.
Good morning everyone; welcome to today's
session of the NPTEL course Postmodernism
in Literature. In the first weeks lectures
we started looking at the idea of postmodernism,
we spoke about the different frame works within
which postmodernism excess and the multiple
ways in which one could begin to access it
as an idea and also as a critical frame work.
So, in today's session we begin to look at
particular text, we begin to undertake a close
reading of texts which are helpful to frame
and understand postmodernism as an idea as
a movement and as a conceptional and theoretical
frame work. We also in the first weeks lectures
reiterate the idea that postmodernism in this
course is being used as a conceptional and
theoretical frame work which could be used
to analyse particular cultural trends particular
literary events and also various intellectual
and and a various intellectual reprises.
So, today's lecture is titled the death of
the author and its postmodern implications.
Death of the author as some of you may know
is very general text which is increasingly
being used by post structuralists and also
by postmodernists to talk about the ideas
related to text and author and also the practices
of reading in the contemporary. So, we try
to undertake a close reading of this text
by Roland Barthes by engaging with it within
the postmodernists frame works. And also to
see how this text enables us to question and
to and to redefine the way to redefine various
conventional aspects related to reading text
author and also the practices of criticism.
The end of modernism as we have seen in the
previous lectures it signal the death of many
things that modernism stood for. So, when
we talk about the death of the author it is
not a singular thing that happen in the postmodern
phase. The end of modernism and the beginning
of post modernism also signalled and marked
the death of multiple frame works various
objects and subject of possession as well.
For example, if we take the case of painting
after the modernist period; we saw a gradual
breaking down of a form leading to a denial
of a subject. And then we also saw how brush
stroke and texture was altogether demolished
from the practice of painting, we also saw
significantly the emergence of emergence of
pop art with Andy War Andy Warhansa digital
art, digital painting it also became a movement
and a cultural dominant cultural iconic practice.
And gradually towards the end of the modernists
period and with the high a period of postmodernism
we also saw there is a complete annihilation
of any painting technique.
So, this is a modernist this is the end of
a modernist journey in painting and in in
various other ah forms of practices and trains
we could see similar kinds of deaths happening
ah. In fact, we saw the death of art as an
institution, the idea of a text has undergone
a number of changes and even the author authorship
all of those are the contested notions in
the contemporary times the shift from modernism
to postmodernism.
So, in today's session we begin to look at
the idea of the author if Roland Barthes essay
talks about the death of the author. And the
beginning it is also important for us to trace
within which intellectual tradition discussions
about the author had begin to emerge; this
is not a new thing that Barthes entirely initiated
and this is not the discussions about the
author even now we need to reaerated it is
not yet over.
For example, there is a book as recent as
published in 2013 about the designer title
the designer as author producer activist entrepreneur
accurate and collaborator this is a work by
R Steven Mccarthy; it has been ah much discussed
in this field of graphic designing also elevate
in the position of a graphic designer to that
of the author.
And in film theory this has been discussed
a little earlier in the previous decades itself
there is auteur theory which film critics
often talk about where the film director is
equated with the author of a film. And as
Stanley Kubrick his famous stated one man
writes a novel, one man writes a symphony,
it is essential that one man make a film.
So, this these discussions about the author
is not limited to the printed words on the
on a page it is not limited to books it it.
In fact, could be extended to a number of
texts whether it is a graphic design or a
movie or anything that we see around.
So, in that sense the ideas about the author
the discussions the discourses generated about
the author is a ah is a very very prolific
and a thriving ah ah field in itself. So,
if we try to trace the intellectual tradition
of this even before Roland Barthes wrote the
death of the author we have an essay published
by Wimsatt and Beardsley in 1946 title the
Intention Fallacy.
So, this work was a product of this school
of criticism known as new criticism ; we may
also begin to see certain echoes of new criticism
in some of the arguments and parts begins
to make in his own essay. And in fact, the
Intention Fallacy is a work which which went
down in the history of literary criticism
as a seminal work which draw a wedge between
the author and the text.
