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Critical assessment of Roland Barthes death of the author
Roland barthes death of the author analysis
Critical assessment of Roland Barthes death of the author
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The concept of ‘the Death of the Author’ was proposed by, French philosopher and literary theorist, Roland Barthes in his essay with the same title. He proposed a paradigm shift in the way that authorship should be viewed by the ‘Critic’. In opposition to the classical model of critique, Barthes proposed that the focus should be on the readers experience and interpretation; he proposed the idea of ‘readerly’ and ‘writerly’ texts. Rather than focusing on the author’s intent, his or her past building up to the text and the singularity of his or her intent, he suggested that once a text has been committed to written words it transcends into a ‘tissue of signs’ and ‘immense dictionary from which he [the writer] draws a writing that can know no halt’ [Barthes 1977, 147] and the only thing of importance to the critique of the work would be the experience of the reader. He proposed that ‘the work’ itself is merely a string of words that, without a reader, would be void of meaning. He also suggests that these two polar opposites were mutually exclusive of one another and that ‘the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author’ [Barthes 1977, 148]. The discussion that follows will be based on Stephen Heath’s French-to-English translation of Barthes work from the compilation of essays, ‘Image – Music – Text’, translated and compiled in 1977 (three years before Roland Barthes’ death).
Although Barthes spoke mainly of literature (or ‘writing’, as he clarifies, to avoid the connotations that literature had [Barthes 1977, 147]), he also discusses music in his essay entitled ‘Musica Practica’ [Barthes 1977, 149-154] and his theories can be extended to all art forms.
Roland Barthes was a structuralist (and indeed, by some,...
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...eas were presented by Barthes, we now commonly accept that a text, or a piece of music, is not simply a series of words, or musical motifs, releasing a single theological meaning but has the potential for a multidimensional space giving place to multiple meanings of equal validity.
References
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Barthes, Roland, 1977: “The Death of the Author” from “Image – Music – Text” (translation by Stephen Heath)
Barthes, Roland, 1977: “Musica Practica” from “Image – Music – Text” (translation by Stephen Heath)
Barthes, Roland, 2006: “Operation Margarine” from “Media and Cultural Studies” (collected by Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas Kellner)
Barthes, Roland, 1975: “S/Z” (translation by Richard Miller)
Kiremidjian, David, 1985: “A study of modern parody: James Joyce's Ulysses, Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus”
1. Music is a strictly local expression, rich in variety since each culture expresses affective differences through art, 2. Music is a poetic process--complex, vague, and irrational--based upon borrowed traditional musical materials (melodies, rhythms, forms, etc.), 3. Music is for a religious, elitist-class performer who can understand and appreciate its mysterious nature and power, 4. Music is played softly in intimate gatherings, 5. Music making is the activity of Everyman, exacting the talents of variously trained amateurs who, with industry and practice, decorate their recreation and leisure in moments of social intercourse.
TitleAuthor/ EditorPublisherDate James Galways’ Music in TimeWilliam MannMichael Beazley Publishers1982 The Concise Oxford History of MusicGerald AbrahamOxford University Press1979 Music in Western CivilizationPaul Henry LangW. W. Norton and Company1941 The Ultimate Encyclopaedia of Classical MusicRobert AinsleyCarlton Books Limited1995 The Cambridge Music GuideStanley SadieCambridge University Press1985 School text: Western European Orchestral MusicMary AllenHamilton Girls’ High School1999 History of MusicRoy BennettCambridge University Press1982 Classical Music for DummiesDavid PogueIDG Books Worldwide,Inc1997
The films Young Frankenstein and One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest can be viewed as a critical analysis of society’s issues and dysfunctions in the form of satire and parody using humor. While Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks cinematic version of the gothic novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, uses parody in the form of Horatian satire, which is achieved through gentle ridicule and using a tone that is indulgent, tolerant, amused and witty. The film One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel, uses a form of satire called Juvenalian satire which is demonstrated in the form of attacks on vice and error with contempt and indignation. Horatian satire will produce a humor response from the reader instead of anger or indignation as Juvenalian satire. Juvenalian satire, in its realism and its harshness, is in strong contrast to Horatian satire (Kent and Drury).
Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author,” “From Work to Text.” Image, Music, Text. Trans. Stephan Heath. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978. 142-148, 155-164. Print.
García, Márquez Gabriel. Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Gregory Rabassa New York: Knopf, 1983. Print.
This is the second volume of Richard Taruskin's historical work, and it highlights composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He examines the progression of different styles and eras of music.
