Universidad tecnológica nacional

Licenciatura en Lengua Inglesa

Estudios Culturales I

Alumna: Alberti, María Laura

Foucault, M. (2000) What is an author? In Lodge, D. (Ed.), Modern Criticism and Theory. (pp. 173-
187). The United Kingdom: Pearson Education.

Foucault starts his essay by acknowledging the theories that speak about the death of the author. These
theories aim to put an end to the idea that the author is the owner of their work’s meaning, as it is
stated in Barthes’ essay “The death of the author”. However, Foucault thinks that these theories, in
fact subtly continue with the supremacy of the author. Foucault thinks that it is not enough to affirm
that the author has disappeared; we have to refill their empty space and pay attention to the gaps they
leave in the text.
Foucault makes a difference between the proper name of the person who wrote the piece of writing
and the author. The personal details about the person do not influence their being the author of a text
or not, thus, the author is not a person but a function. This function permits to group a number of texts
together, differentiate them from others and characterizes a certain mode of discourse which can
receive certain status in a given culture.
Foucault mentions the characteristics of the author function: 1) It is linked to the juridical and
institutional system that regulates ownership, rights of reproduction, censorship etc... 2) It is not
important in the same way all over the world and at all times.3) It does not develop spontaneously
from the attribution of a text to an individual but it is a complex process based on four criteria: level of
works’ value, conceptual or theoretical coherence, stylistic unity and the relation the author’s
historical moment and the events he depicts. 4) It does not refer to a single individual but it can
represent several classes of individuals.
Foucault also mentions another kind of author that, in his opinion, appeared in Europe in the 19th
century: “the founders of discursivity”. These authors, for example Marx or Freud, produced more
than a work of art but the possibility for the formation of other discourses or theories through the
divergence that arose from their work. This is called discursive initiation and should not be confused
with scientific founding.
To conclude, I will summarize Foucault’s idea of the author: it is not the source of meaning of a piece
of writing but a function of discourse by which we regulate the circulation and composition of fiction.