An unstructured rant about Death of the Author
Death of the Author is a theory in literary criticism. In short, it states art as a means of self-expression is invalid, and art actually doesn't mean anything.
Or at least, that's what I get out of it.
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Forewarning: This is *not* going to be a well-flowing, concise essay. This is a rant, and I'm just gonna start talking and keep going. I led with the point above because I thought it was the heart of the issue, and there are a lot of ways I want to get at that, but as a result of that I'm probably going to repeat myself a fair bit.
Seriously, though, does Death of the Author seem weird and dystopian to anyone else? It just seems completely dismissive of artists' feelings. Y'know, what with basically - not even basically, like, outright - just saying it doesn't care about *you*, just what it can *get* out of you. It honestly sounds more like some kind of abusive relationship.
I've heard proponents of Death of the Author try to paint it as something magical and special, but, like... you fucking kidding me? It's basically just reducing art to something like a chair - a purely functional piece with nothing special about it. Which was actually an analogy I've heard someone else use... about thinking authorial intent matters. Way I see it, that applies way more to the other side of the argument.
So, like, not even the most ridiculous strawman would apply Death of the Author to actual speech, right? We all agree that when it comes to having a conversation, we should all make the effort to understand what people really mean? I'm not entirely certain why we treat art any differently. I was originally leading up to the fact that the essay seems to think we shouldn't, but on second thought I think I misread it somewhat.
One of the things people bring up with Death of the Author is that one's personal background influences the way we interpret the things we see/read/hear/whatever. However, since we got on the subject of the essay's thoughts *specifically*, here's what it has to say:
> ...the reader is a man without history, without biography, without psychology; he is only that someone who holds gathered into a single field all the paths of which the text is constituted.
So, uh... I guess that's out. The reader doesn't bring anything into the work either.
Oh, hey, on the subject of the original essay, take a look at this!
> The space of the writing is to be traversed, not penetrated: writing ceaselessly posits meaning but always in order to evaporate it: it proceeds to a systematic exemption of meaning.
Yup, that cold-open thing where I said that Death of the Author's main conceit was that art doesn't mean anything isn't just my interpretation, it's basically stated in the original essay.
Speaking of that, though, I should probably elaborate on that. What I mean is, if all the meaning of a work is created by a reader, this means, given a sufficiently easily-amused reader, a blank sheet of paper is meaningful art. (In that sense, I suppose putting something on that paper would be "dumbing it down for a wider audience", huh?)
More pointedly, one can pour their heart and soul into a work, but if the only people who see it think it's meaningless tripe and it never reaches a wider audience, then according to Death of the Author, it means nothing. When I voiced my concerns about this point, one person - who will remain nameless, partially to protect their identity but mostly because I never bothered to take note of it - was remarkably unsympathetic and dismissive. Which definitely shaped my opinion of the sort of people who believe Death of the Author.
Okay, here's the weird thing: I tend to roll my eyes at people who seem to think you can *feel* how much passion went into any given work, as if there's some kind of charmometer you hold up to it. Well, okay, it doesn't bug me that much when they praise something for the "personality" it has - the biggest thing wrong with that is it reminding me of when it *does* bug me: people criticizing something for having no personality or soul to it, as if it's something you could objectively measure. I went off on a tangent there, but my point is, given that, you'd think I'd be all for Death of the Author, but at least measuring a work's "personality" respects the idea of art as self-expression.
Death of the Author is so widely accepted that it kinda makes me wonder why we even credit the author on books. After all:
> It is language which speaks, not the author: to write is to reach, through a preexisting impersonality... that point where language alone acts, "performs", and not "oneself".
I think I'm finally running out of things to say. I'd like to thank [this essay](https://artofericwayne.com/2018/08/27/the-death-of-the-author-debunked/), which let me get my thoughts in order and gave me a few things to talk about.
**TL;DR** *In a Barthesian world, everything is a commission piece*