Reading Michel Foucault's Theory on Death and Function of Author and its Relation to Plagiarism

This essay deals with a question concerning the relation between plagiarism and the author function in the discourse of literature. Author function is a term used by French philosopher, Michel Foucault (1926-1984) to analyze the notion of author and its formation within the discourse of literature. This paper would consider plagiarism according to the author function, maintaining this assumption that a discourse named literature belongs to modern age and is formed in the framework of modernity. Plagiarism, in this sense, is an economic category and we can study archaeology of plagiarism and its relation to ownership of property. As a result, whenever there is ownership it is meaningful to be plagiarized. Therefore, we investigate notions of plagiarism, discourse of literature and author function respectively in order to study archaeology of the function of plagiarism as an economic metaphor within episteme of modernity, regardless to any value judgment.