Structuralism essay

Question 3 – Pour (le deuxième) Roland Barthes – s’inspirant sans doute de la notion de la « fonction poétique » de Roman Jakobson – la littérature moderne implique « la mort de l’auteur » car « c’est le langage qui [y] parle, ce n’est pas l’auteur ». Michel Foucault, quant à lui, parle d’une « fonction-auteur » attachée à certains textes (des « œuvres » ) et non pas à d’autres. Evaluez la logique de ces positions en vous référant aux articles originaux. Est-ce legitime de parler d’une « mort » dans ces cas où, par contre, ne s’agit-il pas d’une métaphore en besoin d’interprétation ?


Structuralism, as a school of thought, can be applied to many disciplines. In my essay, I shall be looking at how structuralist thought can be applied to the relationship between an author and his work. I will be examining whether or not our conception of an individual “author” behind a work is still relevant and I will be evaluating specifically the theories of Barthes, Jakobson and Foucault in regard to this.
In an essay entitled “ Le Mort de l’Auteur”, Roland Barthes outlines his position. In some ways, Barthes makes a valid claim when he says “c’est le langage qui [y] parle, ce n’est pas l’auteur”1 He bases this assertion on the fact that the language which we use comes from a myriad of sources. Therefore, any text which an author writes is merely “un tissu de citations, issues des mille foyers de la culture”¹ which has been stitched together. When people learn languages, in essence they are learning other people’s words. Take even this sentence- no new words, phrases or grammatical structures have been invented by me. In what sense then am I the “author” of these words? When he writes, the author does not bestow a meaning upon the words he uses. This is a force which is outside of his control. “voudrait-il s’exprimer, du moins devrait-il savoir que la «chose» intérieure qu’il a la prétention de «traduire», n’est elle-même qu’un dictionnaire tout composé…”¹ According to Barthes “tout texte est écrit éternellement ici et maintenant ”¹. Therefore, readers can infer what they wish from a text. It is not for the author to dictate. As Barthes says:
“L’Auteur une fois éloigné, la prétention de «déchiffrer» un texte devient tout à fait inutile. Donner un Auteur à un texte, c’est imposer à ce texte un cran d’arret, c’est le pourvoir d’un signifie dernier, c’est fermer l’écriture. Cette conception convient trés bien à la critique, qui veut alors se donner pour tâche importante de découvrir l’Auteur (ou ses hypostases : la société, l’histoire, la psyché, la liberté) sous l’œuvre : l’Auteur trouvé, le texte est «expliqué», le critique a vaincu.....Le lecteur, la critique classique ne s’en est jamais occupée....nous savons que, pour rendre à l’écriture son avenir, il faut en renverser le mythe : la naissance du lecteur doit se payer de la mort de l’auteur.”¹
However, there is one overwhelming problem with Barthes' hypothesis. It is generally accepted that the purpose of language is communication. Language can only be effective as a form of communication so long as all parties involved in the speech act share a common interpretation of the signifiers. For instance, if someone says: “I want to go for a cup of coffee” and someone listening decides that this means “I feel sick” then language is rendered futile. Does this not apply to writing also? If a reader interprets a text howsoever he wishes, then its communicative function is lost.
One could argue that literature and speech are not the same. Some might say that where speech's only concern is to get the message across, literature is more complex, and needs to be aesthetically pleasing as well. In Roman Jakobson's “cadre de l'échange linguistique”3 he states that all language can be described in terms of its function, of which there are six types : la fonction expressive, la fonction conative, la fonction phatique, le fonction métalinguistique, la fonction référentielle et la fonction poétique. It is not only poetic, literary language that has “une fonction poétique” though. Jakobson believes we use it all the time when we decide the order in which to name things. For example, with people's names, we tend to put the shortest ones first when we are listing them. However, with poetic and literary language, “la fonction poétique” is the predominant function, to which all other functions are subsidiary. Literary language is first and foremost “un objet èsthetique” In other words, it is more important that it is a piece of art before it is a piece of communication.
Nonetheless, I find this explanation unsatisfactory. The aesthetic Jakobson is referring to in “objet èsthetique”, is the beauty of “l'ordre des mots” and the various “euphonies”, “cacophonies” “assonances” “alliterations” in a piece of writing. Yet, if the aesthetics were truly more important than the writing's content, then why do people not read books in foreign languages unless they are proficient in them? Most people are aware that languages like French and Italian are famed for being very beautiful sounding languages, yet who would actually pick up and read a book in French or Italian if they had no clue what was being said?
I do not believe that literature and speech are fundamentally different. On top of everything else, how could one logically separate what is literature from other “low-brow forms” of writing such as advertisements, posters, simple stories etc. After all, speech can be written down. Although communication is not the only concern of language, I believe it is the primary one. And if communication is to happen, then we have to be able to understand what the author (or whoever the message emanated from) had intended to say. To this end, I believe that knowing the personality of the author can only be a boon to understanding.
