Authorship and history: Representations of the Second World War in modernist and postmodernist context

The concept of authorship has always been a problematical concept since ancient times and it has been defined and re-defined continously in philosophy, literary theory or from a personal perspective throughout history. While some of the approaches developed towards the understanding of authorship concentrate on texts and language, others argue that the act of writing requires the medium of inspiration muses. Such an idea have explained the author as a unique being who is above and beyond other people. The mutual point that these contrasting personal perspectives, philosophical mainstreams and the works of literary thought meet is mainly the contradiction between them. It seems that scientific and intellectual developments, and the changes that have created a differentiation in the world view and the change towards the perception of the human subject have brought about with it the evolution of authorship concept day by day. The idea argued by Roland Barthes in 1967 with his famous essay ?Death of the Author?, might be thought as an eventuality of the scientific and intellectual changes, as well as having the aim of highlighting the importance of language and readership in literary analysis. Similarly, Postmodern Theory, emerged in 1960s, also reveals out notions such as; the decline for the belief in the human subject, distruption of trust to knowledge, the changes in cultural, traditional and ethical values. Throughout history the concept of authorship has evolved and changed since Ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Today we trace an approach in which the creativity of an author is questioned and dismissed. In this study which is startled with the idea of questioning this understanding, there are various ideas, opinions, concepts and theories on authorship. By analyzing three novels that depict the Second World War, it is possible to see that it is not only the approach towards the author that have changed in time but also the approach of the author towards him/herself, the world and history. The style, language and the use of historical elements by these three authors from different cultures and experiences are completely different from each other. However, as can be seen in the conclusion part, all these three novels are creating a historical memory with a literary product and by doing this, they present the reader with pure human life which is full of dilemmas. From this perspective, literature is a historical memory and the author is the medium that transmits this memory.