According to the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, there are at least three ways in which an author signs a work. The first dimension or register of signing is the signature "proper"--the proper name placed on the title page identifying the source of the writing. The second register refers to what is commonly called "style"--"the inimitable idiom of an artist's work"--such that even without the availability of the proper name an experienced reader might recognize the author of a work.... [The] third register of the signature is the most complex, involving the heraldic placement of the name in the depths of the text. At this level the writer's name is seen as the seed out of which the text has grown, by a process of metaphorical and intertextual development. Retracing this process, an interpreter can find the author's name, hidden in the depths
--or, to use Derrida's word, the 'abyss'--of the text."
--Gregory ("glue") Ulmer, Heuretics.
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