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IV: Barthes II
Daliso's Post (which is too long to post in the "Comments" section)
In “Death of the Author,” Barthes proceeds with his analysis of mythologies and gives us some insight as to how we may be freed from them. But while Barthes’ critiques of mythology are valid, his solutions for how they might be confronted are wanting. Before I get to my question, let me outline my understanding of the key themes as briefly as I can, so as to establish a basis for discussion. According to Barthes, authors and critics together are myth makers, who supply each other secret understandings of literature. When Barthes states how the “image of literature is tyrannically centered on the author,” he is recognizing that what is important is not simply the given text, but also the style and characteristics of the author. Here I think of Robert Frost poems, and how their meaning is not simply derived from the words on paper, but from studying the life and experiences of the man himself. Given this paradigm, we can see the author as myth maker, and the reader as myth adherent, because the reader’s task is to understand the text by breaking into the depth of the author’s private meaning. Barthes is against this privileging of knowledge, and thus looks to break down the structure of this relationship. By deploring the “arrogant antiphrastical (I had to look this one up: means the use of a word in a sense opposite to its proper meaning) recriminations of high society,” Barthes aligns himself with Benjamin, who celebrated the camera’s ability to strip objects of their aura. Both looked for a democratization of signs, to remove gloss from all objects and find a way to show things equally and plainly.
Barthes’ commitment to simplicity of meaning and an end to the valorization of the author is furthered when he mocks (p.145) the idea that authors write anything original, saying that “the author, when believed in, is always conceived of as the past of his own book.” I agree with him here, that if ideas existed before the author, than he cannot one day purport to “author” them as his own. But what, realistically, can we see as the reverse of this action? He suggests that writing should work by “performative… in which the enunciation has no other content than the act by which it is uttered” (p.146). But like Gina said last week, isn’t there always some sort of interpretation occurring from the outset? How can we realistically withdraw ourselves from the object of our writing so much that “the hand, cut from any voice, borne by a pure gesture of inscription (and not of expression), traces a field without origin…” (p.146)?
I have a problem with another of Barthes’ ideological views which looks great on the surface, but is implausible when looked at realistically. He refuses fixed meaning and deplores the idea of there being any ultimate meanings. Then he gives the example of Greek tragedy and how the reader understands the duplicity of the words being used in the play, while the characters do not. But this reality must change when the reader is the subject being spoken to. Why would we expect him not to make the same mistakes as the characters in the tragedy? How can we believe that a text’s “multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, and contestation (p.148)” can be focused and unified by the reader? It’s nonsensical to imagine the reader without “history, biography, or psychology (.p148).” But perhaps a writer who thinks of himself as such would have the ability to look at things more “objectively.”
In “Death of the Author,” Barthes proceeds with his analysis of mythologies and gives us some insight as to how we may be freed from them. But while Barthes’ critiques of mythology are valid, his solutions for how they might be confronted are wanting. Before I get to my question, let me outline my understanding of the key themes as briefly as I can, so as to establish a basis for discussion. According to Barthes, authors and critics together are myth makers, who supply each other secret understandings of literature. When Barthes states how the “image of literature is tyrannically centered on the author,” he is recognizing that what is important is not simply the given text, but also the style and characteristics of the author. Here I think of Robert Frost poems, and how their meaning is not simply derived from the words on paper, but from studying the life and experiences of the man himself. Given this paradigm, we can see the author as myth maker, and the reader as myth adherent, because the reader’s task is to understand the text by breaking into the depth of the author’s private meaning. Barthes is against this privileging of knowledge, and thus looks to break down the structure of this relationship. By deploring the “arrogant antiphrastical (I had to look this one up: means the use of a word in a sense opposite to its proper meaning) recriminations of high society,” Barthes aligns himself with Benjamin, who celebrated the camera’s ability to strip objects of their aura. Both looked for a democratization of signs, to remove gloss from all objects and find a way to show things equally and plainly.
Barthes’ commitment to simplicity of meaning and an end to the valorization of the author is furthered when he mocks (p.145) the idea that authors write anything original, saying that “the author, when believed in, is always conceived of as the past of his own book.” I agree with him here, that if ideas existed before the author, than he cannot one day purport to “author” them as his own. But what, realistically, can we see as the reverse of this action? He suggests that writing should work by “performative… in which the enunciation has no other content than the act by which it is uttered” (p.146). But like Gina said last week, isn’t there always some sort of interpretation occurring from the outset? How can we realistically withdraw ourselves from the object of our writing so much that “the hand, cut from any voice, borne by a pure gesture of inscription (and not of expression), traces a field without origin…” (p.146)?
I have a problem with another of Barthes’ ideological views which looks great on the surface, but is implausible when looked at realistically. He refuses fixed meaning and deplores the idea of there being any ultimate meanings. Then he gives the example of Greek tragedy and how the reader understands the duplicity of the words being used in the play, while the characters do not. But this reality must change when the reader is the subject being spoken to. Why would we expect him not to make the same mistakes as the characters in the tragedy? How can we believe that a text’s “multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, and contestation (p.148)” can be focused and unified by the reader? It’s nonsensical to imagine the reader without “history, biography, or psychology (.p148).” But perhaps a writer who thinks of himself as such would have the ability to look at things more “objectively.”
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | ||
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| Anonymous | Barthes, "The Death of the Author" | 0 | Feb 21 2007, 9:44 PM EST by Anonymous | ||
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Thread started: Feb 21 2007, 9:44 PM EST
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In Death of the Author, Barthes says “As soon as a fact is narrated…this disconnection [of the author and his work?] occurs, the voice loses its origin, the author enters into his own death, writing begins” (142). My question is: can the author ever really exist then, if he “dies” as soon as writing begins? And if he ceases to exist when writing begins, how can an author even be classified as such if the definition of an author is a person who writes?
- Monica M. Carvalho |
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| Anonymous | Barthes, "The Death of the Author" | 0 | Feb 21 2007, 9:43 PM EST by Anonymous | ||
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Thread started: Feb 21 2007, 9:43 PM EST
Watch
In Death of the Author, Barthes says “As soon as a fact is narrated…this disconnection [of the author and his work?] occurs, the voice loses its origin, the author enters into his own death, writing begins” (142). My question is: can the author ever really exist then, if he “dies” as soon as writing begins? And if he ceases to exist when writing begins, how can an author even be classified as such if the definition of an author is a person who writes?
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