Roland Barthes


"الرجل الكشخه الذي لا يتصور الا والسيجار بين اصابعه"

x Structuralism usually designates a group of French thinkers who were influenced by Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory of language x
x In Literary Studies: Structuralism is interested in the conventions and the structures of the literary work
x It is not easy to distinguish Structuralism from Semiotics
x Semiotics: is the general study of signs in behaviour and communication that avoids philosophical speculation and cultural critiques that marked Structuralism

x We will focus on his article : “The Death of the Author,” published in his book Image, Music, Text


: x The Death of the Author
x the idea of the “author” is a modern invention
x Literature is tyrannically centred on the author, his life, person, tastes and passions
x Literary criticism, as a result, and literature in general are enslaved to the author
x The work or the text, itself, goes unread, unanalyzed and unappreciated
x Barthes proposes that literature and criticism dispose of the the author
x Once the Author is removed, he says, the claim to decipher a text becomes quite futile
x Roland Barthes questioned the traditional idea that the meaning of the literary text and the production of the literary text should be traced solely to a single author
x Structuralism and Poststructuralism proved that meaning is not fixed by or located in the author’s ‘intention.’
x Barthes rejected the idea that literature and criticism should rely on a single self-determining author, in control of his meanings, who fulfils his intentions and only his intentions