The Death of the author and it's Postmodern implications
Summary
TLDRThis NPTEL lecture on Postmodernism in Literature explores the concept of 'The Death of the Author' by Roland Barthes, a seminal text for poststructuralists and postmodernists. The lecture delves into the intellectual tradition of authorship, contrasting it with modern practices and the influence of New Criticism. It emphasizes the shift from author-centric to reader-centric interpretations, where the text's meaning emerges through reader engagement rather than authorial intent. The lecture also touches on the historical emergence of the author figure and its implications for literary criticism and theory.
Takeaways
- 📚 **Postmodernism Introduction**: The lecture begins by revisiting the concept of Postmodernism, emphasizing its role as a critical framework for analyzing cultural trends and literary events.
- 🔍 **Close Reading of Texts**: The session focuses on a close reading of specific texts to understand Postmodernism, moving beyond theoretical discussions to practical literary analysis.
- ✒️ **The Death of the Author**: The central text for discussion is Roland Barthes' 'The Death of the Author,' a foundational poststructuralist text questioning the traditional importance of the author in interpreting a text.
- 🎨 **Modernism to Postmodernism Shift**: The shift from Modernism to Postmodernism is marked by significant changes in various cultural practices, including the 'death' of certain artistic and literary conventions.
- 🖼️ **Art and Authorship**: The discussion extends the concept of authorship beyond literature to other fields such as graphic design and film, highlighting the broader implications of Postmodern thought.
- 📜 **Historical Context of Authorship**: The essay 'The Intention Fallacy' by Wimsatt and Beardsley is mentioned as a precursor to Barthes' work, both challenging the idea that an author's intentions are central to understanding a text.
- 🗣️ **Reader's Role**: Barthes argues for the primacy of the reader in the interpretation process, suggesting that meaning is not inherent in the text but is constructed by the reader.
- 🔗 **Text and Reader Connection**: The text is seen as reaching its full identity through the reader's engagement, detaching the importance of the author's role after the text's creation.
- ✉️ **Work vs. Text**: Barthes differentiates between a 'work' as a physical object and a 'text' as a process in language, where the latter involves the reader in a dynamic interpretive act.
- 🚫 **Rejecting Authorial Authority**: The transformation of a work into a text occurs when the reader refuses to accept the author's authority over the text's meaning, promoting a democratic reading experience.
- 📈 **The Rise of the Author Figure**: Barthes locates the emergence of the author as a modern construct, linked to Western philosophical ideas and the rise of individual prestige during the modern era.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the NPTEL course session on Postmodernism in Literature?
-The main focus of the session is to explore Postmodernism through a close reading of specific texts, particularly Roland Barthes' 'The Death of the Author,' and to discuss its implications on the concepts of authorship, text, and reading practices within a Postmodernist framework.
What is the significance of the title 'The Death of the Author' in the context of Postmodernism?
-The title 'The Death of the Author' signifies a critical shift away from traditional views of authorship, suggesting that the author's intentions and identity are not central to the interpretation of a text. It aligns with Postmodernist and Poststructuralist ideas that emphasize the reader's role in creating meaning.
How does the end of Modernism relate to the concept of 'The Death of the Author'?
-The end of Modernism marked a cultural and intellectual shift that included the 'death' of various frameworks and subject positions, including the traditional concept of the author. This shift paved the way for the emergence of Postmodernism, where the authority of the author over the text's meaning is questioned.
What is the role of the reader in Barthes' view of a text?
-In Barthes' view, the reader plays an active role in the meaning-making process. The reader engages with the text and participates in its interpretation, with the text's meaning being derived from this interaction rather than being inherent within the text itself.
How does the concept of a 'Readerly text' differ from a 'Writerly text' according to Barthes?
-A 'Readerly text' is one that requires a passive reader, as the author has predetermined the meaning and there is little room for interpretation. In contrast, a 'Writerly text' demands an active reader who engages with the text to create meaning, offering a more participatory and interpretative experience.
What is the distinction between a 'work' and a 'text' as defined by Barthes?
-A 'work' is a physical object, like a book, that can be held and occupies space on a shelf. It becomes a 'text' only when it reaches the reader and engages in a process of interpretation. A text is a process in language that involves the reader in decoding and meaning-making.
What is the historical context of the emergence of the author figure according to Barthes?
-Barthes argues that the author figure is a modern construct, emerging at the end of the Middle Ages in connection with English empiricism, French rationalism, and the personal faith of the Reformation. It is a product of Western philosophical ideas and the needs of modern society.
