The Death of the Author is a fucking great piece of literary criticism
>it has always seemed obvious to us that an author is a person who is responsible for a particular piece of work
>a writer, for example, would probably claim that he or she who the book, and therefore they were the author
>barth theorises that the whole notion of authorship needs to be rethought
>he argues that when a text is created, it is a multi-faceted manifestation of different cultures, ideas, languages, beliefs, theologies, philosophies etc
>so when a writer puts their pen to paper they believe that the ideas are their own, and when the book is finalised they claim to be the author of their creation
>the problem is that the self-proclaimed author has borrowed everything from previously existing texts that he or she has become aware of
>an example is, every word a writer has used is already in existence; these words on their own already have meaning derived from the earlier cultures and human expression
>so when we evaluate texts we tend to focus on the author, their ideas, methods, beliefs and ideologies
>however, Barthes explains none of the author's ideas are their own and probably belonged to no one in particular
>that being said, if it is not the author we should be looking towards to understand our art, then where should we turn?
>if the author is irrelevant, what gives such power to the text, what allows it to have such incredible purpose when we read or gaze upon it?
>Barthes believes we should look inside ourselves for the ultimate author
>we author the world; art, film, photography etc through our own interpretations and belief systems
>we ourselves ultimately decide what a text means, therefore creating new ideas and meanings in our mind
>the meaning of a text can only exist when interpreted, and anything can be interpreted in an infinite amount of ways
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