In Securing the Past, Paul Eggert tells us (though not in this way) that works of art cannot be like dark matter. Dark matter, though invisible, is thought to exist because observations of objects and light in the universe tell us that it must. It is an ideal construct that completes an equation. For Eggert, the artistic or literary work is by no means such a calculable unity. The subject-object relationship at the heart of Enlightenment thought overemphasizes authorial agency and cannot account for works' readaptation over time, which obscures any notion of their connection to a coherent, originary intention.
But why go over this ground again, so often covered since the late 1960s? The answer is that while the poststructuralist critique of authorship (here Eggert cites Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida) has in many ways been a welcome intellectual development for textual editors and conservators, it has not...
