Original Intent: The Question of Authorial Autonomy
Deron Bauman

To what extent is a reader, or a publisher for that matter, obligated to accept the original intentions of an author in a work of fiction? If the author is Herman Melville, to quite a great one. One may read "Bartelby the Scrivener" in an anthology, or stumble across the contents of The Piazza Tales out of order in a selection of Melville's fiction, but to encounter them out of the context and structure of which they were intended is to lessen their impact and disregard the intention of the intelligence behind their structure. Each tale revolves around the notion of the piazza as described in the title story: a piazza, an outside porch or balcony that surrounds a house, defines a physical and psychological space from which the world may be viewed. Melville uses this space as the premise upon which each of the tales revolves; without this context, the full impact of the collection is lost, or, at the very least, is lessened. The full impact of Melville's intention is only to be had in the relationship of the tales to each other, in the relationship of the subsequent tales to the title story's themes. Without this context, each of the stories may be read in the context of their own craftsmanship or ingenuity, but the larger implications of psychological perspective, of projection, of narrative reliability are jeopardized by their exclusion. Not every author must or should be trusted to the details of a manuscript's structure: many writers pay no attention to the implications of a story's placement in a collection, but when an author does pay attention, or has paid attention--to the degree that Melville certainly has in The Piazza Tales--to expel certain of the tales to exile in anthologies, or to separate the tales from their original order in selected works is to undermine the relationships between the stories that only come when viewed at the pace of unfolding determined by their order in the original work. Too often publishers of out of print fiction, essays or poetry, publishers banking on the weight of a particular author's name, are more concerned with the fact of the publication than with the details involved within. Font sizes, line heights and page proportions, not to mention paper thickness--or the organizational qualities listed above--are secondary to the need of the appearance of having published a particular author in retrospect. A great writer should be republished, but, the careful construction and intentions of the author should not be undone arbitrarily, especially when the structure of a particular work adds to the implications of the pieces contained within it. Such publication is irresponsible and leads to a fractured understanding of the impact of a particular writer. Jorge Luis Borges has been greatly misrepresented to English speaking readers who find a handful of his stories represented in translation, giving the impression that one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century produced only a few items upon which his importance might be judged. Certainly the quality of his work represented in English is superlative, however, the ability for a reader of English to discern the shades and shapes of his progression, sadly, is unavailable. When possible, and at whatever cost, the intentions of an author should be upheld in situations in which their disregard results in a lesser impact than achieved by their union.

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