Preliminary material / Editors Authority Matters -- INTRODUCTION: AUTHOR, AUTHORSHIP, AUTHORITY, AND OTHERMATTERS / Stephen Donovan , Danuta Fjellestad and Rolf Lundén -- THE BIRTH OF THE AUTHOR: THE ORIGINS OF EARLY MODERN PRINTED AUTHORITY / STEPHEN B. DOBRANSKI -- FOUCAULT AND DISCIPLINARY AUTHORITY / JAMES CHANDLER -- AUTHORITY AND THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR / JEREMY HAWTHORN -- AUTHORITY AND THE SOCIAL LOGIC OF RECOGNITION: POETICS, POLITICS AND SOCIAL THEORY / BO G. EKELUND -- THE LIFE OF THE DEAD: LAURA RIDING AND THE HISTORY OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY POETRY / JEROME MCGANN -- “BETWEEN TWO COVERS WITH SOMEBODY ELSE”: AUTHORITY, AUTHORSHIP, AND THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS / ANNA LINZIE -- IN THE PAPERS: HARDY, JOYCE, AND THE MODERNISTMOMENT / STEPHEN DONOVAN -- KNOWING THE DANCER: MODERNISM, CHOREOGRAPHY, AND THE QUESTION OF AUTHORITY / SUSAN JONES -- UNSETTLEDWHITENESS: THE LIMITS OF ALLEGORY IN THREE SOUTH AFRICAN NOVELS / MICHAEL TITLESTAD -- AUTHORSHIP AS RE-PLACEMENT / MICHAEL JOYCE -- THE AUTHORITY OF POETRY / ANN FISHER-WIRTH -- NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS / Editors Authority Matters -- INDEX / Editors Authority Matters.

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In this wide ranging collection of essays, eleven literary scholars and creative writers examine authorship and authority in relation to the production and reception of cultural texts. Ranging in time from the Renaissance to the era of digital publishing, the essays invite us to reconsider the influential theories of Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and Pierre Bourdieu for our understanding of writers such as Philip Sidney, Thomas Hardy, Laura Riding, W.B. Yeats, Gertrude Stein, and J.M. Coetzee. Shedding new light on authority’s complex role in the generation of cultural meaning, the essays will be of interest to students and teachers of literary history and critical theory alike.