Overview

"The Birth and Death of the Author is a work about the changing nature of authorship as a concept. In eight specialist interventions by a diverse group of the finest international scholars it tells a history of print authorship in a set of author case studies from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century. The introduction surveys the prehistory of print authorship and sets the historical and theoretical framework that opens the discussion for the seven succeeding chapters. Engaging particularly with the history of the materials and technology of authorship it places this in conversation with the critical history of the author up to and beyond the crisis of Barthes' 'Death of the Author'. As a multi-authored history of authorship itself, each subsequent chapter takes a single author or work from every century since the advent of print and focuses in on the relationship between the author and the reader. Thus they explore the complexities of the concept of authorship in the works of Thomas Hoccleve and John Lydgate (Andrew Galloway, Cornell University), William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe (Rory Loughnane, University of Kent), John Taylor, ""the Water Poet"" (Edel Semple, University College Cork), Samuel Richardson (Natasha Simonova, University of Oxford), Herman Melville (and his reluctant scrivener ‘Bartleby’) (William E. Engel, Sewanee, The University of the South), James Joyce (Brad Tuggle, University of Alabama), and Grant Morrison (Darragh Greene, University College Dublin)."

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Reviews

"""Tuggle’s chapter is appropriate and educational for both seasoned scholars of Joyce and those who wish to learn more. In considering the collection of chapters holistically, one sees that the other authors’ essays are similar in that they offer a fresh investigation into their designated century of authorship as it related to the author(s) and text(s) discussed. My only minor quibble about the work as a whole is that an understanding of the general area of criticism requires knowledge about Barthes and his theoretical landscape, but Power’s introduction is a wonderful presentation for those eager to learn and others who may require a refresher."" --Amanda Greenwood, James Joyce Quarterly 60: 1-2 (Fall 2022-Winter 2023)"

Author Information

Andrew J. Power is Assistant Professor of English in the Department of English Language and Literature, University of Sharjah, UAE. He took his BA (hons) and PhD in English at Trinity College Dublin (1999; 2006) and has since held posts at the University of Cyprus and Saint Louis University – Madrid Campus. He is the editor of Late Shakespeare, 1608-1613 (2012), of Early Shakespeare, 1588-1594 (2020), and of a Yearbook of English Studies special issue on Caroline Literature (2014). His forthcoming monograph is entitled Stages of Madness: Sin, Sickness, and Seneca in Shakespearean Tragedy.

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