Composite authors

[Hartwin Alfred Gebhardt]

Paul writes:

> What are the defining characteristics--if any--of such work?

reader response

> What do they tell us about an "author's" "individuality"?

"the author is dead"

> Fascinating questions, I think....

For the authors, maybe. But then we know, from TRP's example, that an 
author doesn't have to be 'present' for the text to be interesting. 
Being rather old-fashioned myself, I tend to think that any composite 
author is bound to be even more, well... _composite_ than any 
singular author. Unless there's a coordinator allocating specific 
sections of narrative to specific writers, becoming head-writer cum 
director - but hold it, then we'd simply end up with a TV series. Come 
to think of it, there's your example of composite authors - soap 
operas. Fairly common, after all.

hg
PS. My personal nightmare is that soon we'll be seriously studying soap 
operas as literary texts - they today have about the status novels had 200 
years ago, and look what happened to the novel.
      Where the reading of novels prevails as a habit, it occasions 
      in time the entire destruction of the powers of the mind.
                                                             (Coleridge)
hag at iafrica.com