Collectivity

At the turn of the millennium the author had his comeback in the literary- and cultural studies. Looking at the theoretical debates, it may seem like he has come alone. The recent increase in studies that focus on literary writing and authorship is centred around a notion that became dom- inant in the 18th century: individual persons accounting for determinable texts. But all the settings that require either more than one author or that include the staging of collective authorship have hardly been considered. This book aims to include these underrepresented forms of literary practice and to fill this gap. Thus, it brings together problems of literary theory with aspects of the ongoing debate about artistic collaboration and co-creation. Initially this study exposes the hegemony of the paradigm of individual authorship since the 18th century that was strengthened and imparted by elements of discourse like the copyright, the title page and the presentation of books in public as well as private libraries. It has been domi- nant until today and affects the perception of literary texts ever since. At the same time this para- digm obscures that these individual texts were often the result of collaboration. It is striking that collective authorship is a rare phenomenon while different forms of collaboration in the process of textual production appear to be quite common. Therefore, this book examines the relationship between representative or authorial and productive or compositional sphere. The origin of the tension in this relationship can be traced to one point in particular: If art should be something that cannot be taught and that cannot be delegated to others then it has to be tied closely to the individual and its ability to create works of art out of itself. The success of literature that modernised itself around 1770 is founded on this principle. At the same time, thi s prosperous notion creates the problem that all productive collaboration appears as a contamination of the pure relationship between creator and work, and it becomes a necessity to clean the au- thorship from the residues of productive collaboration. This book makes this complicated relation between the authorial and the productive sphere visible. Therefore, it doesnt simply list different kinds of collaborations, but describes them in their relations to a certain form of authorship.