In order to understand the changes which occurred in music and which affected the Liturgy in the Renaissance period, it is necessary to give a brief sketch of music in earlier times. The first notable aspect of Renaissance music and musical thought is the pace at which it developed. This rapidity stands in contrast to all previous music history. The history of Western art music properly begins with the music of the Christian Church at the end of the ancient world (circa 400AD). This was a world in which music alwa...
Brown, Earl B., Jr. "Kosinski's Modern Proposal: The Problem of Satire in the Mid-Twentieth Century." Ebscohost. N.p., 1980. Web. Mar.-Apr. 2014.
On September 28, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe arrived in Baltimore, Maryland to take a train to Philadelphia. What was supposed to be a brief stop over turned into an eternity. What caused the death of "the father of the detective story"? The possible scenarios surrounding the events that lead up to his death are the cause of many magazine articles, books, and even recent medical studies. Although no one really knows what happened to Edgar Alan Poe, there are over twenty different theories about what might have happened to him. I will discuss the four major theories of what Edgar Allan Poe's cause of death was.
In his essay dated 1968, Roland Barthes sought to convince the individual reader that the author is obsolete; writers only have the capacity to draw upon existing themes (or structures) and reassemble them in a different order. This typically structuralist view completely defies a writer's ability to express himself through unique, individual stories leading many to term the approach as 'anti-humanistic'. Barthes clearly drew influence from Northrop Frye, author of 'Anatomy of Criticism', who outlined these repeated narratives as the comic, romantic, tragic and ironic. In turn these corresponded respectively to the four seasons, compiling what Terry Eagleton refers to as 'a cyclical theory of literary history'. It would seem through this that Frye achieved his ultimate aim, by creating a critical theory that was objective and systematic. To summarise, Frye and most structuralists soug...
‘Do not forget that the melody is the Idea, the outline; as much as it is the form and the subject matter of a work. The harmony is an illumination, an exhibition of the object, its reflection…’(3)
...s Joyce. The Modern Library. 1928. 5-11. Rpt. in Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. ed. Dennis Poupard. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1985. 16:203-205.
Literary criticism is used as a guideline to help analyze, deconstruct, interpret, or even evaluate literary works. Each type of criticism offers its own methods that help the reader to delve deeper into the text, revealing all of its innermost features. New Criticism portrays how a work is unified, Reader-Response Criticism establishes how the reader reacts to a work, Deconstructive Criticism demonstrates how a work falls apart, Historical Criticism illustrates how the history of the author and the author’s time period influence a text, and last of all, Psychological Criticism expresses how unconscious motivations drive the author in the creation of their work as well as how the reader’s motivations influence their own interpretation of the text (Lynn 139, 191). This creates a deep level of understanding of literature that simply cannot be gained through surface level reading. If not one criticism is beneficial to the reader, then taking all criticisms or a mixture of specific criticisms into consideration might be the best way to approach literary
The concept of the Renaissance man is somewhat of a lost ideal, replaced by the specialized philosophy of the industrial era. From the 14th to 17th centuries; however, it would be common to find a man with a profound knowledge of both the Arts, music, poetry, literature, art, and the Sciences, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology. The Renaissance man embraced all forms of knowledge, and through a deep passion for both the Arts and Sciences, used each discipline to expand the other. Unfortunately, in the 21st century, this same philosophy is far gone. Where these two fields once were used together to create an ultimate beauty, they are now pitted against each other by many scholars. It is not uncommon now for a mathematician or physicist to dismiss the Arts as a waste of time; or for an artist or musician to proclaim the Sciences as useless to them. As both an avid blues guitarist and an IB math student, I aim to contrast this modern opinion. I will do so by exploring the relationship between the Arts and Sciences; specifically mathematics and music. On a personal level, I find this to be extremely important, as I hold a deep value for all means of human expression and learning. I believe also that the Arts and Sciences hold one great unifying thing together, which is the search for Truth and Beauty. In a modernized world where ideas and creations can be shared so quickly; the potential for a profound knowledge and passion of both these fields has never been greater. Concepts I plan to explore are: how musical scales can be made using Fibonacci ratios, the Golden Ratio’s relationship with music, equal temperament, where else the Fibonacci numbers occur in music, the exponential nature of octaves, and how exposure to music help...
The New Critics, just like Wimsatt and Beardsley put forward in their essay, also believed in the ‘organicity’ of the text. In the essay, they write, “A poem should not mean but be.” And, since the meaning of the poem or the text is the medium through which it can exist, and words, in turn, is the medium through which the meaning is expressed, the poem or the text b...