Death of The Author Theory & Freedom of Interpretation
Or, A new interpretation for “Speak! Speak!" By Millais
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Death of The Author Theory & Freedom of Interpretation
Media Review
Anisa’s Writing Corner
Conclusion
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Death of The Author Theory & Freedom of Interpretation
Does the Author matter? Really, truly?
This question starts rhetorically, and I will attempt to answer it, only to prove it to be rhetorical again.
As I sat down to write this newsletter, I tried to remember where the idea for it began, with only a little success. I seem to recall a distraught TikTok about a fan-theory being disproved. Someone left a comment with “death of the author theory” ringed in blue; many people did, in fact. I think I clicked the search-bar, and that’s where this started.
Circumstances have kept Shakespeare’s life hidden from us, yet he has been hunted like a criminal. In volume after volume, his unknown character is cleverly constructed like a ship in a bottle. So Barthes wants to slay a spirit. He would bruise a bodiless being. It is the demise of that confident, coldly overbearing, creator—that so palpably erased and disdainful imperial person of the artist—that he longs for. - GASS, WILLIAM H. “The Death of the Author.”
I think they were trying to say what the author said didn’t matter, but that will not suffice as an explanation. For the uninitiated—Death of the Author theory was first coined by Roland Barthes, and posits the Author as a god who winds up dead in a Nietzschean way. Beginning by analyzing a particularly voiceless quote from Balzac’s Sarrasine, he asserts that we can never know what an author means—when are they writing? When are they preaching? When is what they write the product of their environment, their training, their education, themselves? When is it a product of their fiction? Barthes claims that we can never know these things, and never should; he calls writing a voiceless act, and calls for the death of author, critic, and literature. In replacement, he idolizes “writing” and the objective “Scriptor” (more on that later), and consigns both to service to the reader.
Barthes, in doing so, points out something rather apt. In Western society, due to the culmination of multiple philosophies, the individual is prized, and typically the Author benefits from it. Now, more than ever, this is true. We chase down interviews from our favourite authors. We seek out their annotations, and ask them questions, and have debates over what they truly meant. Suzanne Collins has just announced a new Hunger Games novel. We eagerly anticipate what she means by it, and debate over whether she is defeating or reinforcing previously established points. (I thought she said she’d never write another Hunger Games novel and thus synonymize us all with the Capitol. Well, she said she only writes when she has something to say). By and large, when it counts, when the Author writes something, we listen.
Does that make them divine?
Barthes is careful to point out the theological overtones of his announcement. Deities are in the business of design; they order oftener than generals; the robes the painters put them in are juridical. God handed down the tablets of the law to Moses, and Jane Austen or Harriet Beecher Stowe hand down texts to us. While it is by no means necessary to put the author’s powers and responsibilities in religious terms, Beckett’s schoolboy copy books are tablets, too, and attract lawyers and legalese as though they were papers sticky with honey. - GASS, WILLIAM H. “The Death of the Author.”
Gass, in his response to Barthes’ theory, also satirises the author’s role as a religious one. There is theistic writing, where author-god is present and guides us along in a chatty way, correcting our suspicions and framing our view—Dostoevsky is often this kind of writer, and Dante is always this kind of writer. There is Deistic writing, where the “earth unchained from its sun”1 is only thus because the sun refuses to claim it, where the frame narrative posits the tale as one true and then retold (Eileen Chang’s approach), a pseudonymic “author’s” creation (Dorst and Abrams’ approach in S), or a thing that was spontaneously born or given to the author by a Muse (Milton’s approach, and the approach of the ancients). There is pantheist writing, where the author’s character or story or setting have the “style” of him, if not the “end” of him.2 The character is independent as a puppet is; he is his own person, but he succumbs to the twitching of the strings (Richard in the Secret History is not Donna Tartt, but even Donna admits he writes like her, or she writes like him3). The author may pretend to lack control, but in all of these styles, they exercise something of the authority experienced when we mortals are confronted with Deity. And that is because we listen to them speak.
We do more than listen, actually. We personalise, in the way of pocket faith, revolutionise in the way of the Reformation. We ascribe things to Person and Prose that maybe aren’t quite there. In the grey areas, of which every text is in possession, we leap between the author and their work, draw lines over the twelve-foot drop and build a bridge between.
