An Analysis of Michel Foucault's What is an Author?

Foucault's 1969 essay What is an Author? applies the same approach to the central figure of literary criticism: the author, asking, against the grain of our intuitions, whether an “author” is truly the real individual who writes a text, or something else.

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Michel Foucault’s 1969 essay “What is an Author?” sidesteps the stormy arguments surrounding “intentional fallacy” and the “death of the author,” offering an entirely different way of looking at texts. Foucault points out that all texts are written but not all are discussed as having “authors”. So what is special about “authored” texts? And what makes an “author” different to other kinds of text-producers? From its deceptively simple titular question, Foucault’s essay offers a complex argument for viewing authors and their texts as objects. A challenging, thought-provoking piece, it is one of the most influential literary essays of the twentieth century.