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[Paolo Ruffino]

Sorry for the late post, hope you have all read or are reading Barthes' essay "The Death of the Author". In this provoking and influential essay he suggest a new method for literary criticism.

What do you think are the implications of Barthes' essay for Barthes' essay?  Does Barthes undermine his own argument?
Who is the author of the essay?
Is there an author?
Does it matter to find out how he/she is?

Answers, as well as further questions, are welcome :)

[media2011]

‘We now know that a text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original blend and clash’ (pg 146). This implies that we borrow and blend other people’s writing in order to create our own and cannot physically invent new writing, of which we have ownership. However if we cannot create original writing then at least there is the possibility that we can be original in our interpretation of it. Another point to be made; new language is constantly entering into our culture; surely in this way the the Author cannot be ‘conceived of as the past of his own book’ (pg 147) and can be rightful owner?

[media2011]

A further thought to Rowland Barthes’ work; he argues that the author is merely stringing borrowed words and meanings together and the real performer is the reader. This implies the author of the text did not intend to create a piece of writing, however; it’ seems impossible that anyone could declare a piece of work unintentional.

[dietcokeaddict91]

I do not think this is exactly what Barthes is saying, yes he suggests that an author is never original, and that the text created is merely a collection of borrowed words. But this is more to do with the fact that they get their ideas through their culture, a culture with which they are not alone. The way in which we format a sentence is not original as our culture has taught us to write our words in this way, our letters look the way they do through out culture. They way we express these borrowed phrases is what is perhaps original.

[star21]

I find Barthes ideas interesting but also think his argument is flawed in many aspects. I agree with media2011 and dietcokeaddict91 interpretations of the text in that we can never be original in what we write. What media2011 says however, 'it seems impossible that anyone could declare a piece of work unintentional' seems to be a plausible idea as of course any writing requires some sort of thought process.

Barthes explains that 'by refusing to assign a 'secret', an ultimate meaning, to the text, liberates what may be called an anti-theological activity, an activity that is truly revolutionary since to refuse to fix meaning is, in the end, to refuse God and his hypostases - reason, science, law.' (p147). Some would interpret this as giving the writer the status of God, it is however contradictory as the idea of science goes against the theory of God and religion.

Our world is made up of a variety of different texts, any part of which can be taken in order to give meaning to. In my opinion, a piece of writing will always have elements of the author within it as writing style and interpretations is a reflection of their identity. However, an author can remain anonymous. It is possible that the reader needn't consider the writer's identity as that reader and their personal explanation of the text is likely to be unique and individual.

[Sammy]

Some, like Sean Burke who wrote 'Death and Return of the Author", have argued against Barthes, stating that the author's identity does matter. He believes that one wouldn't read a text unless they knew who the author is. "The discovery of a text like Freud's 'Project for a Scientific Psychology' will modify psychoanalysis if and only if it is a text by Freud" (P. 93).

So in addition to star21's point about the Author's identity's influence over his/her writing, the Author's identity can also influence the reader's choice of whether to read his/her text. However, I believe that texts are free from the Author since by interpreting texts differently from other readers, one is not under the influence of the Author's identity. Therefore, to answer the questions in the first post, I say no, 'Death of an Author' has no Author, but a scriptor with no influence or authority over the reader, as explained by Barthes (P.145), who, after having said this, did not undermine his argument.

[Molly Ko]

 "Death Of The Author" is more like a concept from the field of literary criticism which holds that an author's intentions. and However, biographical facts of the author should hold no weight when coming to an interpretation of his or her writing;hence, that a writer's interpretation of his own work is no more valid than the interpretations of any of the readers. What I think is, books are meant to be read, and so the ways readers interpret them are more important and "real" than the ways writers write them. But of course, text's meaning vary to different reader's interpretation. It would be sloppy and flawed Barthes said if we as readers would to impose a limit on the text by the author's political view, religions, ethnicity, or personal attributes.

Barthes emphasized that the author is merely a "scriptor" that produces and not to explain the work which is "born simultaneously with the text". "Every work is eternally written here and now" meaning to say each reading's original meaning lies exclusively in the language itself, and its impressions on the reader.

However, I've got a question here, how many of us, nowadays, are impressed by the work itself rather than the impression of the author. What do you first look at when you're buying a book? The author's background, status popularity, or the impression of the work?

[Paolo Ruffino]

Molly Ko and Sammy have a good point. There is something left of the author.
In literary criticism after-Barthes we can say that the author, (her/his biography, previous works, context when the text was written etc.) influences our understanding of the text, but should be regarded as a further text, with its interpretations and meanings. The author is understood differently in different periods and by different readers, so we can consider it as part of the personal background of the reader who is approaching the text, or as a figure we delineate by reading the text.
It would be naive to think that we actually look at the text and the text only (what would that mean? what would be the boundary of the "text", then?). The author, or the imagined author, is still influencing our understanding. An handwritten letter sent by a friend and a published novel are approached differently, and that's a platitude we should not pretend to forget. Umberto Eco said that we can better understand the author as a strategy, inscribed in the text. Reading a text we reconstruct the author, or at least how he/she wanted to appear from the text. After-Barthes however it has been accepted that the interpretation of a text (including our understanding of the author) starts from the text, or from previous texts that we might or might not know or have heard about.

