The Death or the Revivals of the Author?

Abstract

To investigate the relationship between the author and the text, and how different conceptions of that relationship present differing and opposing opinions about how readers should engage with text are the main purposes of this paper. It will be done by comparing Roland Barthes’ article, “The Death of the Author”, and Michel Foucault’s “What is an author?”. Foucault and Barthes look at the development of the idea of author and show how it has changed throughout the centuries to go with each period’s ideologies. Barthes argues that when the author writes the text, his voice is no more dominant in it. As soon as the writer starts writing, he is dead because when he writes he has no control over the text but it depends on the interpretation of readers. Foucault stops talking about the author and starts talking about the ‘author function’. An author’s function is based on the narrations that are narrated from him. The name of author indicates a discourse of a special period or it is the symbol of that discourse’s signs. What becomes clear is that Foucault sees the author-function as one which reveals the coincidence of a complex web of discursive practices.