The Death of the Author

"The Death of the Author" sounds so terribly ominous. While I strongly disagree with the argument that the work should be evaluated only after complete separation with the writer, I cannot help but empathize with Barthe's argument in his essay. I suppose that in ordinary culture we do, in fact, view the author as superior to the reader in a way. Barthes is making the argument that reading and the reader should be superior and primary thing when looking at literature. I am somewhere on the middle of this issue, but that is not the point I am hoping to make in this blog.

I am slightly confused by the author/reader tension. Maybe the argument is beyond me, but I am just not sure why there needs to be a superior or primary thing in literature. It could be idealistic on my part, but literature seems to be made up of so many elements, all working together to create a cohesive, beautiful and working whole. Both the reader and the writer are necessary for a work of literature to achieve it's purpose. Without the author, and the author's intent there could be no work and no meaning. Without the reader there is no interpretation or reception of the work. The reader makes the work realized, because without him/her it doesn't matter that anything is published. A book could be written and sit on a coffee table and come to nothing if it isn't read. I suppose this leads to yet another philosophical question about reading though. If a book is written by an author and sits unread, does it still have worth and meaning?

I have no idea. To say that a work means nothing without a reader though, is also saying that the author then is responsible for the construction of all meaning. So if this question were posited to Barthes would he say that since the reader and reading should be the superior and primary thing that a book must be read to have any meaning or purpose?

Barthe's also seemed to imply that every act of reading was an act of writing or rewriting. Does this then make us all writers if we are all readers? How then is any distinction to be made between the actual writer, or rather the scribe in this case, and the reader-writer?

I feel as though more questions surface as a result of Barthe's essay than answers. It would most certainly make for a good debate...