[Molly Ko]

Adding on to my previous comment, i think this is somehow connected to how 'miscommunication of words' often occur in our daily life. Just because words have multiple meanings, a text could be easily misinterpreted based on its context. Miscommunications of this sort inevitability happen and are a root cause of many of the conflicts and misunderstandings that occurs in our daily life. Hence, it is important to consider the non-verbal aspects of communication as importantly as you would consider what a person is trying to send. So we can't be simple judging one's message based on our personal culture upbringing or experiences.

[rihanna123]

In a way Barthes writing becomes quite vulnerable because it is open to our own interpretations. As stated; ‘Writing is that neutral, composite oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing.’ This concept applies to his own writing- where the subject slips away, by the new reader. Barthes ideas are very abstract- my own knowledge and assumptions are shaped separately, yet I still understand the meaning given by Barthes. The death of the author is symbolic of the way our writing here and now ends, when somebody else starts to read and takes our ideas.

 

[09071540]

I agree with Media2011, that surely it cannot be that when an author writes, he/she lacks intention because without intention there would be no inspiration nor purpose to write. What does, however, make sense from our seminar discussion of the Barthes reading is that the original intention of a text can be lost in translation and the reader's interpretation.

With regard to our Hypomnemata being an ideal example of the Writing Subject because of the amalgamation of different cultural texts and our interpretation of these texts, I would just say that although I do not necessarily take into account the intentions of the author of the cultural examples, I definitely take into account the intentions of the authors of the key texts that we must use in order to effectively and "correctly" analyse the cultural examples. Therefore, I disagree with Barthes that the author is utterly dead because in order to begin to understand a text, one must understand the context and in order to understand the context for which the text is purposed, it is useful to know at least who the author is (and maybe a bit of background of the author).

For example, when I receive a text message from an unknown number and without a name signed off, it is impossible for me to understand the meaning and purpose of the text message because of a lack of knowledge of who the writer is.

[Fúnke]

I don't know if it quite fits in with Barthes' theory, but recently I've had an experience possibly similar to the topic being discussed, if a little off on a tangent.

I've been reading the books from the A Song of Fire and Ice series by George R. R. Martin, which recently had a televisionseries created (A Game of Thrones) that I watched before reading the books. The people I'd spoken to who had read the books before seeing the series based on the first book talked a lot about how different the characters looked to how they had created them in their heads, and on a similarly, even the differences in the pronunciation of their names. Alternatively having done it the other way around and watched the television show first before going on to read through the books, I can't picture the characters as anything other than how the actors look on the show. No doubt the people I had spoken to who had read the books first all had different images of the characters, similar to what Barthes seems to be saying regarding the interpretation ultimately lies with the reader.

[popcorn]

The author has power and authority over their text and every text has an author. We cannot therefore put the author to death. Barthes essay may only apply to some extent to fiction of which we may enjoy our right as a reader to interpret how we like the text ranging from premise to characters. By that I mean our opinions are what influences our meaning but does not put to death the authors influence. For example the so called lady in Balzac does have her characteristics of ‘irrational whims’ and instinctive worries. However, whether she be the heroine or not is up to us as a reader to decide. However, her fixed character cannot be ignored. Each of the genres we believe it belongs to are up to us as an audience to argue but whether we can support this means is not the same. Therefore an author has meaning within a text and if ours as a reader can undermine it then that text may not be worthy of officially being called a novel or article etc

[mouse90]

I agree with the above comment about how you create a specific world of characters and events for yourself when you read a book that may be different to somebody else’s interpretation. I recently had a similar experience. Having read the ‘Twilight Saga’, I then went to see the film which has recently hit cinema screens. Although I knew what to expect from the narrative and was familiar with the appearance of the characters (from previous films and promotions), it somehow did not transpire on screen how I had pictured in my head; which was a little disappointing.

This links closely with Barthes notion of interpretation ultimately lying with the reader. Once the author has been removed, the text has no limits and people can read the words how they like; even if it is not as the author intended.

The writing subject presents the idea that writing is free and can have any meaning. It is a not definitive in any way unlike studies of science, reason and law but it more focussed on the notion of interpretation.

[BJRushy]

The words are borrowed, so they say;
whatever is intended is taken away
as you scan your eyes across the page;
just an insignificant verse floating in cyberspace,
note and think that just what you see,
is not a product of myself, not me,
but a tiny fragment of some reality
that you percieve it to be.

Bear in mind that while you judge,
while over my thoughts and words you smudge
your own meaning, from each little letter
word and centence strung together,
you indeed are an author too;
as you write your words pour through,
the minds and beings of another,
perhaps a brother, sister, mother;
and in their minds they surely do not see
everything you envisaged it to be.