The Medieval “Author”: An Idea Whose Time Hadn’t Come?

Abstract

The term “author” has become so much a part of our vocabulary and literary attitude that it’s natural to feel that it must always have been so. As Heidegger says: “The artist is the origin of the work. The work is the origin of the artist. Neither is without the other.”1 Since the Renaissance, the author has been conceived as the professional “literary figure” who writes works according to conventions, which he both internalizes and transforms to make an “original” creation. Literary criticism, theory, and history were bound to consider the work and the author together.