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Death of The Author Summery1

Roland Barthes argues that the author is "dead" and should not be the focus of analyzing a text. According to Barthes, the meaning of a text lies with the reader and their interpretations, not with the intentions of the author. Barthes believes the author is just a "scriptor" influenced by various factors, and that their ideas are not entirely original. Once written, a text can be interpreted in many ways by different readers. Barthes asserts that the death of the author is necessary for the birth of the reader and their interpretations to take precedence over trying to understand the author's perspective or intentions.

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Ratan Roy
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3K views3 pages

Death of The Author Summery1

Roland Barthes argues that the author is "dead" and should not be the focus of analyzing a text. According to Barthes, the meaning of a text lies with the reader and their interpretations, not with the intentions of the author. Barthes believes the author is just a "scriptor" influenced by various factors, and that their ideas are not entirely original. Once written, a text can be interpreted in many ways by different readers. Barthes asserts that the death of the author is necessary for the birth of the reader and their interpretations to take precedence over trying to understand the author's perspective or intentions.

Uploaded by

Ratan Roy
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Q:Write a note on Death Of the Author.

Ans: In his essay The Death of the Author, Roland Barthes attacks the tradition of
Classic criticism (which he describes as being tyrannically centred on the author ),
presenting the argument that there is no such thing as the Author of a text, but
merely a scriptor whose ideas are not entirely original; the author is subject to
several influences when writing, and as Barthes says we can never know the true
influence because writing destructs every point of origin . It is not the author whose
voice vanishes at the point of writing, but language that speaks; therefore, the text
requires an analysis of language and linguistics, rather than a speaking voice. Barthes
emphasises that once the author is removed, it is within the reader of the text that
any meaning lies, as the text is open to multiple interpretations by the reader, that
the author may not have originally intended (deeming the reader as the more creative
force), making the author seem an insignificant figure in literature.

Barthes enhances his theory by presenting several examples to illustrate


his reasons for believing that the author is dead, before finally delivering his main
declaration. Beginning the essay by pointing out the disappearance of the narrator in
modern literature, Barthes uses the example of the story Sarrasine by Balzac to
illustrate the claim that the author disappears at the point of writing, for the reader is
able to distinguish more than just a solitary voice in the lines of the text:

'This was woman herself, with her sudden fears, her irrational whims,
her instinctive worries, her impetuous boldness, her fussings, and her
delicious sensibility. Who is speaking thus? Is it the hero of the story bent on
remaining ignorant of the castrato hidden beneath the woman? Is it Balzac the
individual, furnished by his personal experience with a philosophy of Woman?

The notion of the author being merely the medium through which writing
is presented (it is not the authors genius but mastery of narration which is
admired) is first examined in the following paragraph, as well as the conflicting Classic
criticism - The explanation is always sought in the person who produced the text
where the belief has always been that the work is the sole responsibility of the
author.

Barthes then goes on to refute this by presenting the example of Mallarme,


who stressed the importance of linguistic analysis (it is language that speaks, not the
author) , as well as Prousts contribution to modern writing, showing the reversal of
the roles of author and writing; author creates text becomes text creates author. The
lack of meaning in a text found in Surrealist works, which Barthes mentions also
emphasizes the degradation of the Classic concept of author. He states that
Surrealism, along with the study of linguistics of a given text, helped contribute to the
death of the author. He claims that language knows a subject not a person. So the
person studying the language of a text will concern themselves more with the subject
and less with the person behind the words.
His definition of the word text a multi-dimensional space in which a
variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. - emphasizes that the
writer of such text is never completely original (demoting the God-like Author to a
modern scriptor). Bathes is saying that the author or narrator who is really the voice
of the author himself is becoming less of an entity within the text itself. By drawing a
contrast between the author and the narrative voice and language he succeeds in
distancing the author from his work and adding to his disappearance. Barthes stresses
that the author is the past to his own book. These things have already happened to
the author therefore creating a gap between the author now and the narrator of the
text as it occurs (the scriptor):

The Author, when believed in, is always conceived of as the past of his own
book: book and author stand automatically on a single line divided into a before
and an after. The Author is thought to nourish the book, which is to say that he
exists before it, thinks, suffers, lives for it, is in the same relation of antecedence
to his work as a father to his child.

Therefore, the difference between the text and the work itself becomes an issue. The
text would be what would be happening to the author right then and there, as the
work as a whole would be associated with the author. The distancing between the
author and the narrator grows because of this and adds to Barthes argument.

The final paragraph states that reading is the true place of writing, using
the example of the Greek tragedies with texts that contain words with double
meanings that appear one-sided to the characters. However, the reader (the
audience) is aware of the double meanings, implying the multiplicity of writing rests
on the reader for open interpretation. A texts unity lies not on its origin but on its
destination. Pointing out the importance of the reader in literary analysis, Barthes
shows that Classic criticism was imposing a limit on texts by only focusing on the
author themselves.

It is likely that when Barthes says the birth of the reader


must come at the cost of the death of the Author, he is thinking
idealistically, not realistically. It would help the interpretations and
understanding of the reader for there to be no connection between the
Author and the text, in that Barthes is correct. If the only focus was the
individual interpretations of the reader then the absolute disassociation of
the Author with the text would be a beneficial thing. However, I dont
believe that the Author will ever be completely dead. Barthes said that
the Author should get neither praise for a good book, not blamed for a
bad one and yet this is exactly why the Author will never be fully dead.
Readers want heroes and villains, people to look up to and people to
despise. A good writer earns praise from the readers and social status,
but a controversial writer can draw just as much negative attention as an
inspiring writer can draw positive attention. In this way people seek to
categorize their lives, and to categorize books the readers need labels.
Their favorite labels are the Authors who wrote the books. I think that the
readers are partially responsible for the continued presence of the Author,
as well as the Authors own interests in being involved. Is the Author fully
dead? No, but neither is he fully alive either. The Author is stuck
somewhere between.

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