Luke John Frost

1. Discuss the interrelationship between spectator/author in response to the following quote “...the birth of
the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.” (Barthes 1977:148)
 Word Count: 1823

The Author, an Introduction

Roland Barthes begins his essay “Death of the Author” with an anecdote. “In his story
Sarrisine Balzac, describing a castrato disguised as a woman, writes the following sentence:
'This was woman herself, with her irrational fears, her irrational whims,her instinctive worries,
her impetuous boldness, her fussings and her delicate sensibility'” (Barthes 1977:142). He
continues with his quote from the book and then asks possibly one of the most important
questions relevant to modern culture, a question that continues to be pertinent and a question
with an answer that continues to shift and change over 30 years later. “Who is speaking thus?” is
it the author, the character, wisdom itself?(Barthes 1977:142),
Later he replies to his own question by stating “it is language which speaks, not the
author; to write is [...] to reach that point where only language acts, 'performs', and not 'me'.”
(Barthes 1977:143). He believes that the author is merely a conduit through which language
speaks. What language is this? Culture, experience, and nothing original. Its voice vibrates
through “tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture” (Barthes 1977:146)
and carries meaning from this font of all human knowledge.
From this it becomes important to consider the relationship the Author has with the
reader, the spectator. He is the guiding hand, the 'past' of the work and when kept in mind he is a
sturdy rock which the spectator can cling to. Barthes views this as debilitating, therefore the
author must be killed. If the author is the conduit through which language speaks (and holds no
other importance after the fact) then the reader is the conduit through which language imparts its
meaning.
“..the reader is without history, biography, psychology; he is simply that someone who
holds together in a single field all the traces by which the written text is constituted” (Barthes
1977:148). Just like in the field of quantum mechanics, the observer (reader) by the simple act of
observing collapses the waveform (meaning/traces/tissue) into a measurable quantity.

