Talk:The Death of the Author

Is the date and source of this essay correct?

The edition cited here -- Image, Music, Text -- notes that this essay was first published in 1968 not 1967, and not in Aspen but in something called Manteia V. Could whoever provided the date of 1967 and the source as Aspen please provide documentation to prove that? Image, Music, Text is the definitive English edition, and I would expect it to be correct as to the original source and date of the article.--Girl2k 04:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

comment

This article would benefit from some description of whatever criticism of this work exists. Turly-burly 05:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Having read in Molly Nesbit's "Who Was the Author?" that Barthes' essay was first published in a BOX, not a conventional journal, I did some googling and found a wonderful documentation of that journal [1] on UBU web, which is a research-based site and trustworthy and thorough. Based on this, I added a bit at the beginning about this, added a link to the documentation at UBUweb and change the year of publication to 1967. I'm amazed that this is so little known, I never heard about it in years of studying literary theory. Lijil 14:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

So was this essay first published in English, or was it published before 1967 in French? --Jahsonic 21:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I haven't figured that out yet. Lijil 07:51, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Just added the following citation, which, really is pretty much the final word on the whole topic... at least when I was in grad school. Move it around or whatever. Or better yet, read it ... this guy is smart. * Hix, H. L. Morte d'Author: An Autopsy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.154.212.192 (talk) 00:35, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Barthes and Foucault

I would say that the idea that Barthes' article is based on Derrida and Foucault is pretty far off the mark. Derrida had hardly published any of his work at Barthes' time of writing, and Foucault's comment ('What is an Author') do certainly not support Barthes' views. Instead Foucault characterizes Barthes views as old-fashioned. And Foucault certainly don't claim that literature is not a product of individual authors. In fact, that's the outdated idea he accuses Barthes of advocating. Foucault's 'discourses' is not the idea of fixed and non-personal 'structures' that generates something out of nothing; they're an attempt of explaining the dynamics of collective understandings and the way such understanding influence the individual.

I'm painfully aware of my fellow literary critics' lack of understanding of Foucault; still I'm as shocked as ever every time I see this particular essay read 'up-side down'...

-- T.B.Hansen, Oslo, Norway —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.227.109.104 (talk) 19:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC).

Death of the Author and royalties?

Has anybody ever established who was payed royalties for The Death of the Author? Presumably if Barthes claimed any money from its publication, he negated his own argument. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.149.167.161 (talk) 21:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

Why? If we look at his work not as text, but as property, then he IS to be payed royalties. Exizt 23:02, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Both of these points are moot: the essay is written regarding the reader's perspective, not the author's.

Reads like an essay

This posts reads like an essay written for somebody's liberal arts class -- an essay that would receive a failing grade for not providing in-text citations commensurate with what is standard for an article of this nature. This is therefore not up to Wiki standards. It is advisable that someone fix this article or it be propsed for deletion, remaining without an entry until someone is willing to provide a properly formatted article.