An example of this is perhaps the synonymisation of Nabokov with Humbert Humbert in Lolita, and the demonization of the novel as a result. HH ceases to be the deviant; Nabokov, the author, now is. The very same author whose request to not have young girls on the cover of his book was denied to the point where the image of Lolita is now a book with a girl with blonde hair.4 The blurring of identities that ties an author to their work is often most prominent in cases of unreliable narration. In fact, the very phrase “unreliable” narration belies a hidden expectation—in the act of telling, we are expected to be true. Is it then a crime to assume that an author writes what they believe? Is it then a crime to point a dagger to their throat and demand of them an explanation? Especially when the viewpoint in question is provocative, objectionable, immoral?
INTERLUDE: ADDRESSING THE GHOST OF THE AUTHOR:
Do you mean to say you have no voice? That you wrote this and did not mean it? That you wrote that and meant this and everyone else read wrong? All this debate about whether the novel is dead and no one realises that you are; speak and slay your enemies, speak and have a spine. Give context—or don’t! None of us care! But do not dare feign apathy or absence. You are not God of all earth, nor angel from heaven, you are human and have only lived here—before you cross and cease to matter, don’t you have something to say?
Speak! Speak! I suspect we all know that you only ever pretend to be voiceless, that you are no Millaisian spectre who appears but does not speak words. Words are a weapon, so when a cut has been made, the gaze travels to he who holds the knife. You, the Author, must understand this always–it is the first risk you take in a world that has many. Your words will always be attached to your name, no matter what mouthpiece you place them in.
You know this, and still hide behind a paper-thin “I”, beckoning a first person interpretation. Such a biographic approach to storytelling must indicate personal experience. You are “asking for it,” like tall girls in minis.
Even in third person, your work is a memory, an anthology of tightly held-beliefs. The artificial distance you employ is pale and weak; we can see you behind it, always will. No matter what you write, you invite your own dissection. Do not flinch or stop the game when the knife gets too close.
But you may learn to like dissection. You may learn to like the pain. If there’s a spotlight on you, speak; you are bleeding either way. The pages in your book still squirm, a loud and pretty catch. (We only want to touch your blood to see if it will match.)
“…writing…designates exactly what linguists…call a performative, a rare verbal form (exclusively given in the first person and in the present tense) in which the enunciation has no other content (contains no other proposition) than the act by which it is uttered - something like the I declare of kings or the I sing of very ancient poets. Having buried the Author, the modem scriptor can thus no longer believe, as according to the pathetic view of his predecessors, that this hand is too slow for his thought or passion and that consequently, making a law of necessity, he must emphasize this delay and indefinitely 'polish' his form.” - BARTHES, ROLAND. “The Death of the Author.” (trans. S Heath)
The Author is dead, Lit and Critic died with them,5 but there is still writing, and someone must read. Barthes’s solution is the Scriptor-Reader relationship. The Scriptor is detached from the narrative, does not belong to it or own it. He is the “I”, but only in a phonemic sense; he ceases to exist after the story does and cannot boast of existing before. The Reader, no longer looking for bits of Person in prose, is free to “disentangle” what they will. The Author flies, dies in the sky, and their final breath is wonder; the Scriptor lives (?) animated by ink, we turn to him just for good prose.
But no matter how exsanguinated he is, he has this over the Author: he breathes. No matter how briefly, for now, he lives, and therefore has something to offer the world.
When the body of the Author-god hits the ground and breaks apart, no one will bother to swarm what is left of them. There is nothing to scratch at. There is no blood to draw. The Author-god is dead, and we have killed them.6
“The death of the author signifies a decline in authority, in theological power, as if Zeus were stripped of his thunderbolts and swans, perhaps residing on Olympus still, but now living in a camper and cooking with propane. He is, but he is no longer a god.” GASS, WILLIAM H. “The Death of the Author.”