So, there is a distinction that this work
mix between the author 
and the text. So, this is in stark contrast
with the previous periods in literary history;
where the author and the text function as
inseparable objects. The text becomes a product
of the author and the authors biography the
authors intention. So, to speak in writing
the text becomes very very important inner
understanding of the text itself.
So, we have the new critics we have the new
critics emerging in the 1940s and 1950s who
argue that this entire notion is a fallacy.
And ah they also begin to the new critic particularly
they also begin to argue that the reader could
never really know the author . So, knowing
the author also becomes a very contested notion
and further in their arguments Wimsatt and
Beardsley; they began to say that the point
is not really belong to the author is detached
from the author right from moment of its birth
and the poem actually belongs to the public.
So, to assume that to believe to to to assume
that the author has got any control over the
intent of the poem or any sort of a power
to control how the poem is being received
it is a complete fallacy to even assume that
such a power is being invested on the author.
So, the new critics began to argue for a way
in which the text could be read in isolation
with the author by focusing only on the practices
of reading, only on the aspects of reading.
So, from this moment we come to Roland Barthes
death of the author which is published in
1967; 1967 is an important date in the history
of literary criticism and also in history
of postmodernism. In fact, this is one year
after the year that designates as the starting
point of postmodernism, this is also the year
when Derrida published his celebrated work
of grammatology of grammatology incidentally
also become a foundational text of deconstructive
literary criticism .
So, Barthes essay gets published as such a
critical juncture in literary and cultural
history and he very controversially titles
it the death of the author . And that text
is not just the end of the discussion and
after Barthes essay in 1967 which announces
the death of the author we come to Foucaults
work in 1968, where he asked this question
what is an author he breaks down the idea
of the author, he tries to problematise the
author function and talks about how the author
function has changed historically and what
its position is in the contemporary which
is the 1960s.
So, these two texts also as we see in the
later sessions; we will be reading these two
texts in dialogue with each other trying to
see together what kind of sense they help
us to make about take stand the functions
of the text and functions of the authors.
So, here we now begin to take a look at the
essay the death of the author this is published
by Roland Barthes in 1967. And first it appeared
in an American journal title aspen and Roland
Barthes instantly is an was a French literary
critic and theorist most of his works were
available to us in translation.
And his work in terms of criticism in terms
of cultural theory, it is a very interesting
and its considered as a particularly important
because he has located at the intersection
of structuralism and poststructuralism. And
here there is also a way some of the Barthes
works we will get to know in his early phase
he was more structuralist in his approach,
but towards the towards his towards towards
the second half of his carrier; we find him
being more influenced and also becoming more
influential influential in poststructuralist
practices.
Death of the author is one such essay which
could be located as a seminal text in the
within the sphere of poststructuralism, it
is also considered as one of the essays which
would help us to begin talking about not just
postmodernism, but also the various practices
within poststructuralism and this title the
death of the author.
In fact, is a pun on Le Morte d Arthur which
is which could be translated as death of Arthur
referring to King Arthur and a Thomas Malory
had popularise Arthur in legends by compiling
the various legends folk tails stories about
King Arthur and this text was published 1485.
So, this title the death of the author is
a to the fifteenth century text Le Morte d
Arthur.
So, the primary argument in this essay the
death of the author is against a method of
reading and criticism that relies on aspects
of author's identity. So, throughout this
essay what primarily tries to contest is the
author's identity and also pronounces his
or her death towards the end of the work.
It is important to see how Barthes establishes
a connection between the reader and the text.
So, he he begins to see that the reader is
directly connected with the text and the text
has an identity, the text begins to reach
its destination only through an engagement
with the reader. And his work in in his works
in general Barthes works in general could
be considered as some of the earliest moves
in rebelling against structuralist reading
of text.
So, this is very important because though
Barthes Barthes begins his intellectual journey
as a structuralist though most of his early
works are predominantly structuralists towards
the end, he is better known in history as
a post structuralist theorist or someone who
rebelled against the structural methods and
practices of reading and criticism. And Barthes
also makes a distinction between readerly
text and writerly text and for him the readerly
text is sort of a text which does not demand
anything much from the reader; it only acquire
requires a passive reader because the author
has already sorted out everything for the
reader there is hardly any puzzle to solve
there is hardly any work for the author there
is hardly any work for the reader in the readerly
text.