How does the concept of authorship evolve across different historical periods?
-The concept of authorship has evolved significantly over time. In primitive societies, the author was often absent, with more emphasis on the performance of the speaker or mediator. In earlier literary periods, many works were authored anonymously, and the identity of the author was not crucial. It was not until the modern era that the author's identity became central to the text.
What is the relationship between the author's intentions and the interpretation of a text in the New Criticism approach?
-In the New Criticism approach, the author's intentions are considered irrelevant to the interpretation of a text. This school of thought, represented by Wimsatt and Beardsley's 'The Intention Fallacy,' argues that the text should be read in isolation from the author's biography and intentions.
How does the essay 'The Death of the Author' challenge traditional views on the authority of the author?
-The essay challenges traditional views by arguing that the author's identity and intentions are not central to the meaning of a text. It posits that the text's unity lies not in its origin (with the author) but in its destination (with the reader), and that the reader, not the author, is the key participant in the meaning-making process.
What is the significance of the title 'The Death of the Author' as a pun on 'Le Morte d’Arthur'?
-The title 'The Death of the Author' is a pun on 'Le Morte d’Arthur,' a work that popularized the legends of King Arthur. This allusion suggests a parallel between the end of the author's dominance in textual interpretation and the end of the reign of King Arthur, highlighting the thematic focus on the decline of the author's authority.
Outlines
📚 Introduction to Postmodernism in Literature
This paragraph introduces the NPTEL course on Postmodernism in Literature, highlighting the aim to delve into specific texts that exemplify Postmodernism as a concept and a critical framework. The session's focus is on Roland Barthes' seminal essay, 'The Death of the Author,' which is frequently referenced by Poststructuralists and Postmodernists to discuss the relationship between the text, the author, and contemporary reading practices. The lecturer also connects the end of Modernism with the 'death' of various frameworks and the rise of new cultural practices, such as the evolution in painting and the emergence of Pop-art, to set the stage for the discussion on the changing role of the authorship.
🎨 The Evolution of Authorship Across Disciplines
The paragraph explores the broader implications of authorship beyond literature, referencing recent discussions in graphic design and film theory that elevate the roles of the designer and the director, respectively, to that of an author. It also mentions the historical evolution of the author's role, from the anonymity of early literary works to the modern emphasis on the author's identity. The discussion leads to the intellectual tradition that predates Barthes' essay, with references to Wimsatt and Beardsley's 'The Intention Fallacy,' which marked a significant shift in literary criticism by differentiating between the author and the text, challenging the importance of the author's intentions in interpreting a text.
📜 The Intellectual Context of 'The Death of the Author'
This paragraph provides historical context for Roland Barthes' essay, positioning it within the broader literary and cultural shifts of the 1960s. Barthes' work, which argues for the 'death' of the author as a critical figure, is situated alongside other influential texts of the time, such as Derrida's 'Of Grammatology.' The paragraph emphasizes the significance of the essay's publication in 1967, a pivotal year in the history of Postmodernism, and discusses Barthes' own intellectual journey from Structuralism to Poststructuralism. The summary also touches on the distinction between 'Readerly' and 'Writerly' texts, highlighting the active role of the reader in the latter and the shift away from the author as the sole source of meaning.
🛠 The Transformation of Work into Text
The paragraph delves into the transformation of a work into a text, emphasizing the reader's role in this process. It discusses how a work becomes a text when the reader engages with it, refusing to acknowledge the author's authority over meaning. The text is described as a 'play' between the reader and the text, allowing for an open and experimental interaction. The paragraph also distinguishes between a work and a text, with the latter being a process in language that is brought to life through the reader's engagement. The author's role is diminished, and the reader is celebrated as the key participant in the meaning-making process.
🗝️ The Historical Emergence and Role of the Author
This paragraph examines the historical emergence of the author figure, arguing that the author is a modern construct that arose during the transition from the Middle Ages. It discusses how the author's role has evolved over time, from a period where authorship was not emphasized to the modern era where the author's identity is central to the interpretation of a text. The paragraph also connects the rise of the author with broader intellectual and philosophical trends, such as English empiricism and French rationalism, and suggests that the author figure is a product of Western intellectual thought and societal needs.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Postmodernism
💡Close Reading
💡Author
💡Poststructuralism
💡Text
💡New Criticism
💡Reader
💡Meaning
💡Structuralism
💡Work vs. Text
Highlights
Introduction to the NPTEL course on Postmodernism in Literature, emphasizing the importance of understanding Postmodernism as both an idea and a critical framework.
