Contents

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Preface ix
4. Introduction: Reconstructing the Author xv
5. Part 1: The Aesthetic and Textual Debate
6. Section 1: Changing Conceptions of Authorship
7. 1. Plato from Ion 13
8. 2. Plato from The Republic 19
9. 3. 'The Significance of the Medieval Theory of Authorship 23
10. 4. from An Apology for Poetry 31
11. 5. 'Conjectures on Original Composition 37
12. 6. from 'A Defence of Poetry' 43
13. 7. from 'Crisis in Verse' 51
14. 8. 'Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming 54
15. Section 2: The Twentieth-century Controversy
16. 9. Tradition and the Individual Talent' 73
17. 10. 'Literature and Biography' 81
18. 11. 'The Intentional Fallacy' 90
19. 12. 'Criticism and the Experience of Interiority 101
20. 13. Validity in Interpretation 108
21. 14. The Exorbitant. Question of Method 117
22. 15. The Death of the Author 125
23. 16. A Meditation upon Priority, and a Synopsis 131
24. Part 2: The Politics of Authorship
25. Section 1: Feminism and the Authorial Subject
26. 17. The Madwoman in the Attic 151
27. 18. Castration or Decapitation?' 162
28. 19. 'Feminist Tracks' 178
29. 20. Changing the Subject: Authorship, Writing and the Reader' 193
30. Section 2: Ideologies and Authorship
31. 21. Writing For One's Age' 223
32. 22. 'Creation and Production 230
33. 23. What Is an Author?' 233
34. 24. What Was an Author?' 247
35. 25. Author' 263
36. 26. Postcolonialism and the Author: The Case of Salman Rushdie 277
37. 27. The Ethics of Signature' 285
38. 28. Taking Philosophy Seriously' 292
39. Part 3: Writing the Self
40. 29. Essays 309
41. 30. Second Meditation 312
42. 31. Why I Am a Destiny 320
43. 32. Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote'; 'Kafka and His Precursors'; 'Everything and Nothing'; 'Borges and I' 328
44. Index 340