The Authors Effect upon the Spectator

 Foucault implies that even the authors very name can be a danger to the spectators
experience of a work. Bearing the authors name in mind can cause a rift in the transcendental
grasp of the authors supposed death. “...if we proved that Shakespeare did not write those
sonnets which pass for his, that would constitute a significant change and affect the manner in
which the authors name functions.” (Foucault 1991:107) If it turned out that Shakespeare was
more than one person, or stole his works from another, it's wholly possible that with the author
"alive", that is to say active within the minds of a spectator, the spectator would interpret
differently any works of Shakespeare they may read.
Why? He states that the authors name is like a link in the net of references, pulling
together his other works and the opinion of the spectator of how the works relate and contrast,
how they were critically received, the authors personality and his overall goals. “It would seem
that the authors name, unlike other proper names, does not pass from the interior of a discourse
to the exterior individual who produced it; instead, the name seems always to be present,
marking off the edges of the text, revealing, or at least characterising, its mode of being.”
(Foucault 1991:107). At times authors are perceived to implant themselves into the text and later
“unite their person and their work through diaries and memoirs.” (Barthes 1977:143). A selfish
act which does nothing for the greater understanding of the spectator but acts only to imprint the
cascade of their work (through the “multi-dimensional” space Barthes envisions) with their Ego
in a vain attempt to grasp immortality.
An interesting analogy to further explain the multi-dimensional space where a work is
said to reside (in the minds of spectators) could be Richard Dawkins theory of memes introduced
in his book 'The Selfish Gene' (1976). Memes are described to be “hypothetical cultural units
passed on by imitation; although non-biological they undergo Darwinian selection like genes.”
(Atran 2001:2). Whether or not the theory of memes works (or whether or not memes actually
exist) is debatable but it is interesting to note the parallels between the concept Barthes
introduces as the “tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture” (Barthes
1977:146), with the theory of memes explored in the fringes of philosophy and science. The
closest parallel to the 'tissue of quotations' proposed by Barthes and the theory of memes is
summarised by the anthropologist Scott Altran with the quote “...memes seek to perpetuate
themselves by nesting and nurturing in mind after mind.” (Atran 2001:5).
On the concept of a 'work' and what a 'work' actually is, Barthes states that “...a text is
not a line of words releasing a single 'theological' meaning (the 'message' of the Author-God) but
a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and
clash.” (Barthes 1977:146). For writing to begin the author has to step outside of reality,
'disconnect' and let go of his Ego (Barthes 1977:142). The Author must die within his own mind
for writing to truly begin, only then can the text be free of the tyranny of supposed meaning he
imposes on it. With the Author dead and gone the spectator can view the text and its own internal
voice in the “here and now.” (Barthes 1977:145).
Returning to the issue of an authors name, Foucault eloquently summarises the concept
of an author by examples such as “A private letter may well have a signer—it does not have an
author” or “...a contract may well have a guarantor—it does not have an author.” and so on.
(Foucault 1991:107/108). Trivial things such as these have no author, they are seen as having
no great importance. The author function seems to come alive only in works of importance and
begins to govern the existence and machinations of the Authors importance in the mind of a
spectator when an obvious and definitive example of a 'work' comes to be consumed.
The Authors Funeral
So what role does the spectator play now that the Author is dead and the burden of
'disentangling' a text rests with us? If the Author is dead then who is qualified to take his place?
No one singular person needs to it seems, nor can they. The mantle appears to be collective, a
pearl of the 'centres of culture' embedded in each of us through our ongoing experiences.
Over time it has become clear that Barthes' prediction has steadily picked up more and
more weight and that modern media (from journalism to art, entertainment to academia) has
unlocked this “multi-dimensional space”, the “...immense dictionary from which he [the author]
draws a writing that can know no halt.” (Barthes 1977:147) like no other before it.
User Generated Content (UGC) has become a corporate buzzword. Every company
wants a slice of the pie, every company wants to exploit the creativity of the masses and reap the
benefits while giving back very little in return. “Imagine a music industry which, instead of
investing in a single massive star called Elvis, distributed ten thousand stars, all recording for a
dollar, in totally different styles, all appealing to small, highly self-concious cult in a fragmented
society.” (Momus 1991). It was here in the music industry that one of the first instances of truly
user generated content began to crystallise into reality. A good example of this phenomena could
be the iTunes store where artists who have recorded their own material can sell their wares and
achieve popularity.
The internet can be said to be one of the most (if not the most) powerful tools at the
disposal of these liberated spectators. “As well as professionally produced material being offered
free, the public has also been allowed, indeed encouraged, to make its content available to
everyone.” (Deloitte 2009).
Websites such as youtube.com bypass the concept of an established author figure
whereby its users upload their own content free of charge. In reference to this form of UGC the
consultancy firm Deloitte comments “Typically, amateurs who submitted their content have
received little or no compensation.” (Deloitte 2009). With no monetary incentive, millions of
people per day still persist with their uploading of videos with no publisher, editor or peer-
reviewed buffer in-between them and the spectator.
A paraphrase of Warhol in 1968 “in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15
minutes.” springs to mind to explain this otherwise rewardless act. The phrase was updated by
the Scottish songwriter and blogger Momus to reflect the changing times when he said “in the
future, everyone will be famous for 15 people.” (Momus 1991). He ends his essay surrounding
this idea with the apt line “The King is dead. Long live the peoples!” (Momus 1991). Though he
uses Elvis to talk about the past successes of the record industry, the King sounds remarkably
like the long dead Author.

Conclusion
The philosopher Alexander Nehamas supports and summarises Foucault's (and
indirectly Barthes) study of the author figure in his essay “What An Author Is” with the
following - “The author is not a person at all, but a “function” or “figure” which emerged, in
connection with literature, only after the Renaissance.” (Nehamas 1986:685).
The spectator looks to the author as a force of guidance to explain or otherwise
rationalise their work. In their minds the author takes on the “function” that Foucault describes
and Nehamas supports. “...it is to ask of them a certain type of question and to expect a certain
type of answer.” (Nehamas 1986:685). With an author present in the equation between spectator
and text he acts as a buffer. “The Author confides in us.” (Barthes 1977:143)
Nehamas introduction to Foucaults way of thinking in “What and Author Is” clearly
states that pinning a work with an author figure with the explicit intention of deciphering its
message and reasoning “is an impossible goal which leads us in the wrong direction.” (Nehamas
1986:685).
Foucault himself states that “It is a very familiar thesis that the task of criticism is not to
bring out the works relationships with the author, nor to reconstruct through the text a thought or
experience, but rather to analyse the work through its structure, its architecture, its intrinsic form,
and the play of its internal relationships.” (Foucault 1991:103). Through this he refers directly to
an idea of Barthes introduced a year before in 1968 in the essay “Death of the Author”. The
spectator can only truly understand and question the “tissue of quotations drawn from the
innumerable centres of culture” (Barthes 1977:146) when the author has 'died', has been
abolished as an entity of worth.
“...the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.” (Barthes
1977:148)

Bibliography
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