I Like Me Some Barthes

In the past few discussions we have had in class, the main focus on theory seems to have revolved around the text and the author: specifically their socio-political, literary-historical, and autobiographical context. The argument of “the critic” also arose concerning their authority and overall place in theory and criticism. I have been wondering why the reader was never a point of focus during this discussing. (Yeah diagrams!) Although I posed the question, it was never really discussed; however, now that we have moved onto post-structuralism, I feel that it is appropriate to discuss in light of the introduction of Roland Barthes in this week’s reading.

When Barthes published his essay, “The Death of an Author” in 1968, he helped create a significant shift in the way theorist perceived the idea of authority. In previous theory, text value was often associated with the author, context, and intention of the piece when the dreaded critic assessed the piece’s worth and integrity. On the other hand, Barthes view in early post-structuralism in regards to his essay, he “makes a declaration of radical textual independence: the work is not determined by intention, or context. Rather, the text is free by its very nature of all such restraints” (Barry 63-64). This figurative death of the author shifted theorists their view from the author's intention to the reader: it is the reader that produces the text instead of the author creating it. This reader-centered approach by Barthes in the early phases of post-structuralism captures an authentic purpose of literterture and the experience that it creates for individual readers.

Now, just like we discussed concerning Quintilian, several new theories and pedagogical “innovations” existed long before their termed publications; it is simply re-packaged for modern times. Although Reader Response Theory was practiced since 1937 by Louise Rosenblatt in the pedagogical realm, it did not gain its popularity in literature or pedagogy until the 70s. In her 1938 publication, Literature as Exploration, she remarks on literature as an “event” rather than a static text:

The special meaning, and more particularly, the submerged associations that these words and images have for the individual reader will largely determine what the work communicates to him. The reader brings to the work personality traits, memories of past events, present needs and preoccupations, a particular mood of the moment, and a particular physical condition. These and many other elements in a never-to-be-duplicated combination determine his response to the peculiar contribution of the text. (pp. 30-31)

In short, reader response theory reject the New Criticism which assume that the texts themselves were central, and that instructors were to teach the skills of close-reading while suppressing—the expression of and attention to—differences in students' own individual responses. Then in the late 60s and early 70's there occurred a paradigm shift in the teaching of literature away from viewing the text as authority, to a view that focuses on the reader's relationship and experience with text.

So I ask, what is the point of literature? Why do we write it? To get judged, critiqued, labeled? Or is it a form of expression or entertainment? If we cannot agree on the function of literature, then how can we assess it?