The Author Is Dead. Long Live the Author!
Keywords:
literary theory, author, authorship, autobiography, autobiographical literature, Kovačič, LojzeAbstract
Although the 1960s and 1970s brought about explicit declarations of the death of the author (Barthes) and sought other concepts to replace it (e.g., Michel Foucault’s authorial function), the author survived. Where does our inability to locate and define an author of literature come from? My hypothesis is that an answer can be found through analysis of the heterogeneous nature of our subject, to be more precise, in an analysis of his/her two roles – empirical author and author as a function who is, according to Foucault, located on the threshold of a text or a discourse. – The paper deals with two autobiographical texts by the Slovene writer Lojze Kovačič – descriptions of the author’s experiences in primary school as he described them in novels Basel and Otroške stvari (Childish Things).References
Barthes, Roland. »Smrt avtorja.« Sodobna literarna teorija. Aleš Pogačnik (ur.). Ljubljana: Krtina, 1995. 19–23.
Foucault, Michel. »Kaj je avtor?« Sodobna literarna teorija. Aleš Pogačnik (ur.). Ljubljana: Krtina, 1995. 25–40.
Koron, Alenka. »Avtobiografija, fikcija in roman: o možnostih žanra ’roman kot avtobiografija’.« Primerjalna književnost. XXVI. 2 (2003): 65–86.
Kovačič, Lojze. Basel. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba, 1989.
– – –. Literatura ali življenje. Ljubljana: Študentska založba, 1999.
– – –. Otroške stvari. Ljubljana: Študentska založba, 2003.
Leben, Andrej. »O avtobiografiji z vidika sodobne genologije in sistemske teorije.« Primerjalna književnost. XXX. 1 (2007): 83–95.
Toporišič, Tomaž. Ranljivo telo teksta in odra. Ljubljana: MGL, 2007.
