Midterm - The Death of The Author

This passage contains highly apocalyptic imagery and might better be understood if we could see books/texts the way Barthes Sees them, as 3-D images. The text in this passage is considered to be an object in itself, and what's of interest to Barthes is where this object originated. The idea is that the text doesn't come from a single source but from a collaboration of past texts, none of which are original to begin with. This passages apocalyptic imagery depicts texts as more of a quilt than words on a page. 

 The essay "The Death Of The Author" which this passage is taken from, depicts that when "the voice loses it's origin, the author enters into his own death, writing begins"(121). Barthes is suggesting that when the writer begins his work he transcends the realm of original output and channels a sort of collective consciousness where all writing truly comes from. I would argue that there is some originality in a mixture, like a specific blend of older coffees offering me a new taste in the morning. To personify the text itself, Barthes says "it is language which speaks, not the author"(122), therefore the author isn't simply reduced to a vessel but completely taken out of the equation.

 It is the mentioning and denial of a "single theological meaning" that interests me. It is clear that Barthes suggests a text comesfrom multiple sources, but here he is implying a text commensurately produces multiple meanings/ideas/apocalypses as well, all while floating around free from the confines of paper and ink. 

 Barthes doesn't speak in nebulous terms, leading us to believe that this is happening somewhere, to someone else, where we can't see it. It is in this very midterm response that this text is inevitably being taken from an array of sources and producing even more possibilities of meaning. This passage is far removed from the constructs of society, culture, and even the world. Texts heavily rely on all three of these and in the same breathe add and alter them. While society may suggest there are "i's" and "we"s as sources of creative production, Barthes denies this of the standing order and claims that the thoughts simply came into your head and out your hands but urges society to look further down the line than that. Barthes searches for where they did come from before they reached your brain and assures us that we are not the first to be utilized by the creative force at hand.