Author and Authorship: a Barthes-Foucauldian Plural Perspective

Abstract

With the growth of analytical approaches to literature and the rise of interests inpersonal responses to arts and poetics, text and textuality have gained momentum to questionenduring declarations for the work as the canon of authority. In the setting, author, as the solepoint of reference for interpretation and truth in the text, has been at the risk of losing groundsand being reformed by the objects of his target. Integrated to this, is the theories developed infavor of reader and readership to seriously question the claims for the originality andauthenticity of meaning in the text. This paper seeks to address this issue by drawing upon theconcepts and approaches developed by Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault. Both of thepoststructuralist thinkers are at the juncture of struggles to free the text from the dominanceand influence of the author. The researcher indicates that both of the theorists are potentiallyworking to open up literature to plural voices, to rival exclusive role of the interlocutor and todecentralize the intended meaning.