In one of perhaps the most contentious essays written in the late sixties, Barthes suggests a divisive act – to remove the author in any interpretation of their text. By doing so, he goes on to say, welcomes a multiplicity of interpretation through language itself, ‘…it is language which speaks, not the author; to write is, through a prerequisite impersonality…to reach that point where only language acts, ‘performs’, and not ‘me.’’ (p. 222). Barthes’ conception of the ‘readerly text’ – a traditional realist text thought to be a product of the author’s genius understands the reader as a passive ‘consumer’ of the text – relaying precisely what the author intended for the text to speak about. In contrast, the death of the author for Barthes engages his concept of the ‘writerly text’, one which engages with an active involvement of the reader in decoding its meaning.
Since the text no longer has a unitary meaning attached to its author, we begin to ask questions about originality and individualism. Barthes’ deconstruction of the transcendent notion of the ‘Author-God’ – that is, the single important figure in the explanation behind the text links it to network pathways and interconnected spheres, inviting multiple truths, ‘The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture.’ (p. 223). Thus, intertextuality is constantly at play in modern society – originality ceases to exist and the ‘world we perceive is one not of ‘facts’, but rather of ‘signs about facts’, which we encode and decode ceaselessly from signifying system to signifying system.’ (Onega, S. Structuralism and narrative poetics Literary Theory and Criticism Oxford Uni Press, 2006).
Barthes mentions the influence of Surrealism and ‘automatic writing’ – the process of writers collaborating to create a piece of work flowing unaware in a quasi-subconscious manner. He also mentions the influence of Marcel Proust and his concept of ‘blurring’ the relationship between the writer and their characters. In doing so, the narrator of the text becomes ‘he who is going to write’ (p. 222).
Barthes predicates the author as a product of modernity – distilling meaning from authorial intentions and their biography imposes restricting limitations on that text. The author’s death is synonymous with an holistic transformation of the text itself, ‘(…the text is henceforth made and read in such a way that at all levels the author is absent.’ (p. 222). The modern scriptor’s (us, the readers!) birth is located with the birth of the text itself. The multiplicity begins and ends with the reader’s own interpretation, ‘…a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination.’ (p. 224).
Barthes’ controversial essay generated an overwhelming response from contemporary theorists. Foucault’s response to Barthes with What is an Author? in 1969, in many ways challenged the complete dissociation of the author from their text. Instead, Foucault realised the limitations of linking the author holistically to their text but agued authorship cannot be moved entirely away from their intellectual property rights such the taxonomy of the text.
That's a good summary of a very philosophically strange text. When I was reading Barthes for a philosophy unit, my lecturer was very critical of this article; he accused Barthes of being "philosophically brutish", which on reflection I think means that his method is somewhat crude. Just remove this "author" - and bang! Simple as that! He wants to focus on the text itself, and tries to incorporate what was previously the author into, as you said, part of the unfolding action of a text, rather than the creator of it. I think perhaps Foucault has a better grip on the philosophical complexities of the matter.
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