Howzzat!

Making sense of every major literary trend in the west is quite a task, I hate to admit. On the brighter side, the task of tracing a trend back to its roots is well cut out thanks to all the once path-breaking essays readily available now. A not-so-beneficial effect of giving in to this elaborate spread is the urge to argue with the dead thinkers and tell them why they are no longer relevant. On this count, Roland Barthes is rather unfortunate to have been on the receiving end when he was very much alive. His essay “Death of the author” would have been spared all the backlash if it were alternatively titled “The birth of the reader” (Barthes uses the phrase in the text) but I think it wouldn’t have been his best known piece of work if not for the apocalyptic name. In “The Death of the Author”, Barthes states that the role of the author in his work’s interpretation is non-existent. Barthes makes a case for the scriptor, an entity who is alive as long as the text is being conceived. The