But perhaps I am being dramatic. The Death of the Author is less of a death and more of a shooing to the side. The Author mainly loses jurisdiction and not being, though it feels like much the same thing. Nevertheless, the eviction from the narrative, theological or not, murderous or not, is incredibly convenient for the reader. It gives them the ability to direct the experience of reading without intervention. Thus, it doesn’t matter what Fitzgerald (F. Scott or Zelda) meant by the famous “I hope she’ll be a fool” quote,7 only that Daisy said it and each reader can make of that what they like. It doesn’t matter if the author didn’t make (insert ship) canon, or confirm (insert favourite fan theory). The debates will not end, but they will take new form, where no theory has more legitimacy than the next. Each head-canon would hold a power rivalling the canon itself, and the Scriptor does not have power to dispute that. (Whether an author would is debatable, as AO3 will tell you).
Does this scare me? I don’t know. Maybe it is a good thing that the Author is dead, because then they cannot interfere, or place themselves where they should not be. I roll my eyes at weak self-insert satire as much as anyone else, scoff when authors try to clothe themselves in character. But if an author imbues their characters with sliced off bits of themselves, does the act of it negate their work’s merits?
Would we call Dante a lesser poet because he stars in his own epic, employs his idol as a side-kick, and throws his enemies in hell? Because we cannot drag him out of The Divine Comedy without a fight? Because analysis of it is incomplete without him? Some would apparently think so. If impartiality is the price of literary greatness, if employing personal experience is a weakness, then the state of literature is lofty only in the way of an ivory tower.
And yet: I do not want people to think every time I write an “I” or a character from Nigeria it means I am being autobiographical. I do not want people to hallucinate my presence in whatever narrative I write next. I do not want people to stalk me to find similarities I have with my work. I have seen this approach in countless iterations, and with each new face it is eldritch.8
Sometimes I sit, holding a pen and shaking with it, wondering if what I write will be seen someday and therefore careen out of my control. My stories are not my stories, I will repeat like a mantra, when people forget I am teller and not tale. My stories are my stories, I will say, when the previous tack shifts, when people begin to erase what I intended. Please leave them alone. Please never stop reading them. Please please please—always begging.
As a writer, this is the least and yet the most legitimate worry that I’ve convinced myself to have. Being erased. Being spotlighted. One would think you couldn’t have both things at once.
If I were to sit down with my main character, Vera, I think she’d judge me for having this line of thought, but only because she agrees. Write something and mean it, she’d say with lifted brow. And then don’t let people redefine the definition. I’d say “of course.” We’d both be lying, and anyway, we’d both be wrong.
Because isn’t extrapolation the joy of reading? Of writing? Isn’t glorying in interpretations delightful? Authors are not celebrities—we are crafters of a cave, and then we hide inside it watching people as they arrive. Will they like the cave? Where will they stop and look? Where will they laugh? Where will they cry? What will they pluck and take away?
And when they exit— forever, or just for a little while—what will they dare to say on TripAdvisor?
4 bubbles
Author is a bit of a sop, but all in all a nice world to go to.
1 bubble
Vera talks too much.
5 bubbles
I think it’s safe to say that I will be rereading this. And is this some kind of metaphor for ——? (You tell me)
Because my stories aren’t my stories. They might as well be yours. (This is true in all but the bare proprietary sense). No matter how much I own them, I cannot own what you make of them. What memories they evoke, what things and themes you will associate with or without my design. That’s part of the treaty between us. I could make this a suzerain contract, invoke the heavens or the stars, but I’d get nowhere because no reader or writer can prove that they are God. The reader-writer relationship can be all sorts of things. But often it’s synergetic, if not symbiotic. Neither serves the other, neither sits exalted, but both can help the other’s existence feel a bit brighter, more complete. The Scriptor-Reader union pales in comparison.
The Author is Not Dead, but they have never been a Deity. My Chemical Romance will never know what “Helena” means to me. I read the Chronicles of Narnia with an eye on the religious allegory. My friends and I debate what really happened to Lucy Gray. None of it matters, and all of it does.
Should the Author stay silent? Yes, in review spaces, in fanon spaces, in any capacity where their presence imposes hegemony on friendly discussion. Should the author speak? Yes, where it is necessary that they be held responsible for their words, where they cannot hide behind them, where they wish to clarify a stance that has been warped out of context, or confirm/deny consensus.9
Won’t the fun go on no matter what the Author says or doesn’t say? If opinions are divided, must that mean that they are dead? Who knows—but I suspect Barthes was more comprehensive than he knew when he wrote the following words, which sum up everything.
