So I'm writing about the author again...but I can't help it! I feel like every essay we read discusses the aspect of author and the importance of it on literature. After reading Roland Barthes essay, From Work To Text, I was drawn again to the different definition given to the role of authorship. Roland writes,
"As for the Text, it reads without the inscription of the Father...it is read without the guarentee of its father, the resititution of the inter-text paradoxically abolishing any legacy. It is not that the Author may not 'come back' in the Text, in his text, but he then does so as a 'guest'...He becomes as it were, a paper-author: his life is no longer the origin of his fictions but a fiction contributing to his work.."
We've read about how the author shouldn't be the focus at all, how the author holds no bearing to the actual work of literature, but we've never read about the author in this way. The Text itself, according the Barthes, is without a source of any kind and the author isn't connected to it anymore; they are simply a 'guest'. I did a little background reading on some of Barthes thoughts and ideas and was intriqued when I read that he didn't view the author as a viable term or figure anymore. He instead focused more on the title of "scripter". He sees this figure as only possessing the "power...to combine pre-existing texts in new ways." All writing derives itself from previous texts and so in order to understand these new works of literature we need to study the old texts. It makes sense. I feel like writing does build off of other writing. I find myself agreeing with Barthes scripter idea but unable to let go of the author.
Why is that? Why are we so connected to this idea of an author? I guess I'm just so use to seeing that name printed largely on the front cover of my favorite books. What would life be like if those letters weren't there? It's funny to think about...and to be honest I've never considered this whole idea, of should there be an author or not, before this class.
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Great response, and I'm so pleased you're going out and reading some Barthes on your own. You're right that we keep coming back to the idea of the author. In part that's because certain ideas about what literature is imply certain ideas about what an author is or what a reader is. So the questions all imply one another even if different things are emphasized. Why do we keep coming back to the author if Barthes is right. That is a really good and difficult question. It is important to realize that our current conception of the author didn't exist prior to the 17th or 18th century. There were different terms applied to the writers of texts, of course, but they meant and functioned in different ways. The short answer to your question is that the author continues to function in some kind of useful way for us. Will it continue to do so. That's not clear. Does work on the internet require an author in the way the books require an author??
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