'What is an Author?'#1

Michel Foucault (1926-1984)
'Existencialism, indeed artistic Modernism in general, privileged the author.'º
Excertos:
'The coming into being of the notion of "author" constitutes the privileged moment of individualization in the history of ideas, knowledge, literature, philosophy, and the sciences.(...) it performs a certain role with regard to narrative discourse, assuring a classificatory function. The author's name serves to characterize a certain mode of being of discourse: the fact that the discourse has an author's name, that one can say 'this was written by so-and-so' or 'so-and-so' is its author.(...) it is a speech that must be received in a certain mode and that, in a given culture, must receive a certain status.
A private letter may well have a signer - it does not have an author; a contract may well have a guarantor - it does not have an author. An anonymous text posted on a wall probably has a writer - but not have an author.
The author-function is therefore characteristic of the mode of existence, circulation, and functioning of certain discourses within a society.

º_the organizor