Michel Foucault Part III

Foucault divides his definition of the author into two sections. He begins by addressing the term “author” as a proper name. The proper name of an author acts as a descriptor of a work. For example, a critic can define a work as being by a specific author. The proper name acts there as a classification: Hamlet was written by Shakespeare, not Marlowe. However, the proper name raises some complications as a description or classification, since it also refers to the individual that wrote the work. As Foucault says: “the links between the proper name and the individual named and between the author’s name and what it names are not isomorphic and do not function in the same way.” Foucault presents as an example the fact that if we were to prove that Shakespeare was not born in the house in which we think he was born, it would change our view of the individual Shakespeare, but not the author Shakespeare. If, however, we proved that Shakespeare wrote Bacon’s Organon by proving that the same author wrote both Hamlet and Organon, we would change the functioning of the proper name.