Often times a reader reads a text with the author in mind. They do this in an attempt to precisely interpret what the author intended to write. The reader may believe if the author's background is revealed, so will be an agenda.
The readers tendency to consider personal aspects of the author such as ethnicity, or religion, for example, is criticized by Roland Barthes.
Barthes writes, "To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing [...] [However] by refusing to assign a 'secret,' an ultimate meaning, to the text (and the world as text), liberates what may be called an anti-theological activity, an activity that is truly revolutionary since to refuse to fix meaning is, in the end, to refuse God and his hypostases--reason, science, law." (147)
Therefore, we cannot assuredly detect what the author is intending to write- rather, we should only look at the language he/she uses, and the text itself to interpret meaning. It is the language that speaks, not the author.
The challenge now, is to go back to known texts and reread them. Does Barthes' idea transform the text for you?
The readers tendency to consider personal aspects of the author such as ethnicity, or religion, for example, is criticized by Roland Barthes.
Barthes writes, "To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final signified, to close the writing [...] [However] by refusing to assign a 'secret,' an ultimate meaning, to the text (and the world as text), liberates what may be called an anti-theological activity, an activity that is truly revolutionary since to refuse to fix meaning is, in the end, to refuse God and his hypostases--reason, science, law." (147)
Therefore, we cannot assuredly detect what the author is intending to write- rather, we should only look at the language he/she uses, and the text itself to interpret meaning. It is the language that speaks, not the author.
The challenge now, is to go back to known texts and reread them. Does Barthes' idea transform the text for you?
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