Main Article Content
Abstract
The etymological relation between author and authority implies the hierarchical authority inherent in the texts’ addressor. The authority of the writer of the text stems from his perception as the source of the text, similar to the perception of the signified in general as the source of the sign. Therefore I wish to capture in the concept Author-ity a wider system of connections between the act of representation and its validity, a system that is manifest as authority within the social order, since the semiotic relations between the source and its copy include a necessary dimension of hierarchy, whether between addressor and addresseror between signifier and signified. The politics of literature or of representation in general, are one aspect of Author-ity and the other aspect literature or the representation that is in politics. The relationship between polities and its justification is relationship of representation; the holder of authority claims it since the authority he uses represents a more elementary authority, whether it is the will of the people, the will of the people, the word of god or civil rights. Therefore politics will always require representation, whether by a member of parliament representing the sovereign citizen, or by a novel that structure the ideology that justifies the government.