of this person’s relationship to printing, to the book market, to the size of his audience, etc. This implies, obviously, to accept that neither texts, nor author’s names have specific intrinsic value in themselves: elements like literary appreciation and author’s reputation are also understood as social constructs, interrelated to the various configurations of the social space and subject to the interference of the institutional powers (political, ecclesiastical, academic, financial, etc., cf. Bourdieu 1991 and 1992). In this sense, may-be we should reformulate the initial question, and instead of asking «What is a female author?» or «Who is a female writer?» ask: «What, or who is a female author or writer at a given time in a given society? We would like to illustrate this point of view with the Portuguese case.