Vineland/constructed authors

[White, Rich]

.*++Rich White wrote:
.*++
.*++>Why trust anybody?  Can we not judge the work without caring who the 
author
.*++>is?
.*++>
.*++Messages without messengers are an impossiblity.  If we don't know who 
the
.*++author is, we invent the author as we read. We also do this when we do 
know
.*++who the author is, because we almost automatically attach personality to
.*++voice. So when we don't know (or can't trust what we are told) about an
.*++author, it bothers us.  We long for some external corroboration of the 
image
.*++we have created as we read.  Anonymous, pseudononymous, and composite
.*++authors turn this natural tendency into a kind of teasing game: you 
don't
.*++know who I am but this is who I want you to believe I am.
.*++

OK, but how about Beowulf, or the Epic of Gilgamesh for instance?  Even 
perhaps the Bible in parts...
And there's the temptation to invent another author where a perfectly good 
one already exists.  (Shakespeare/Bacon).