L’auteur retrouvé

L’auteur retrouvé (Droz) reconsiders the long-debated question of authorship in the Middle Ages. Stout challenges the assumption that the “author” emerges alongside modern notions of individual subjectivity. Focusing on a collection of Francophone manuscripts by various authors from the High Middle Ages (1100–1340), L’auteur retrouvé reveals a different story: not one of proto-modern minds asserting control over their works, but of collective, carefully orchestrated editorial practices. Through this fresh lens, Stout shows how medieval compilers constructed vernacular authorial figures in dialogue with classical traditions, changing our understanding of how the idea of the author first took shape.