…writing is the destruction of every voice, of every paint of origin. Writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative· where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing.
Media Review
BOOKS:
I didn’t read a whole lot in May, but for the most part I liked what I read. A few favorites:
Babel by R.F. Kuang, which I am getting too entirely too late, but which I adored. I see why people call it a must-read—but please, if you read it, don’t bother checking out the reviews. So many people missed the point and I regret observing them.
The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton, which might be my favorite read of the last five years. So impressive, so immersive, so skillfully executed—this is a book that lives and literally sings with it. A friend of mine recommended it and I can’t thank her enough.
Love in a Fallen City (the collection) by Eileen Chang, which was my first time reading Chang’s work. Her style is so deft and skillful and I thoroughly enjoyed each short story—they were often tragic, but in a way that tastes nice. My favorites would likely be Sealed Off or the eponymous Love in a Fallen City, but an honorable mention goes to The Golden Cangue which was gorgeous and was translated into English by the author herself!
MUSIC:
May was an interesting month, music wise. I spent half of it exploring Sabrina Carpenter’s discography and the other half with Mitski and Hozier on repeat, but in between there was Fiona Apple (especially Never is A Promise + The First Taste), ABBA (Angeleyes), and The Beatles (Nowhere Man and Norwegian Wood)
ANISA’S WRITING CORNER
May was a peaceful month, writing wise. Most of my betas are still reading Astericus, and Project V wasn’t worked on much. I’ve mainly been writing for my creative writing class, which has been fun, but also slightly nerve-wracking. You know how peer review is—I’m still not entirely used to it.
That being said, I had a crazy idea that I am desperate to start working on, so watch this space!
CONCLUSION
May!! How I will always love you!! You were epic and sleepy and mad, all at the same time. I cried and laughed and blinked and then suddenly it was June.
As usual, I’m horrible at ending these things, but I hope last month was amazing for you, and I hope this month is too. Write back and let me know something fun that happened to you in May <3
Much love,
Anisa
To borrow a phrase from "The Gay Science” by Friederich Nietzsche
To quote Gasse, who uses The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge and Rilke himself as an example of this.
Donna is quoted saying “Richard in 'The Secret History" lives on for me in a more practical way than any character I ever wrote, however. Richard’s voice, to start with, was an invented voice, constructed for the purposes of the story I wanted to tell, but because I spent so many years when I was young writing almost exclusively in Richard’s voice, his narration ended up influencing my own writing voice pretty profoundly.”
Although, as Gass notes, Nabokov is no stranger to drawing comparisons between himself and his first-person I. Commenting on “The Vane Sisters,” Gass writes “The “I” is not Nabokov—no—yet this “I” teaches literature (French not Russian) at a girl’s college (not a woman’s college, not Cornell) in an Ithaca, N.Y., climate (no mistaking that upper New York snow and ice, icicles carefully described), so that we are led roundabout to wonder. Again, this sort of teasing is deliberate.”
As Barthes assert, when the author is deposed in this way, Literature is replaced by “writing”, and the Critic is replaced by the Reader.
Although I’m certain that’s not what Nietzsche meant, his construction will favor us here.
“I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” - Found in Chapter 1 of the Great Gatsby.
An example: Going on Genius and seeing Here, Mitski is saying, said with so much familiarity it makes me feel sick.
Because hopefully it should go without saying that the author is responsible for any harm they perpetuate through their books—stereotyping, or slurs in the mouth of a character that the author thinks is allowed to say them, are not things I am in any way condoning.
SOURCES:
GASS, WILLIAM H. “The Death of the Author.” Salmagundi, no. 188/189 (2015): 514–513. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43942321.
BARTHES, ROLAND. “The Death of the Author.” https://sites.tufts.edu/english292b/files/2012/01/Barthes-The-Death-of-the-Author.pdf
“Best-selling Author Jason Mott Shares His Book Picks for 2022.” 2022. https://www.today.com/popculture/books/donna-tartt-secret-history-interview-questions-rcna62501.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-speak-speak-n01584
such a thought-provoking read, and SO SO WELL WRITTEN!!!
- smrithi <3