The Death of the Auteur

“The Death of the Auteur”

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The concept of ‘author’ is originally derived from the Latin word for

authority. From the theoretician’s standpoint, the author carries power over the

text only to the extent that the ideas and scenarios within it are originally those of

the author. French literary theorist Roland Barthes argues that the function of an

author is to provide the semblance of originality and meaning in The Death of the

Author.

“Writing is the destruction of every voice, of every origin. Writing is

the neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away,

the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity

of the body writing.” (Barthes 1466)

The basis for Barthes’ argument is the writing of Ferdinand de Saussure,

particularly the discourse on signification and authorship in Course in General

Linguistics. Within the scope of Saussurean theory, a viewpoint can be

ascertained that is conceptualized for applicability to The Death of the

Author. Saussure begins his introduction to this topic by defining language

in a way that concurs with Barthes’ use of it. Language is the “social side of

speech, outside the individual who can never create or modify it by

himself.” This is concomitant with Barthes’ work, particularly in his concept

of the author as the subject of a text. Barthes stresses the impersonality of

any work, due to the essence of language, that it is the quintessence of the

performance and not the author’s subjectivity. In one of his most poignant

assignations of profound semiological characterization, Saussure posits the

nature of the linguistic sign as the unity of a concept and a sound-image.

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For this assumption to be relevant, it follows that language mus...

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Saussure, Ferdinand de. “Course in General Linguistics.” The Norton Anthology

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the Modern Novel.” Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. 1976.

Vertov, Dziga “Kino-eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov.” Ed. Annette Michelson.

Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984.