In the early seventies, David Bowie killed off a character he had invented. Ziggy Stardust — the neon, synthetic-clad alien that Open Culture calls just one of many personae Bowie deliberately built — was created and then retired, on purpose, by the person wearing him. It is one of the cleanest examples of an artist taking an invented self back.
Most invented selves never come back. That turns out to be the thread running through this week's literary reading: the difference between a persona, which still belongs to its maker, and an archetype, which has quietly become everyone else's property.
Open Culture notes in passing that it doesn't quite ring true to call Bowie a rock star, because the stardom was itself part of the concept. That's the tell. A persona is a costume with a person inside it, and the person can hang it up.