Authorship and Scholarly Editing
Dirk Van Hülle · Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2019
In his famous lecture “Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur?” Michel Foucault paradoxically refers to the author Samuel Beckett when he quotes the line “Qu’importe qui parle,” which Foucault interprets in terms of indifference. The full quotation is “Qu’importe qui parle, quelqu’un a dit qu’importe qui parle” [“What matter who’s speaking, someone said what matter who’s speaking”] 1 – which adds an important nuance. For even though the gist of the line is that the biography of the author may be irrelevant, it does indicate that even the questioning of authorship involves a “speaker” or “writer.” If one chooses not to include biographical research in literary criticism, this usually implies the exclusion of the “bio-” element; but it is harder to ignore the “graphical” facet, the fact that writings are written , by “someone.”