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| Roland Barthes |
In Roland Barthes, “The Death of
the Author,” written in 1968, the core idea being discussed is the impact of
ones work. The author has to account for so many different elements that not
only make up the piece, but also permit its growth and perception once it is
released into the world. The final product of a piece of art is always
considered to be a statement or expression of the one who is creating it. With
this idea known, the viewer or reader of the author’s work must not only place
him or herself in an unbiased, nonobjective standpoint of recognition, but also
find himself or herself in the mind of the creator. Perhaps, this method
permits a better form of understanding. However, in this essay, Barthes
expresses and examines the multiple characteristics that can go into the
appreciation and interpretation of a written work, which can truly translate
into the comprehension of an artistic piece as well.
In the first few sentences of
Barthes piece, he states that, “The author is a modern figure, a product of our
society in so far as, emerging from the Middle Ages with English empiricism,
French rationalism and the personal faith of the Reformation, it discovered the
prestige of the individual, of, as it is more nobly put, the human person.” The
ability to recognize and create self –expression is one that can prove to be
quite difficult and only limited to certain individuals. I believe that the
individuals that can so strongly do so, express an idea in a method of wide
reception, falls under the category of an artist. The author is an artist.
Instead of using paint, charcoal, pencil, metal, wood, or a camera, they use
words. With this statement, Barthes is recognized that an author as a higher
being. This is true in the sense that the author has to ability to influence
it’s readers. The author has the skill of choosing specific and distinctive
words that are put together to create pages and pages of text that depict
stories, ideas, and feelings of the author themselves. I feel when examining an
art piece, all these specific distinctions can be processed by the viewer, just
as a reader does with a book.
Barthes
continues to discuss the author’s purpose and intent throughout this essay. However,
when he concludes his ideas, Barthes recognizes the true relation between
author and reader. He closes the essay stating that, “Thus is revealed the total existence of
writing: a text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and
entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is
one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not,
as was hitherto said, the author. The reader is the space on which all the
quotations that make up a writing are inscribed without any of them being lost;
a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination. Yet this
destination cannot any longer be personal: the reader is without history,
biography, psychology; he is simply that someone who holds together in a
single field all the traces by which the written text is constituted.” Barthes
closes his piece with this statement to identify that as much as the author as
the ability to create a world within a piece of text that can not only connect
with an audience, it also expresses the ideas of one singular self, the author.
Barthes is acknowledging that even though that is a very powerful element to
creation, it is truly the reader that gives the author his or her reason, and
the piece as a whole its emphasis. This is true with viewing a piece of art. As
much as the artists creates a piece that portrays a meaning that they believe
needs to be distinguished, it is the viewer that not only matters in the
process of understanding, but also in establishing ones own perception and a
wider acknowledgement of the artists possible intent with the influence of ones
own ideas.
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