| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,200,000)
Fiscal Year 2000: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
Fiscal Year 1999: ¥1,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,800,000)
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| Research Abstract |
The purpose of the present research is to elucidate, through each author's point of view, the notion of the author-work relationship in the Eighteenth century France. For this stage of the investigation, we have chosen Prevost's periodical Le Pour et contre (1733-40), his other novels, and Diderot's Lettre sur le commerce de la librairie (1763), and examined them in comparison with the laws concerning the press, the writings of other authors, administrators, booksellers and jurist representing the booksellers.
Prevost claims the authors' ownership upon the "form" of the work, but not on its "idea" : he is willing to share with other authors the idea of his work, allowing them to continue his work. For Prevost considers that the author is not someone who "creates", but who learns and makes a present of his knowledge to his contemporaries. Prevost's attitude is therefore quite distant from the romantic conception of the absolute author-work relationship.
As for Diderot, he regards his work as the result of the author's personal efforts, thus absolutely his property. But he also admits that the bookseller having bought a manuscript entirely enjoys the same ownership as its author had. The apparent paradox of this idea results from the fact that Diderot ignores the spiritual aspect of a literary work, assimilating it to material objects just like land and trees. The same idea had been expressed repeatedly by the booksellers and their spokesmen since the beginning of the Eighteenth century. Compared with the idea of able administrators like Malesherbes who had already been aware of the modern notion of the author's right, this aspect of Diderot's thought is surprisingly old-fashioned, which has never been pointed out before us. We are now preparing a French article on this subject.
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