The session's focus on close reading of texts to understand Postmodernism, particularly Roland Barthes' seminal text 'The Death of the Author'.
Discussion on the Postmodernist and Poststructuralist use of 'The Death of the Author' to challenge traditional views on text, authorship, and reading practices.
Exploration of the end of Modernism and the beginning of Postmodernism as a period marked by the 'death' of multiple frameworks and subject positions.
Analysis of changes in painting and the emergence of Pop-art as indicative of the shift from Modernism to Postmodernism.
The concept of the Author's death being part of broader cultural and intellectual shifts beyond the literary realm.
The intellectual tradition traced back to Wimsatt and Beardsley's 'The Intention Fallacy' as a precursor to Barthes' ideas.
Introduction of the Auteur theory in film and the evolving perception of the Author's role across different media.
Barthes' distinction between 'Readerly' and 'Writerly' texts and the implications for reader engagement and meaning-making.
The argument that the text's unity lies not in its origin (Author) but in its destination (Reader), emphasizing reader's role in interpretation.
Differentiation between a 'work' and a 'text', with the latter being a process in language involving the reader.
Barthes' view on the Author as a symbol of authority and controller of meaning, and the necessity for the reader to challenge this authority.
The transformation of a work into a text through the reader's engagement and refusal to acknowledge Authorial Authority.
The historical context of the Author's emergence as a modern figure, linked to English empiricism, French rationalism, and Reformation.
The Author's role in discovering the prestige of the individual and its significance in the historical context.
Encouragement for participants to read the original version of 'The Death of the Author' for a deeper understanding of Barthes' arguments.
Transcripts
Good morning everyone; welcome to today's session of the NPTEL course Postmodernism
in Literature. In the first week’s lectures we started looking at the idea of Postmodernism,
we spoke about the different frameworks within which Postmodernism exists and the multiple
ways in which one could begin to access it as an idea and also as a critical framework.
So, in today's session, we begin to look at particular texts, we begin to undertake
a close reading of texts which are helpful to frame and understand Postmodernism as an idea,
as a movement, and as a conceptual and theoretical framework. We also in the first week’s lectures,
reiterate the idea that Postmodernism in this course, is being used as a conceptual
and theoretical framework which could be used to analyze particular cultural
trends particular literary events and also various intellectual and literary sites.
So, today's lecture is titled The Death of the Author and its Postmodern Implications.
The Death of the Author, as some of you may know, is a very seminal text which is
increasingly being used by Poststructuralists and also by Postmodernists to talk about the
ideas related to text and Author and also the practices of reading in the contemporary. So,
we try to undertake a close reading of this text by Roland Barthes by engaging with it within the
Postmodernist frameworks. And also to see how this text enables us to question and to redefine
various conventional aspects related to reading, text’s Author and also the practices of criticism.
In the end of Modernism, as we have seen in the previous lectures, it signaled the death
of many things that Modernism stood for. So, when we talk about The Death of the Author it
is not a singular thing that happened in the Postmodern phase. The end of Modernism and
the beginning of Postmodernism also signaled and marked the death of multiple frameworks,
various objects and subject of positions as well. For example, if we take the case of painting after
the Modernist period; we saw a gradual breaking down of form, leading to a denial of subject. And
then we also saw how brush stroke and texture was altogether demolished from the practice of
painting, we also saw significantly the emergence of Pop-art with Andy Warhol’s digital art, digital
painting. It also became a movement and a dominant cultural iconic practice. And gradually, towards
the end of the Modernist period, and with the high period of Postmodernism, we also saw there is a
complete annihilation of any painting technique. So, this is the end of a Modernist journey in
painting. And in various other forms of practices and trends, we could see similar kinds of deaths
happening. In fact, we saw the death of art as an institution, the idea of a text has undergone
a number of changes and even the Author’s authorship- all of those are the contested
notions in the contemporary times for the shift from Modernism to Postmodernism.
