The Death of the Author

In Roland Barthes essay The Death of the Author, literary authorship is questioned. In a piece of literary merit, Barthes asks who exactly is speaking in a text and how that text conveys its message. He argues that the idea of an "author" is a product of capitalist society in which everything must be attributed and belong to a person. Historically, an author's piece of work is a allegory for the thoughts and feelings of that author. Furthermore, an author and his book always stand together as if it is the author cannot exist without the book. However, Barthes believes that the role of the author should be suppressed in the "interests of writing" which is namely to place more importance on the reader. After all, without the reader the text is empty and contains no meaning. It is the reader who instills the vitality into the text and maintains its existence. He notes that the modern author is "born simultaneously with the text" and writes in the performative. The performative is in the present tense and a first person narrative in which the enunciation has no other content besides the act which is spoken. This form emphasizes language rather than authorship and gets to the roots of writing. Barthes continues by arguing that an author's work is simply a compendium of dictionary words put together and that is the reader that makes sense of these words. Moreover, in modern writing there is no definitive meaning to the text allowing a broader interpretation. This way "a text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination" giving power to the reader and formulating the death of the author.

Barthes argument of authorship is reminiscent of the old adage of "if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear, does it make a sound?" Therefore, if a author writes a book, and no one reads it, does it still contain meaning?