Rethinking the concept of literary authorship through Vladimir Nabokov and W. G. Sebald

Reflecting on the complex legacy of ideas of authorship in modern literary theories, this dissertation aims to develop an approach to authorship that makes a strong case for retaining this controversial concept in literary criticism without losing sight of its complexity, situatedness, and diverse manifestations. This aim is achieved by putting recent theories of authorship in conversation with specific writers’ ideas and practices. Taking two innovative, self-reflexive, and theoretically informed writers – Vladimir Nabokov and W. G. Sebald – as the occasions for my discussion, I explore how their critical ideas and creative practices contribute to theories of authorship and, in return, how theoretical discussions of authorship illuminate some of the most fascinating and challenging aspects of their creative practices, thus attesting the value of this concept for literary criticism. Following an introduction which delineates the development of ideas of authorship in modern literary theories, outlines several key topics for discussion, and proposes potential methods for the study of this concept, the main body of this dissertation (nine chapters in total) is divided into four parts; in each part, I extrapolate ideas of authorship from a different set of sources (Nabokov’s critical writings, Nabokov’s novels, Sebald’s critical remarks, and Sebald’s prose fiction) and explore their implications for recent theories of authorship. Three common themes arise from my analysis: authorial creativity, authorial communication, and authorship as self-presentation. This in turn provides the basis for an approach to authorship which is at once more positive and more relativised: I suggest that the complex notion of authorship can be divided into several interconnected themes which reflect common functions, values, and concerns that have been rather consistently associated with this concept; under each theme, each writer may consider a different range of questions and provide distinct answers through critical reflections and creative practices.