But on the other hand the writerly text demands
a active role of the reader and here we also
see that the the reader when he engages with
the text, he also participates in this meaning
making process. And the meaning according
to Barthes is not embodied within the text;
text ceases to be a an object which offers
meaning, but the meaning is within the reader.
So, only when the text comes in communion
in in connection with the reader; the text
begins to send out meaning the set the text
begins to make meaning. So, this is a derived
meaning which comes out after a process as
he identifies it. So, reading becomes an active
process only when the reader engages with
the text and participates in the meaning making
process. And in that sense parts continue
Barthes also argues that reader that text
unity lies not in its origin, but in its destination
which is when it reaches the reader and origin
is with the author .
So, the text which gets produced originally
by the author ceases to the important and
the relation between the connection between
the text and reader becomes all the more important
in the meaning making process and also in
a in accessing the text as a as a coherent
understandable feature.
Here it is also important to make a distinction
between work and text; if text if the reading
is if reading is a textual process then certainly
the text are very different from works. So,
Barthes makes this distinction in number of
his works and some of his important works
are the pleasure of the text published in
1973 and image music and text compilation
of his essays in 1977. Try to distinguish
work from a text Barthes argues that work
is a physical objects that occupies shelf
space and it carried in the hand, it does
not become a text until it reaches the reader.
But text is process in language; so, this
is important to remember that this is also
linked with some of the deconstruction practices
and Derried also had an immense influence
in the way in which Barthes ideas taken a
shape. And for Barthes texts series of linguistic
processes that are decoded by the reader;
so, when Barthe talks about a text the author
ceases to be important, the reader emerges
as the single most important entity whose
participating in this meaning making process.
And text also assumes a structure of a narrative
negotiation between language of the text and
the reader.
So, this is all of these aspects all of these
negotiations all of these interactions happen
between the text and the reader and we do
not see the author emerging as an important
figure any point of time. His task ends the
moment he completes his work and the work
becomes a text only when it reaches the reader
and as he codes in one of his works the text
is experienced only as an activity of production.
So, it becomes an experience in the hand of
the reader and the work gets transformed into
a text only when the reader accesses it.
Having said that this transformation from
work to text we need to see how this happens
as well. So, a work becomes a text not just
when the reader accesses it, but also when
the reader refuses to engage with the authorial
authority. So, author in this sense becomes
a a symbol of authority and also controller
of meaning.
So, only when the reader refuses to acknowledge
that the author is invested with the power
to control meaning or author is invested with
this power to be ultimate authority on what
the text actually implies or what the text
actually means only then the only then the
work actually gets trans gets transformed
into a text.
So, the text is in fact, according to Barthes
a play between the text and the reader and
. You need to pay attention to this word play
because he also uses it very deliberately
because play is something which is which is
not confined to any sort of rigid understanding.
So, there is a lot of room to experiment a
lot of ways in which the reader can play with
the text the reader can interact with the
text. So, this basic understanding is very
very important to be able to understand and
access the work the death of the author.
So, when we talk about the absence of the
authorial figure, when we talk about understanding
the text in isolation with the author and
about completely refusing to take into the
consideration; the authors intentions while
he was composing a particular work.
Well perhaps this almost sounds like a restatement
of the new critical dogma of literary works
independence autonomy at the new critics will
put it. And this autonomy that the new critics
celebrated from historical and biographical
background reading a text in isolation with
a a in isolation with all the other factors
that is surround the text production which
also was articulated by 1946 essay Intention
Fallacy.
Whether Barthes work is a continuation of
this new critical approach or whether it echoes
or restates any of the concerns new critics
had in the beginning is a question that we
shall come back to deal with. But; however,
at this point it would justifies to know that
Barthes works dismisses all humanistic notions
and in that sense it is not a quite new critical
in its approach. And in Barthes approach according
to Raman Selden a leading cultural theorist
and critic the readers are free to open and
close the text signifying process without
respect for the signified.
