David, some equally tentative thoughts inside yours below,
>I think, Kent, and I'm very tentative on formulating this, that it's
>something to do with knowing who to blame afterwards. That is to say, a
>matter of owning up and responsibility.
Hmm. In fact, isn't this notion of blame and responsibility at the heart of
Foucault's Author Function: "Blame," "responsibility," understood as
ideological effects bearing the felt force of ethical imperative-- and an
essential part of Power's feedback loop?
But what if we were inside a literary culture where it was accepted and
respected, as a matter of course, that any work may hide more regarding its
origins than its first denomination would denote? Where it was taken for
granted that heteronymous works exist and freely circulate amidst works that
can be given an "empirical" and genetic ascription? Where attributional
indeterminacy was welcomed into the very fabric of the reading experience?
Where readers were ready and willing to abide within a kind of negative
capability vis vis the authorship of a text? In this kind of milieu, I
think, "responsibility" would move beyond being just the burden of
authority, or “authenticity” the trademark of the Author's Name. The
situation would (I suspect it would, anyway) be much more fluid and
interesting.
>I find, too, that the personae can run loose quite well enough without >me
>giving them their own keys to the house. It's not that I 'outlaw' a >free
>rein to multiplicities, I just don't feel the need myself.
Fair enough. But do you "blame" those who follow their need to create and
present their writing inside imagined authorships? I take it you don't.
(Thank you, say Kierkegaard, Pushkin, Pessoa, and the author of the Tosa
Diary.)
>It would be like, for instance, contributing to this list under a
> >pseudonym. I couldn't do that, even tho' my surname minds me of a
> >fungus.
Heteronyms and e-mail pseudonyms are different things in kind, entirely. And
micology happens to be one of my hobbies: Boletellus betula (the
Shaggy-stalked Bolete) is as close as I can come to Bircumshaw.
From the top of Mount Bugs Bunny,
Kent
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