The Death of the Author: WTF? Roland Barthes' Death of the Author Explained | Tom Nicholas

Roland Barthes’ The Death of the Author is a seminal text in the development of literary theory. Often considered the moment when structuralism gave way to poststructuralism as the dominant approach to cultural analysis, in The Death of the Author, Roland Barthes argues not only that we should not place too much emphasis on authorial intent when analysing a cultural text but also that the popular conception of the act of authorship might be altogether wrong.
In this episode of What The Theory?, I aim to provide a Death of the Author summary and analysis both drawing out key ideas from Barthes’ essay and considering what the ramifications might be for how we analyse or read a text.
Further Reading
Image Music Text by Roland Barthes (includes The Death of the Author)
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Mythologies by Roland Barthes (a fantastic and truly accessible example of structuralist analysis)
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Barthes: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathan Culler
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