How to make sociology of singularity? Authorship and literary field

Abstract

If the starting point of sociology of the author statute in literature is the social functioning of the pieces and also the conditions of their production in specifi c space, the way to analysis should follow the logic which is the base of that creation. The modern literary activity isn’t free of the tension between the affi rmation of individual singularity associated value and the collective rules that form and guide the literary world relations, like the ways of acclaim and acknowledgment. From there comes the shock between the ways of individual behavior and the organization of social institutes that set the literary world. The goal of this article is to place the author, while a historical subject of a “singularity regime”, in front of the structure of the literary fi eld. In order to achieve that, the article establishes a possible dialogue between the comprehensive approach of the sociologist Nathalie Heinich and the science of literary works designed by Pierre Bourdieu.