In the lecture, I did not comment on Roland Barthes' argument, but explained his central point. To repeat, Barthes iterated that the text, not the author, refers to pre- existing texts for unraveling its intent. But you are right in thinking that a writer has a role to play in the making of the text, his version being one version that the reader struggles to interpret, to unmake, or replace with his/her own. Thus, the author is not dead or irrelevant to the reader/interpreter.
"Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself". It is Historiography's strong defence.
Roland Barthes, as you mentioned, talked about the death of the author and that the text is a tissue of quotations taken from different sources, thus negating any significance of the author. My question is that even though a text may contain things that were already said by someone somewhere, still the way these pre existing ideas are represented in a text and the perspective that emerges thereof, is author's own. So don't you think that completely wiping out an author's authority in a text is slightly problematic ?
In the lecture, I did not comment on Roland Barthes' argument, but explained his central point. To repeat, Barthes iterated that the text, not the author, refers to pre- existing texts for unraveling its intent. But you are right in thinking that a writer has a role to play in the making of the text, his version being one version that the reader struggles to interpret, to unmake, or replace with his/her own. Thus, the author is not dead or irrelevant to the reader/interpreter.