So, in today's session, we begin to locate the idea of the Author, if Roland Barthes’ essay
talks about The Death of the Author, and in the beginning it is also important for us to trace
within which intellectual tradition, discussions about the Author had begin to emerge; this is not
a new thing that Barthes entirely initiated and this is not the discussions about the Author even
now we need to reiterate that it is not yet over. For example, there is a book as recent as
published in 2013, about the designer, titled The Designer as Author Producer Activist
Entrepreneur Curator and Collaborator- this is a work by Stephen Mccarthy;
it has been much discussed in this field of graphic designing also elevating the position
of a graphic designer to that of the Author. And in film theory this has been discussed a
little earlier in the previous decades itself there is Auteur theory which film critics
often talk about where the film director is equated with the Author of a film. And
as Stanley Kubrick has famously stated, “one man writes a novel. One man writes a symphony-
it is essential that one man make a film”. So, this discussion about the Author is not
limited to the printed words on a page. It is not limited to books; it in fact, could be extended
to a number of texts whether it is a graphic design or a movie or anything that we see around.
So, in that sense, the ideas about the Author, the discussions the discourses generated about
the Author is a is a very prolific and a thriving field in itself. So, if we try to
trace the intellectual tradition of this even before Roland Barthes wrote The Death of the
Author, we have an essay published by Wimsatt and Beardsley in 1946 titled The Intention Fallacy.
So, this work was a product of the school of criticism known as New Criticism; we may also
begin to see certain echoes of New Criticism in some of the arguments that Barthes begins to
make in his own essay. And in fact, The Intention Fallacy is a work which went down in the history
of literary criticism as a seminal work which drew a wedge between the Author and the text.
So, there is a distinction that this work makes between the Author and the text. So,
this is in stark contrast with the previous periods in literary history; where the Author
and the text function as inseparable objects. The text becomes a product of the Author and the
Author’s biography, the Author’s intention so, to speak in writing the text becomes very very
important in our understanding of the text itself. So, we have the new critics emerging in the 1940s
and 1950s who argue that this entire notion is a fallacy. And they also begin, the New Critics
particularly they also begin to argue that the reader could never really know the Author. So,
knowing the Author also becomes a very contested notion and further in their arguments Wimsatt and
Beardsley; they began to say that the point is not really belong to the Author, it is detached
from the Author right from moment of its birth and the poem actually belongs to the public.
So, to assume that, to believe that the Author has got any control over the intent of the poem;
or any sort of a power to control how the poem is being received- it is a complete fallacy to even
assume that such a power is being invested on the Author. So, the New Critics began to argue for a
way in which the texts could be read in isolation with the Author by focusing only on the practices
of reading, only on the aspects of reading. So, from this moment we come to Roland
Barthes’ The Death of the Author which is published in 1967; 1967 is an important
date in the history of literary criticism and also in the history of Postmodernism. In fact,
this is one year after the year that Brian Mchale designates as the starting point of Postmodernism,
this is also the year when Derrida published his celebrated work Of Grammatology. Of Grammatology
incidentally also became a foundational text of deconstructive literary criticism.
So, Barthes’ essay gets published at such a critical juncture in literary and cultural
history and he very controversially titles it The Death of the Author. And that is not just the end
of the discussion and after Barthes’ essay in 1967 which announces The Death of the Author,
we come to Foucault’s work in 1968, where he asked this question “ what is an Author?”-
he breaks down the idea of the Author, he tries to problematize the Author function
and talks about how the Author function has changed historically and what its position
is in the contemporary which is the 1960’s. So, these two texts also, as we see in the
later sessions; we will be reading these two texts in dialogue with each other trying to
see together what kind of sense they help us to make about text and the functions of
the text and functions of the Authors. So, here we now begin to take a look at
the essay The Death of the Author- this is published by Roland Barthes in 1967.
And first it appeared in an American journal titled Aspen. And Roland Barthes incidentally,
was a French literary critic and theorist most of his works were available to us in translation.
And his work in terms of criticism, in terms of cultural theory, it is a very interesting
and it is considered as particularly important because he has located at the intersection of
structuralism and Poststructuralism. And here, if we also survey some of the Barthes’ works,
we will get to know that in his early phase he was more Structuralist in his approach,
but towards the second half of his carrier; we find him being more influenced and also becoming
more influential in Poststructuralist practices. The Death of the Author is one such essay which
could be located as a seminal text within the sphere of Poststructuralism, it is also considered
as one of the essays which would help us to begin talking about not just Postmodernism, but also the
various practices within Poststructuralism. And this title The Death of the Author, is In fact,
is a pun on Le Morte d’ Arthur which could be translated as The death of Arthur referring to
King Arthur and Thomas Malory had popularized Arthurian legends by compiling the various
legends, folk tales, stories about King Arthur and this text was published in 1485. So, this
title The Death of the Author is a pun allusion to the fifteenth-century text Le Morte d’ Arthur.
