Picture from Corbis.com. This picture was taken in June 9th, 1978 by © Sophie Bassouls.
*Wikipedia says that this essay was first published in Aspen in 1967. Here is the reproduction of the issue.
© Bettmann , 1976, Corbis
Biography Roland Gerard Barthes was born in Cherbourg on November 12, 1915 and died in Paris, on March 25, 1980. He taught and wrote about semiology, linguistics, sociology, philosophy, music, wrestling, fashion, and photography.
Link: e-notes
A few key words: readily and writerly, punctum and studium, symbolized and signified, author and scriptor.
Links: Readerly/Writerly, linguistics, Third Factory
Introduction From “Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote” by Jorge Luis Borges (Fictions, 1941). This is not the best translation, but it helps.
Summary of "La mort de l'auteur"
Barthes starts with Balzac’s description of femininity and sensibility of a castrato disguised as a woman. Barthes questions Balzac’s voice in the story: who is speaking? Is it Balzac the individual or Balzac the Author? Is Balzac a product of his time or is this “a universal wisdom”?
When we write, Barthes explains, we are no longer ourselves, “[w]riting is the destruction of every voice, every point of origin.” In traditionally oral (or ethnographic) societies, the audience admires the shaman or the storyteller’s performance, but not his or her genius.
Historically speaking, the Author [Author = Authority = God] was born in the Middle Ages, and grew with the English empiricism, French rationalism, the personal faith of the Reformation, the positivist individualism, and finally capitalism. The Author is a tyrant. His or her life explains their work of art of literature. For Barthes, criticism tries to limit the text by giving the text an Author: when the Author is found, then the text is explained.
When speaking of the act of writing, Barthes refers to the contributions of Mallarmé, Valéry, Proust, the Surrealist movement, and linguistics to conclude that the Author is death. To Mallarmé, language speaks, not the Author. Valéry sided with “the verbal condition of literature.” Proust based his life on his book. The surrealists believed on automatic and collaborative writing. Linguistics stated at the time, “the Author is never more than the instance writing… language knows a ‘subject’ [as in a grammatical subject], not a ‘person.’”
Temporality changes when the Author is removed. If we think about the Author, there is a before and after the book. If we think about the text only, it becomes an eternal entity, it is always here and now.
The text is never original, since it is a tissue of quotations and imitations taken from the language and the culture that the scriptor (modern writer) and the reader share. The reader is who provides the text with meaning and unity. The reader has no history, biography, psychology, etc. Barthes ends his essay as follows, “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.”
Questions:
1. Can the reader really hold the unity of the text?
2. Is it possible for the reader to decode the tissue of all meanings of a text?
3. Can the act of writing become just another automatic skill that we can steal or copy, like putting your shoes on or typing?
Print the handout (pdf)
Bibliography:
"Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote" Ficciones. Jorge Luis Borges. Buenos Aires: Emecé, 2004.
Author! Author! Reconstructing Roland Barthes Author(s): Clara Claiborne Park Source: The Hudson Review, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Autumn, 1990), pp. 377-398 Published by: The Hudson Review, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3852208
Reports of the Death of the Author Author Donald Keefer. Source: Philosophy and Literture, Vol. 19.1, (1995), pp.78-84 Published by: The John Hopkins University Press, Access via VCU Periodicals
Unamuno and "The Death of the Author" Author(s): Frances Wyers Source: Hispanic Review, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Summer, 1990), pp. 325-346 Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/473810
Secondary sources:
Post-structuralism and Foucault
Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art (fragments) ed. Peter Lamarque
This page is for educational purposes. Barthes' pictures are the property and copyright of Corbis.com. Lorem ipsum.
Lulú De Panbehchi is the living author of this page, she can share language and culture via tascari-at-gmail. By the way, she doesn't agree with Barthes.