This reading by Roland Barthes was a dense one to read. After dissecting a couple sentences, I understood that it was about the authors importance in pieces. I came across this sentence and it stuck with me:
"The image of literature to be found in ordinary culture is tyrannically centered on the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his passions, while criticism still consists for the most part in saying that
Baudelaire’s work is the failure of Baudelaire the man, Van Gogh’s his madness, Tchaikovsky’s
his vice. The explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it, as if
it were always in the end..."
What I got from this sentence was that both the author and the work named are so well-known, and that the author pretty much completes the writing piece that they create. At first I thought it was a positive thing. When I kept reading, I got more of the idea that Roland Barthes is saying that the authors work is a complete reflection of the author and his/her life and morals. This was hard to agree with completely because I began thinking about my own work, writing work and artwork. And how I don't know if I would want someone basing me and my personality and lived experiences completely off of my work. I think it is important to know the author in some situations but in others it could be better to leave the author out of it and let the art or writing speak for itself.
On page two, Barthes talks about how an authors book is like the authors child; author comes before, and after his lived experiences he creates the book. This does seem reasonable and makes sense to me. I do think that writing stories come from different experiences, although people can make up stories that have not specifically happened to them, but I'm sure other events in their life could have sparked the idea of whatever new one they created.
He then talks about giving a text an author, and how that will finalize the reading of the text. How knowing someone someone specific wrote something can completely change your opinion on it. I agree with this as well. This is a well-known instance that I once read from Facebook, a bunch of people were told this quote and they all said it was great and made a lot of sense and they really liked it. Then they were told that it was said by Hitler. Many of them changed their minds and were really surprised because he was such an awful man but said this thing that made a lot of sense.
He ends this essay with talking about the part the reader plays. How the reader is just as if not more important than the writer. Sometimes the writer needs to be completely taken away from the work in order for the reader to really be able to experience it. I relate this back to art, where it makes the most sense to me. When I'm at a gallery looking at a series or a piece, I've never been there experiencing it when the artist is there. So the view that I have is unbiased, I am looking at the work without knowing really who the artist is. But in school in art classes during critiques, I know (most of) the people in my class. Some of them I am very close to. And in those instances, it is pretty much impossible to look at their work and forget who the artist is. For example in my Photo II class I will see a friends work on the wall and I might have been there with them when they had taken some photos so I know the circumstances and I might give them excuses like 'well this photo could've been better but it was getting late and they didn't have much time to get a certain photo. Whereas if it was someones work that I did not know at all, I would look at it completely differently. This essay made good points, some that I agreed with, some that I didn't. But one point is sticking with me and even influenced me while reading the essay. When I kept reading the name of the author, Roland Barthes, and I would go back to reading the essay, and knowing the date, 1968, I was judging the work based off of that. I found myself thinking that this was written a long time ago by some man who could be a philosopher, who thinks he knows so much about writing and artists and "the author". That point does make a lot of sense and we all judge a work based on its author whether we realize it or not.
"The image of literature to be found in ordinary culture is tyrannically centered on the author, his person, his life, his tastes, his passions, while criticism still consists for the most part in saying that
Baudelaire’s work is the failure of Baudelaire the man, Van Gogh’s his madness, Tchaikovsky’s
his vice. The explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it, as if
it were always in the end..."
What I got from this sentence was that both the author and the work named are so well-known, and that the author pretty much completes the writing piece that they create. At first I thought it was a positive thing. When I kept reading, I got more of the idea that Roland Barthes is saying that the authors work is a complete reflection of the author and his/her life and morals. This was hard to agree with completely because I began thinking about my own work, writing work and artwork. And how I don't know if I would want someone basing me and my personality and lived experiences completely off of my work. I think it is important to know the author in some situations but in others it could be better to leave the author out of it and let the art or writing speak for itself.
On page two, Barthes talks about how an authors book is like the authors child; author comes before, and after his lived experiences he creates the book. This does seem reasonable and makes sense to me. I do think that writing stories come from different experiences, although people can make up stories that have not specifically happened to them, but I'm sure other events in their life could have sparked the idea of whatever new one they created.
He then talks about giving a text an author, and how that will finalize the reading of the text. How knowing someone someone specific wrote something can completely change your opinion on it. I agree with this as well. This is a well-known instance that I once read from Facebook, a bunch of people were told this quote and they all said it was great and made a lot of sense and they really liked it. Then they were told that it was said by Hitler. Many of them changed their minds and were really surprised because he was such an awful man but said this thing that made a lot of sense.
He ends this essay with talking about the part the reader plays. How the reader is just as if not more important than the writer. Sometimes the writer needs to be completely taken away from the work in order for the reader to really be able to experience it. I relate this back to art, where it makes the most sense to me. When I'm at a gallery looking at a series or a piece, I've never been there experiencing it when the artist is there. So the view that I have is unbiased, I am looking at the work without knowing really who the artist is. But in school in art classes during critiques, I know (most of) the people in my class. Some of them I am very close to. And in those instances, it is pretty much impossible to look at their work and forget who the artist is. For example in my Photo II class I will see a friends work on the wall and I might have been there with them when they had taken some photos so I know the circumstances and I might give them excuses like 'well this photo could've been better but it was getting late and they didn't have much time to get a certain photo. Whereas if it was someones work that I did not know at all, I would look at it completely differently. This essay made good points, some that I agreed with, some that I didn't. But one point is sticking with me and even influenced me while reading the essay. When I kept reading the name of the author, Roland Barthes, and I would go back to reading the essay, and knowing the date, 1968, I was judging the work based off of that. I found myself thinking that this was written a long time ago by some man who could be a philosopher, who thinks he knows so much about writing and artists and "the author". That point does make a lot of sense and we all judge a work based on its author whether we realize it or not.
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