During last week’s discussions, I was struck by the idea that, for a period of time, the author of a given work was not deemed important. This was discussed briefly in “The Death of the Author,” by Barthes, who, in part, argued that the author of work should not be important and, in fact, only hinders discussions of the work. I have been taught in my studies that the author of a work is extremely important; it can help illuminate parts of a work by allowing critics to compare a work by a given author to other works by that same author. In doing so, critics, teachers, and students of literature can find similarities and differences between a given author’s works and, at times, come to interesting conclusions that would not have been possible had the author been unknown, as Barthes would seem to have it. In this class, I hope to learn more about how the “author” became an integral part of a work through social and technological changes in writing and publishing.
I too was taught that for most works, it is important to be familiar with the author. In past classes that I have taken, we often looked at a short biography of the author. By doing so, we were more easily able to make understand the author’s interpretation of events in their real life and what may have been going on at the time the piece was written. I think you make a good point when you say that knowing an author “can help illuminate parts of a work by allowing critics to compare a work by a given author to other works by that same author”.
Interesting, interesting! You know, ‘for most of my studies, I have been taught’ that the interpretation of texts are heavily dependent on the reader, and the author has little place in the matter. After all (though I may be wrong) many postmodern writers understand the ambiguity of meaning present in all language, and thus write in a way that forces the reader to create (note: not “find”) meaning in their writing. Although, genius of a writer to create such a text is impressive.
I agree as well, through most of high school we are taught to “read between the lines” so to speak. But I always wondered whether we were analyzing what was not there. Did the author really make a main character act a certain way to deliberately convey a message or was it just a throw away action.
I suppose I’m not alone with being told to interpret readings in high school. I also always wondered if we were supposed to be looking for what the author meant or if we were supposed to get our own idea. And even then, I wondered which meaning held more importance, our own or what the author meant. Personally, I always felt the author’s meaning was what held priority, solely because a writer writes to convey a message. If their message was not the one understood, then the piece loses its meaning.