So, the primary argument in this essay The Death of the Author is against a method of
reading and criticism that relies on aspects of Author's identity. So, throughout this
essay what primarily tries to contest is the Author's identity and also pronounces
his or her death towards the end of the work. It is important to see how Barthes establishes
a connection between the reader and the text. So, he begins to see that the reader
is directly connected with the text and the text has an identity, the text begins to reach
its destination only through an engagement with the reader. And his works, in general,
Barthes’ works in general could be considered as some of the earliest moves in rebelling
against Structuralist reading of texts. So, this is very important because though
Barthes begins his intellectual journey as a structuralist, though most of his early works are
predominantly structuralist, towards the end, he is better known in history as a poststructuralist
theorist or someone who rebelled against the structural methods and practices of reading and
criticism. And Barthes also makes a distinction between Readerly text and Writerly text and for
him, the Readerly text is sort of a text which does not demand anything much from the reader;
it only requires a passive reader because the Author has already sorted out everything for the,
reader there is hardly any puzzle to solve, there is hardly any work for the Author, there is
hardly any work for the reader in a Readerly text. But on the other hand the Writerly text demands an
active role of the reader and here we also see that the reader when he engages with the text,
he also participates in this meaning-making process. And the meaning according to Barthes,
is not embodied within the text; text ceases to be an object which offers meaning,
but the meaning is within the reader. So, only when the text comes in communion,
in connection with the reader; the text begins to send out meanings the text begins to make meaning.
So, this is a derived meaning which comes out after a process as he identifies it. So,
reading becomes an active process only when the reader engages with the text and participates in
the meaning-making process. And in that sense, Barthes also argues that text’s unity lies not
in its origin, but in its destination when it reaches the reader and origin is with the Author.
So, the text which gets produced originally by the Author ceases to be important and the
relation between the, connection between the text and reader becomes all the more important in the
meaning-making process and also in accessing the text as a coherent, understandable feature.
Here it is also important to make a distinction between a work and text; if reading is a textual
process, then certainly the texts are very different from works. So, Barthes makes this
distinction in number of his works and some of his important works are The Pleasure of the Text
published in 1973 and Image Music and Text- a compilation of his essays in 1977. Trying to
distinguish work from a text, Barthes argues that work is a physical object that occupies
shelf-space and it’s carried in the hand, it does not become a text until it reaches the reader.
But text is a process in language; so, this is important to remember that this is also linked
with some of the Deconstructionist practices, and Derrida also had an immense influence in the way
in which Barthes’ ideas were getting shaped. And for Barthes texts are series of linguistic
processes that are decoded by the reader; so, when Barthes talks about a text, the Author
ceases to be important, the reader emerges as the single most important entity who is participating
in this meaning-making process. And text also assumes a structure of a narrative negotiation
between language of the text and the reader. So, all of these aspects, all of these
negotiations, all of these interactions happen between the text and the reader and we do not
see the Author emerging as an important figure at any point of time. His task ends the moment
he completes his work and the work becomes a text only when it reaches the reader and as he codes in
one of his works the text is experienced only as an activity of production. So,
it becomes an experience in the hand of the reader and the work gets transformed
into a text only when the reader accesses it. Having said that, this transformation from work
to text we need to see how this happens as well. So, a work becomes a text not just when the reader
accesses it, but also when the reader refuses to engage with the Authorial Authority. So,
Author in this sense, becomes a symbol of Authority and also a controller of meaning.
So, only when the reader refuses to acknowledge that the Author is invested with the power to
control meaning, or Author is invested with this power to be ultimate Authority on what
the text actually implies, or what the text actually means only then the work
actually gets transformed into a text. So, the text is in fact, according to
Barthes a play between the text and the reader, and You need to pay attention to
this word ‘play’ because he also uses it very deliberately because play is something which is,
which is not confined to any sort of rigid understanding. So, there is a lot of room to
experiment, a lot of ways in which the reader can play with the text, the reader can interact
with the text. So, this basic understanding is very very important to be able to understand
and access the work The Death of the Author. So, when we talk about the absence of the
Authorial figure, when we talk about understanding the text in isolation with the Author and about
completely refusing to take into consideration; the Author’s intentions while he was composing
a particular work; well perhaps this almost sounds like a restatement of the New Critical
dogma of literary work’s independence- autonomy as the New Critics will put it;
and this autonomy that the new critics celebrated from historical and biographical background
reading a text in isolation with all the other factors that surround the text’s production which
also was articulated by Beardsley and Wimsatt in their 1946 essay The Intention Fallacy.
