Death of the author

A critical concept associated with Roland Barthes' 1967 essay of the same name, arguing that the meaning of a text is not determined by the author's intentions but arises from the reader's interpretation. Once a work is published, the author's biographical context, stated aims, and private meanings become irrelevant — the text stands on its own. The idea has roots in New Criticism and influenced a generation of poststructuralist literary theory. In practice it raises a genuine question about evidentiary weight: should an author's stated interpretation of their own work be treated as authoritative, as one hypothesis among many, or as no more reliable than any other reading? Writers like Nabokov and Borges — who publicly denied or deflected the deeper meanings their readers found — have become test cases for how seriously to take the principle.

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