Page 133 - Student: dazed And Confused

“Goe, little book” (Ben Johnson); “Go, dumb-born book” (Ezra Pound).

Who has ultimate ownership of a literary work, the writer or the reader?

When we look at the question of whether the write ultimately owns a piece of work, we must
wonder how many other people influence (and therefore ‘own’, at least in some small way)

the creation of a work. It is largely accepted that the author of a piece of written work owns

it because the words have ‘issued forth from his head, heart and pen’ (T James, p24,
1995). As the audience, we also like to think that we own it too because no-one can have

experienced it or interpreted it in exactly the same way. A lot of people lend their support
during the process of literary creation - and now after the work has been written. With so

many variables, one could ask if the question is really as simple as writer or reader, or even if
we can answer it. Maybe we cannot find an answer to what is quite a complex issue but we

can explore such matters as whether more than one person can own a piece of literature and

how this may be possible. But, let us look for the moment at the moral issue of who owns it.
The argument that the writer owns it will be formed alongside ‘A Little Cloud‘ from

Dubliners by James Joyce, and the case that ownership lies with the reader will be with ‘Je

Ne Parle Pas Francais‘ by Katherine Mansfield.
We will briefly turn our attentions to what constitutes a writer or reader. The writer is

the person whose name is on the cover of the book; the person who has worked away on that
piece of writing. The reader is the consumer of that work; the one for whom the writer has

produced his story. Now that we understand these words, let us begin the study.
James Joyce was born in Dublin in 1882, and wrote this account in 1914.

‘I am writing a series of epicleti - ten - for paper. I have written one.

I call the series Dubliners to betray the soul of that hemiplegia or
paralysis which many consider a city.’

(J Joyce, letter to C P Curran, 1904)
So it is fair to assume that the book of stories was influenced by the people and places

he found within Dublin. Many characters within Dubliners are well-observed and acutely
written, but in the case of A Little Cloud, the main characters of Little Chandler and Ignatius