Getting a Life: Biographical Constructions of Chaucer the Man

Abstract

It has been thirty years since Roland Barthes announced the supposed “death of the author,” but even today there is evident resistance to the author’s hypothetical critical murder. One need only look in book reviews, newspaper articles, or in many scholarly studies to get a sure sense that the idea of the author remains very much alive and well in the twenty-first century. The reason for the concept’s endurance may be nothing more than the seemingly obvious fact that, as the novelist Malcolm Bradbury puts it, “in the common-sense world… writers have common-sense existences.”3 Although the call for the author’s demise has promoted much helpful discussion, it is apparent that the pronouncement was premature. The author lives, and thus literary biography, the focus of this chapter, remains a valid, useful tool for scholars.4KeywordsEighteenth CenturyNarrative PersonaDocumentary EvidenceRevere AuthorDocumentary RecordThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.