Week 8 Authorship

The essay, “Death of the author,” by Roland Barnes is the outlook on the rules of the author and the reader by using the commonality of meaning from the text written. Roland argues that the author has no has no jurisdiction over their own words that the words belong to the reader to interpret them and evaluate in their own accord. Roland challenges the idea of originality that an author may have and how the readers view it. The problem with this is that Roland in my opinion Wrongly assumes that anyone can pull an exact meaning or intent from what an author has written. Also, in this I believe that Roland thinks there must be a set meaning within the writing that someone should try and find. I evaluated this essay is in two ways. That an author by the standards of this essay, is someone that loses all their meaning as the written piece is put out or becomes irrelevant to the viewer. The other is that this article challenge’s purpose and what it means to have purpose. In the essay it says, “by making of the narrator not he who has seen and felt nor even he who is writing, but he who is going to write (the young man in the novel – but, in fact, how old is he and who is he? … the novel ends when writing at last becomes possible.)” This statement stood out a lot to me because I think these challenges what it means to seek out a purpose in what you are writing. The part in where it says, “the novel ends when writing at last becomes possible,” stands out the most because I believe that this is saying that there is a moment when a novel is done before it starts. The idea that there must be an ending for you to begin. This can be interpreted as that because someone has made a version of what this author or creator is trying to do, that the ending was already thought of; or that because the writer must finish the writing before sending out the piece that their must be an end for you to be able to get the product out. I hope that makes sense. The other part in the reading that I found to be interesting is when it says, “The reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up a writing are inscribed without any of them being lost.” I found this to be interesting because I believe that this is saying that the authors words are never truly theirs. In the sense of plagiarism or fraud. The author even says right after, “a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination. Yet this destination cannot any longer be personal.” This reminded me of the essay we read about aura of a piece of art.

I wanted to connect this to essay and its arguments to music. I chose to use the song, “we can work it out.” Done by both The Beatles and by Stevie Wonder. This song is an icon of originality, and creativity done by The Beatles, and I would argue that it is creative in what Stevie Wonder has done with it. Much like the writing explained the idea had to start somewhere, or that, “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author.” I believe that there is an argument to be made that you can separate the artist or in this sense the author from the product. The evaluation of the piece of writing, art, film, etc. is determined by the viewer. Everyone’s view will be different, and I think that is what this essay is trying to explain to its own readers that come across it. The world will continue to make, remake and change the already made, but it is up to the individual to have their own evaluation.

    https://www.discogs.com/release/1402470-Stevie-Wonder-We-Can-Work-It-Out-Dont-Wonder-Why     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_the_Beatles!