The riddle of authorship, the control of the discursive production and the manifestation of truth: an analysis of the 14th century work Virgeu de Consolaçon

Abstract

This study presents an analysis about author-function and about the roles played by the subjects in the manifestation of the truth. This study was based on the analysis of the portuguese work Virgeu de consolaçon (unidentified manuscript whose production dates from the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th). Based on the theoretical-methodological support of the discourse analysis, mainly the foucauldian theory, the study mobilizes, above all, the concepts of aleturgy (FOUCAULT, 2014a) and author (FOUCAULT, 2000; 2014b; CHARTIER, 2012). The development of the analyzes is configured from the unanswered question about the identification of an author to the work (that motivated philological investigations throughout the 20th century) and with the aim of demonstrating the effects, precisely, of the erasure of authorship in the Virgeu de consolaçon, whose gesture pemit to understand the of subjet as author of the manuscript and his role in the revelation of the truth provided by the work. As a result, we have: I. the definition of the Virgeu de consolaçon as a ritual manifestation of the truth, by the role of the author; II. the identification of the role played by the authorities who enunciate in the work and III. the identification of the role played by the monk who reads the work.