When I think of how author's in the past have almost no inter-textuality with other texts--that is, they only have unidirectional textuality, as they themselves cannot refer to other accessible texts--I find them extremely courageous and "original," in that they are creating texts from what meager literary resources they have at their disposal. But then, they themselves wouldn't be aware of their literary scarcity, since they must have other texts they have accessible to them, and they might not even view texts as that meaningful a referent for their own literary works. They might view their oral traditions as their identity-stabilizing, contextualizing framework, and think they are but merely building upon that, and think of those who came up with those oral traditions as brave and creative.

The function of an author does not derive from the author him-/her-self, but from the context and the virtual intersubjectivity between contemporaries. It might also be derived from the particular subject matter that the author is discussing. Thus, the function of an author cannot be determined by the author alone, but must be determined by an author-cluster, whether contemporaneous or intradisciplinary. "Rich" or "thick" meaning must be derived from its surroundings, or else the author risks being placed in a vacuum with nothing to contextualize it or play off meaning from it. Even from the first place, an author must be made intelligible by common-language, or a translation-route.

This makes it impossible for us to detach an author from history and into the author's own sphere of meaning, for the author did not and cannot create his/her own universe of discourse, but the universe of discourse created the author, or at least "completed" the author, made the author possible.

(2021.11.18)

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