Whether Barthes’ work is a continuation of this New Critical approach; or whether it echoes or
restates any of the concerns new critics had in the beginning is a question that we shall come
back to deal with. But; however, at this point it would just suffice to know that Barthes’ works
dismiss all humanistic notions and in that sense, it is not quite New Critical in its approach. And
in Barthes’ approach according to Raman Selden, a leading cultural theorist and critic, the readers
are free to open and close the text’s signifying process without respect for the signified.
So, these are certain terms which are associated with a number of structuralists,
poststructuralists and deconstructive reading methods; we shall be coming back to some of these
terms in detail. So, Barthes’ work gives autonomy to the reader and it is more about a celebration
of the reader’s attempts to freely read and interpret without any limiting categories.
So, as and when we begin to discuss Barthes’ work, it is very important to locate the Author-
the figure of the Author. Barthes argues that the Author is a very modern figure and this is
a significant point to be noted because he himself states that in the primitive societies the Author,
the Author figure was absent, it was only a mediator who was available or a speaker.
And his performance was more valued by the public who gathered to listen to a story or a particular
rendition, or a narration because oral literature was also prominent in the primitive societies,
the performance of the mediator or the speaker was more important and his genius was not really
admired. So, the function of the Author; the role of the Author was of a different kind altogether,
In this context it is also useful to remember that if we look at the ways in which the idea
of the Author has evolved across literary historical periods; in the earlier periods,
we come across a number of works which were Authored by anonymous Authors because they
considered it not very important to put down their name against their own works; it was not
important to identify the work in connection with the Author of the work. So, even, you know, if you
take the case of the first available Anglo Saxon text Beowulf, the Author is anonymous and number
of attempts have been made in the later stages to see whether the Author is a Christian writer or
a Pagan writer influenced by Christian elements. So, the current way in which we accesses texts is
entirely based on the identity of the Author. So, there was a period of time in history
where the identity of the Author or even the presence of the Author was not very important.
Narratives when they were seen as repositories from which anyone could freely borrow and freely
take; there were absolutely no idea of stories or particular art objects being copyrighted.
And also significantly, until about the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Author was not held
responsible or accountable for a particular work that he produced. The responsibility
and the accountability entirely rested on the printer because he was the one who published
it the owner of the printer, the owner of the publishing house was more responsible for it.
Given that printing was a very modern phenomenon which made its entry in the fifteenth century,
it took a while to be able to understand that; the printer was perhaps only a medium in disseminating
the work; the primary responsibility rests entirely with the Author. So,
we shall be taking a more detailed and closer look at the Author functionary, talk about
Michel Foucault’s work What is an Author. So, in Barthes’ works right at the beginning,
he tries to locate the Author as a modern figure. And this is very important for taking the argument
forward because Barthes also wants us to keep in mind that the Author is a constructed figure
that it was not an idea which was always already there; that it is produced by our society at the
end of the middle ages. So, this historical understanding about the idea of the Author;
the emergence of the Author becomes very important in and also locate in the significance of the
Author vis-à-vis the reader and also in context, in connection with the text.
So, when he talks about the Author being a very modern phenomenon; that the birth of the Author
happens at a very modern stage in history, he also makes particular references here. He
associates the emergence of Author as a modern in connection with English empiricism, French
rationalism and the personal faith of Reformation. So, here we can also see that the Author as
Barthes sees it, is a construct, is a product of the Western-dominant philosophical ideas; it is a
product of the Western intellectual thought. It is also a product of whatever the modern
society required, whatever the modern society was responding to. As the essay progresses,
we will also see how he uses this historical location, how he uses this relatively modern
emergence of the idea of the Author to also talk about the text, reader and the reading
process equally as a historical phenomenon. And Barthes, in that sense, makes a connection
between the emergence of the Author as a modern figure and how it discovered the
prestige of the individual. So, there is a way in which the Author gets situated historically;
he is a product of a number of intellectual trends and thoughts; he is also someone who
helps discover the prestige of the individual. So, as we wind up today's session, it is important
for us to keep in mind these starting points in order to be able to access the essay in the next
session. I strongly encourage you to read the original version of Barthes’ essay The Death
of the Author. It is a fairly short piece and the translations are widely available
in the web for you to access. So, a close reading of this particular text would be
undertaken in the next session, where we shall be dissecting the various things that Barthes
puts forward in order to be able to argue and convince us about The Death of the Author.
Thank you for listening I look forward to seeing you in the next session.
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