death of the author
Reader over writer
Death of the author is a literary concept holding that a text's meaning comes from readers, not from what the writer intended.
Once published, a work stands independent of its creator's biography, beliefs, or stated purposes.
The phrase comes from a 1967 essay by Roland Barthes.
In casual use, it often justifies interpreting art without regard for the artist's character: I can still enjoy the music—death of the author.
- intertextualityConnections between written works
- signifierMeaning-bearing form
- interpretationAssigned meaning
- hermeneuticsStudy of interpretation methods
- readerOne who peruses text
textual analysis · close reading · trace · formalism · fragmentation · truth-value · semiotics · structuralism · semantics · pragmatics · audience engagement · meaning · Roland · text · voice · Foucault · authority · writerly
- critical theorydeconstruction, Marxism, feminism, simulacrum, postcolonialism
- French TheoryDerrida, Foucault, structuralism, poststructuralism, deconstruction
- postmodernismdeconstruction, metafiction, hyperreality, pastiche, metanarrative
- literary criticismliterary theory, literary analysis, close reading, New Criticism, criticism
- literary disputesplagiarism, defamation suits, self-plagiarism
- narratologynarrative, narrator, plot, story, character