When I read a book I want to dive down into a world, or a consciousness, and listen to just one voice tell a story. I want to absorb just one person’s insights. I want to stay, listening to that story, and that voice, without interruption, for more than two minutes at a time. The thought of that one voice interrupted by a thousand others disturbs me to no end. -- Posting Titled "Lost in the Tower of Babel" from Dogpoet's blog.
Dogpoet writes the above paragraph in response to an article that claims that Web 2.0 will change authorship as we know it. New technologies allow readers to respond to author's works-in-progress. Dogpoet (hereafter, DP) sees this as a major loss. What I find especially interesting though, and I have posted this on DP's blog, is this idea of the solitary author, writing alone and uninfluenced by others.
This notion, though romantic wasn't ever really a reality. We can see this in many circumstances. First, most books aren't actually written by just one person. Editors step in at many stages in today's publication process. Similarly, writers' workshops offer writers instant feedback from up to twenty readers. And even asking a friend for her thoughts risks altering that "one voice" of the author.
On a deeper level though, we can see that the author has never really been alone. This blog post on plagiarism clearly points out the intertextual influences, known or unknown, that each writer is subject to. Bakhtin also calls attention to this interplay of ideas of words when he writes, "our speech, that is, all our utterances (including creative works), is filled with others' words" ("The Problem of Speech Genres" 89). Similarly, in "The Death of the Author," Barthes argues, "a text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author."
And, the more I read Rebecca Moore Howard's Standing in the Shadow of Giants: Plagiarists, Authors, Collaborators, the more I'm coming to understand that this (incorrect) notion of the original author, uninfluenced by those around him, is unique to our time and culture.
What does all this mean? As writers (and scholars) it means that we need to acknowledge the influence of others' words on our thoughts, actions, and words. We need to be aware that our culture, even our culture before the web, holds our hand as we write, constantly directly and reshaping that work-in-progress. If we accept this, we can embrace the true potential of the cacophony of voices in our lives and blend them to a unified, unique whole.
4 comments:
The concept of the spontaneous and individual genius is not exactly from our time, but from the late 1700s-early 1800s with Kant (individuality) and the Romantics (spontaneity).
It is tied to the concept of the self as a political entity, which I for one have no intention of giving up, as it is the basis of democracy.
This is not a competition between the isolated Burckhardtian genius and the Greenblattian mass forces. That is a false dichotomy because those ideas are not opposed, but work in tandem in subtle, difficult ways that can't be captured in a generalization or reductionist, superficial reading such as Howard's.
Consciousness evolves (awareness of self, society). We don't work with (we aren't) static entities.
I feel ambivalent as I read Howard. In certain moments, I am swayed by particular arguments she makes and happily highlight what she has written. Like lynn168, I find myself agreeing with many points that Howard makes.
Other times, I am not able to completely understand what she is arguing especially when her arguments rely heavily on literary theory. I am swayed, sometimes, by those on the blog who have more experience in applying literary theory to the texts we are reading. I have this sensibility about our debate. I feel that I am not informed enough to make a decision or interpretation - like someone trying to vote in a democratic election without knowing the candidates' platforms and relying on a summary of the issues from another, possibly biased, well-meaning person. (sorry for all the wordiness)
I feel that I do benefit by reading Howard. I believe, at the very least, that she raises important issues in writing that I was not aware of. Perhaps her generalizations or leaps are too sweeping. I do feel sometimes that I'm riding on a roller coaster of topics while reading. I think, though,that she has successfully sparked a dialogue and, for me, serious contemplation on why plagiarism, in its most well-intentioned form, may happen.
I'm enjoying reading the Napster article by DeVoss, because a) it is written in such straightforward language that my brain has less strain on it and b) it seems to be filling in the gap for Howard's arguments made in 1999 (or 96). Anyhow, the Napster article is explaining the impact of the digital age on student writing in composition classes - what I have read so far. It seems to be headed in the right direction. Can't wait to read the rest. Can't wait to hear the debate in class.
In the spirit of blending, I offer:
April is the cruelest month, and
Now is the winter of our discontent.
Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I
But she walks in beauty like the night.
As the lowly worm climbs up the winding stair
Blow bugles blow –
And into the valley of death rode the six hundred,
In search of Eldorado.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Not sure having those voices in my head actually creates anything, though.
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