So, these are certain terms which are associated
with number of structuralists poststructuralist
and deconstructive reading methods; we shall
be coming back to some of these terms in detail.
So, Barthes work gives autonomy to the reader
and it is more about a celebration of the
readers attempts to freely freely interpret
without any limiting categories.
So, as when we begin to discuss Barthes work
it is very important to locate the author
the figure of the author. Barthe argues it
or the author is a very modern figure and
this is significant point to be noted because
he himself states that in the primitive societies
the author the author figure was absent, it
was only a mediator who was available or a
speaker. And his performance was more valued
the public who gather to listen to a story
or a particular rendition or a narration.
Because oral literature was also prominent
in the primitive societies the performance
of the mediator or the speaker was more important
and his his geneous was not really admired.
So, the function of the author; the role of
the author was of a different kind altogether
in this context it is also useful to remember
that if we look at the ways in which the the
idea of the author has evolved across literary
historical periods; in the in the in the earlier
periods we come across a number of works who
were authored by anonymous authors.
Because they considered it not very important
to put down their name against their own works;
it was not important to identify the work
in connection with the author of the work.
So, we have even you you know if you take
the case of the first available Anglo Saxon
text the author is anonymous and number of
attempts have been made in the later stages
to see whether the author is a Christian writer
or a writer a pagan writer influence by Cristine
elements. So, the current way in which we
accesses text is entirely based on the identity
of the author.
So, there was a period of time in history
where the identity of the author or even the
presence of the author was not very important
narrative is when there is seen as repositories
from which any one could freely borrow and
freely take there were no there was no absolutely
no idea of stories or particular art objects
being copy writer.
And also significantly until about the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries the author was not
held responsible or accountable for a particular
work that he produced. The responsibility
and the accountability entirely rested on
the printer because he was the one who published
it the owner of the printer the owner of the
publishing house was more responsible for
it.
Given that printing was a very modern phenomenon
which made its entry in the fifteenth century,
it took a while to be able to understand that;
the printer was perhaps only a medium in disseminating
the work the primary responsibility rests
entirely with the author. So, we shall be
looking taking a more detail and closer look
at the author functionary talk about Michel
Foucaults work what is an author.
So, in Barthes works right at the beginning
he tries to locate the author as a modern
figure. And this is very important for taking
the argument forward because Barthe also wants
us to keep in mind that the author is a constructed
figure that it was not an idea which was always
already there that it is produced by our society
at the end of the middle ages. So, this historical
understanding about the idea of the author;
the emergence of the author becomes very important
in and also locate in the significance of
the author the reader and also in context
in connection with the text.
So, when he talks about the author being a
very modern phenomenon that the birth of the
author happens at a very modern stage in history,
he also makes particular references here.
He associates the birth of the he associates
the emergence of author as a modern in connection
with English empiricism , French rationalism
and the personal faith of reformation.
So, it is also here we we can also see that
the author as Barthe sees it is a construct,
is a plotted of the western dominant philosophical
ideas; it is a product of western intellectual
thought. It is also a product of whatever
the modern society required, whatever the
modern society was responding to. As the essay
progresses we will also see how he uses this
historical location, how he uses this relatively
modern emergence of the idea of the author
to also talk about the text reader and the
reading process equally as a historical phenomenon.
And Barthe in that sense makes a connection
between the emergence of the author as a modern
figure and how he discovered the prestige
of the individual. So, there is a way in which
the author gets situated historically; he
is a product of a number of intellectual trends
and thoughts he is also someone who helps
discover the prestige of the individual .
So, as we wind up today's session it is important
for us to keep in mind these starting points
in order to be able to access the essay in
the next session. I strongly encourage you
to read the original version of Barthes essay
the the death of a the death of the author,
it is a very short piece and the translations
are widely available in the web for you to
access. So, a close reading of this particular
text would be undertaken in the next session,
where we shall be dissecting the various things
that Barthes puts forward in order to be able
to argue and convinces about the death of
the author.
Thank you for listening I look forward to
see you in the next session .