Foucault takes a different approach to the question. On the whole, he agrees with the Barthesian view that the author should be accorded less significance. “…la marque de l’écrivain n’est plus que la singularité de son absence”2 However, he feels that Barthes' ideas have yet to be fully integrated into modern discourse as there has been not enough discussion about the context in which a work can be read, in the absence of an author. In a lecture delivered to the Society at the “Collège de France” entitled, “Qu'est ce que c'est l'auteur?”, he emphasised the importance of drawing up a set of criteria from which one can precisely define the idea of an author. He tells us the purpose of his inquiry was to examine “le seul rapport du texte à l’auteur, la manière dont le texte pointe vers cette figure qui lui est extérieure et antérieure, en apparence du moins.”² Referencing Barthes and Saussure, he tells us that:
“...l’écriture d’aujourd’hui s’est affranchie du theme de l’expression : elle n’est referee qu’à elle-même, et pourtant, elle n’est pas prise dans la forme de l’intériorité : elle s’identifie à sa propre extériorité déployée. Ce qui veut dire qu’elle est un jeu de signes ordonné moins à son contenu signifié qu’à la nature même du signifiant.”²
Foucault believes that the function of an author is “charactéristique du mode d’existence, de circulation et de fonctionnement de certains discours à l’intérieure d’une société.”² However, only some forms of discourse support this use of a “fonction-auteur”. Certain types of discourse were historically exempt from the need to have an author attached to them, for example folk tales, epics and tragedies, “leur ancienneté, vraie ou supposée, leur était une garantie suffisante.”²
Foucault, citing Saint Jerome, says that an author can be defined as someone whose work is of a more or less uniform quality, containing a consistent ideology, and homogeneity of style. He also points out that an author's work will never contain an account of any events that happened after his death. To support this, he points out how in cases where the author of a text is unknown, critics are often able to decipher his identity through analysing his other works, and looking for similarities of style etc. Although he acknowledges that :“Les quatre critères de l’authenticité selon saint Jerôme....paraissent bien insuffisants aux exegetes d’aujourd’hui.”² He still believes that: “ [Ils] définissent les quatre modalités selon lesquelles la critique moderne fait jouer la fonction auteur”2
Another function of an author is their power to open up the possibility of an entirely new topic for discourse, like in the way Freud is not only the author of “the Interpretation of Dreams” etc but is also considered the father of psychoanalysis.
However, reading “Qu'est ce que c'est l'auteur?”, I found Foucault extremely problematic. He declares that the author is dead, but acknowledges the hole left by his absence. He decides therefore, that we need a new concept, something that will take the author's place. He calls this new concept, the “fonction-auteur”. And how does he define this “fonction-auteur”? By describing, in exhaustive detail, an author. Little is achieved.
I think this serves to highlight the great difficulty that lies in removing the idea of an author. However, one argument which I felt could have been stressed more in both Foucault and Barthes, was the fact that in the Middle Ages, most stories and lyrics were essentially authorless. Although most stories were authorless because, having been passed down orally from generation to generation, their origins had become obscure, even new lyrics in the Middle Ages were generally written in anonymity. If the majority of authors wrote anonymously, it must only have been because there was no great demand for them to do otherwise. This raises interesting questions for our present, author-centric view of literature.
In the end, we must always remember that in the essays of Foucault and Barthes, when they speak of “the death of the author” they are using the word “death” only as a metaphor. Clearly, there are still such things as authors. What is being debated however is their importance. Overall, Foucault and Barthes believe that we should not think of the author as a creative force. As Barthes says, the word “author” should mean only one thing- “a person who writes things down”. I have outlined above how Foucault and Barthes came to these conclusions, but whether they came to the correct ones, is a matter for debate. The one thing that is not disputed though, is their contribution to the field of structuralism. More than just the authors of their own works, they paved the way for a new dialogue. As Foucault might say: “Ils ont produit quelque chose de plus : la possibilité et la règle de formation d'autres textes. En ce sens, ils sont fort différents....[ils sont les] «fondateurs de discurvité».”2




Bibliography:

1.“La Mort de l'Auteur” p61-68. Essais Critiques IV – Le Bruissement de la
Langue par Roland Barthes. Publié par – Éditions du Seuil, Paris, septembre
1984.

2.“Qu'est-ce qu'un auteur?” p789-821. Dits et Écrits par Michel Foucault.

3.“Linguistique et poétique” Essais de Linguistique Générale par Roman Jakobson. Publié par – Éditions de Minuit, Paris, 1963.

4.“Michel Foucault- Language, Counter-Memory, Practice. Selected Essays and Interviews”. Edited with an Introduction by Donald F. Bouchard. Translated by Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon. Published by – Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1977

5.“The Rustle of Language” - Roland Barthes. Translated by Richard Howard. Published by Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1986.