The traditional approach in literary criticism entails that the concentration must be on the figure of the author and the process of the interpretation to be based on it. However, some theorists attempt to demonstrate their appreciation on the issue, which differs from the conventional. One characteristic example is Roland Barthes and his text “The death of the author” in which he examines the omnipotence of the figure of the author in literary criticism. To clarify that Barthes supports that in literary criticism in the attempt of interpreting a text, the focus is on the figure of the author as if it is the only way the meaning to be conveyed. By providing the text, Barthes aims to enforce his own perspective, which is to alter the process of interpretation and the tradition, which inflicts to put more importance on the figure of the author. Barthes, concerning his post-structuralism background, declares that the focus needs to be on the reader, in writing and in the multifaceted of the text. In a similar way is T S Eliot through the notion of New Criticism has a resembling opinion regarding the literary criticism, through his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent”. Thus the purpose of this text is to introduce the Barthes’s perspective on the issue through his text “The death of the author”, but at the same time to suggest my own opinion concerning the issue.
First of all, “The Death of the Author” supports the opinion that the intentions and the biography of an