Roland Barthes, La Mort de l'auteur [The Death of the Author]

Maria O' Sullivan (University College Cork)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Domains

Literary Theory/ Critical approach

Dates

First circulation or publication 1968

Places

France (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Commentary / Criticism (literary)
- Essay Collection

Resources

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Recommended Reading

“The Death of the Author” is easily Roland Barthes’ best known text. A short essay of just seven pages, it is hard to overstate the impact it has had on literary criticism in the English-speaking world and beyond. It routinely features in the reading lists of courses which introduce students to the foundational concepts of twentieth-century literary theory, and its central ideas have been rehearsed and adapted by many writers, artists and thinkers since its initial publication in English in the avant-garde American journal

Aspen

in 1967. The essay was then published in the French journal

Mantéia

in 1968, before being re-published in English in the collection of Barthes,

Image, Music, Text

, ed. and trans. Stephen Heath, London: Fontana, 1977. The essay has gained this status because…

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2279 words

Citation: O' Sullivan, Maria. "La Mort de l'auteur". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 May 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10350, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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