Abstract
The chapter deals with the question of how the author comes into being in the complex process of the creation of the literary work and to what extent this process can be understood as self-creation. After a brief overview of the conceptual history of Western authorship the starting point becomes Bourdieu's theory of the literary field as the "new science of authors".
However, the process of (self-)creation of the author is better explained in different, yet related frameworks; the chapter therefore turns to the rhetorical theory of the ethos as self-presentation in discourse (Ruth Amossy), the analysis of ethos emphasizing incorporation and scenography (Dominique Maingueneau), author's posture as a persona and an individual manner in which a position in the literary field can be adopted (Jérôme Meizoz), and the role of hermeneutic and narratological frameworks in this process (Liesbeth Korthals Altes). After a summary of the theoretical issues follows an interpretation of the creation of author's ethos and posture and the authors self-creation in the novel The End of Eddy (2014) by Édouard Louis.