The Name of the Author

Nowadays, most of published books include the name of the author – authentic or fictive – on the covers of the books and the paratextual feature of the author’s name is both “very erractic and very circumscribed” (Genette, 1997, p. 38). It can be seen along with the title of the work throughout the epitext, in advertisements, in reviews, in prospectuses; or it can be only seen on the cover and the title page. Including the name on the title page and on the cover functions in two ways: on the title page, the name is recorded because of the legal decision about publishing policies, and on the cover, the name can be printed in various sizes depending on the author’s reputation (Genette,

1997, p.39). The author can use his legal name, or he can sign with a false name (pseudonym), or he does not sign it at all (anonymity). Gérard Genette has underlined that there is a link between the presence of author’s name and genre of the work, he has stated;

The author's name fulfills a contractual function whose importance varies greatly depending on genre: slight or nonexistent in fiction, it is much greater in all kinds of referential writing, where the credibility of the testimony, or of its transmission, rests largely on the identity of the witness or the person reporting it. Thus we see very few pseudonyms or anonyms among authors of historical or documentary works, and this is all the more true when the witness himself plays a part in his narrative. (Genette, 1997, p.41)

In the case of anonymity, the author can choose to hide his/her identity because of several reasons. For instance, in the classical period, people from higher class did not want to show their identity because of the reason that they saw their works as

‘unaristocratic’ works. Besides, some authors may think that their identity might diminish the success of the book or they may choose not showing their identities because of the possible persecution by state or church like in the case of Voltaire and Diderot (Genette, 1997, p.43).

Genette has examined pseudonymity within the larger set of practices: the first practice is the omission of the name (anonymity); the second is the fallacious attribution of the text to a known author (apocrypha); the third practice is a variant of the second, and in this practice the real author does not want to be identified and another author accepts to sign the work (apocrypha with permission); the fourth practice is the reverse of the second, in this practice someone signs another person’s work (plagiarism); the fifth one consists of getting permission of the real author to sign his/her work with another person’s name (plagiarism with permission, or ghostwriting); the sixth practice is a variant of the second and the real author attributes his/her work to an imaginary person provided with some information (imagining the author); the seventh practice is a variant of the sixth, the real author attributes his/her work to an imaginary author but this imaginary author is not provided with any information and so “he does not, in other words, supply the whole paratextual apparatus that ordinarily serves to substantiate (seriously or not) the existence of the imagined author” (Genette, 1997, p.47).

Theoretically, most of the readers receive the pseudonym of a writer as the author’s name without being able to question its reality. However, at the same time, as a paratextual element, the pseudonym may have an effect on the perception of the work, and Genette has supported this view that:

What concerns us about the pseudonym as a paratextual element is - independently, if possible, of all consideration of motive or manner - the effect produced on the reader, or more generally on the public, by the presence of a pseudonym. But here we must distinguish between the effect of a given pseudonym, an effect that may very well coincide with the reader's total ignorance of the fact of the pseudonym, and the pseudonym-effect, which, in contrast, depends on the reader's having information about the fact. (Genette, 1997, p.48)

If authors’ purpose is to use a pseudonym for supporting their intended allusion on the reader, like in the case of Gulliver’s Travels, the effect of the usage of a pseudonym may have an important role on the perception of the text. As it has already stated in the second chapter in this study that Jonathan Swift did not want to show himself as the author of the book because of two reasons: the probable legal sanctions and for supporting the authenticity of the voyages. Benjamin Motte, the first publisher of Gulliver’s Travels, preserved the purpose of Swift and did not record his name anywhere on the book, on the cover or on the title page. On the other hand, George Faulkner published Gulliver’s Travels within the collection of Jonathan Swift’s Works.

Although it was written on the title page of his edition that the author was Lemuel Gulliver, as a part of the collections of Swift’s works the intended purpose of Swift was not accomplished with this edition. After the eighteenth century, Swift’s name has been recorded on the title page or on the cover, and so Swift’s two purposes on using a pseudonym for his book has not been valid because people have already learned the real author of the book and the intended allusion on the authenticity of the voyages seems not to affect the reader anymore. Therefore, in all the complete Turkish translations of Gulliver’s Travels, the author’s name appears on the covers and also on the title pages.

There is only a slight difference on the font size of Jonathan Swift’s name appearing on the cover and on the title page. Besides, TT4, TT5 and TT6, published by the Ministry of Education, use only the first letter of his name “J” along with the full surname of Swift. To conclude, even though the name of the author was an important paratextual

element that could affect the perception of the book in Swift’s time, the effect of this non-textual element is insignificant on the perception of the translations.