Literary Forgery and the Construction of Meaning in the Publishing Process
Magdaleen Snyman
Abstract
Literary forgery has been a controversial topic throughout history and affects the discipline of book history on various levels. Literary forgeries are often discredited and discarded simply because of the deceit in their origin, however these texts contain many clues about the history of publishing. Forgeries beg the question of whether an author’s identity is linked to the meaning of a text and gives researchers the opportunity to identify where authority and power lies in the publishing process at a specific time in history. This article will use Robert Darnton’s communication cycle as a basis to describe the publishing process of a text and the various role-players involved. By examining two cases of literary forgery, the role-players in the publishing cycle and their impact on the reception of the text by the reader will be highlighted. By examining reader-response theories the article will attempt to show how meaning is constructed through a dynamic process and examines how this process occurs in the case of literary forgery. This article will also show the complexities of “authenticity” of meaning to showcase why forgeries are treated in specific ways at specific points in history. In conclusion the article will attempt to show why forgery was deemed necessary by the authors in the two cases described and prove that book historians should see these texts as valuable artefacts, worthy of study.
Magdaleen Snyman
Abstract
Literary forgery has been a controversial topic throughout history and affects the discipline of book history on various levels. Literary forgeries are often discredited and discarded simply because of the deceit in their origin, however these texts contain many clues about the history of publishing. Forgeries beg the question of whether an author’s identity is linked to the meaning of a text and gives researchers the opportunity to identify where authority and power lies in the publishing process at a specific time in history. This article will use Robert Darnton’s communication cycle as a basis to describe the publishing process of a text and the various role-players involved. By examining two cases of literary forgery, the role-players in the publishing cycle and their impact on the reception of the text by the reader will be highlighted. By examining reader-response theories the article will attempt to show how meaning is constructed through a dynamic process and examines how this process occurs in the case of literary forgery. This article will also show the complexities of “authenticity” of meaning to showcase why forgeries are treated in specific ways at specific points in history. In conclusion the article will attempt to show why forgery was deemed necessary by the authors in the two cases described and prove that book historians should see these texts as valuable artefacts, worthy of study.
