This week we had two different readings one starting with an article by Barthes titled "the Death of the Author" Barthes goes in to talk about what happens to the words of an author and how words are used and almost constantly recycled. Barthes goes in with a hard approach by saying that no text is original and I would have to disagree with that. While I do believe that a lot of text is old ideas or conspectus chewed up and spit out as new text I still believe that there are some rarities of purely original text. I think there is text that was so original that it was considered ahead of it's time and just dismissed. On the other hand you have works of text that was created and the glorified for its originality, such Dantes inferno. When Barthes goes in to talk about "once the Author is removed, the claim to decipher a text becomes quite futile." From what I understand that Barthes is trying to get at in this statement is that ounce the author has died the text become so open to objections and can be taken as metaphoric as the reader would like but with the Author being alive they are able to defend their work and make sure it is being understood the way it was written.
On a different spectrum, we read a statement from Levine who is some degrees has some similar concepts to Barthes article if I understand it correctly. Levine is also saying the there are no original text but goes in to also say there are also no original paintings as well. But I think that Levine takes Barthes work a bit further, perhaps why she got away with the amount of plagiarism. Levine talks about that "birth of the viewer" I think Levine is really trying to show her readers that yes their is no original work but their is a cycle that comes with that, the death of one thing comes with the life of another. Almost a constant reincarnation of text in that way. Witch in my perspective is a better way of thinking about text and art. 
the image I picked is Dantes Inferno witch I think was at its time fairly original.
You are in favor of the idea that there is original literature out there and providing an example would be a good addition to your essay. I am glad you provided an example of what you think to be original art, If you could expand with an explanation as to why it is original. Is it the theme of the nine circles of hell which was an established one in Catholicism at the time, the comedy poem that goes along with the painting or the picture of hell a theme which I am sure would have been drawn in illuminated manuscripts elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your comment Russell and you are totally right I could have defiantly done a better job at giving better examples.
DeleteIts true that removing an author makes dissecting work difficult, especially with more abstract work. However, there are a few cases where that is the intention of the work, to be hard to dissect and the "author" keeps their life hidden on purpose to further their mysterious art.
ReplyDeleteThat is very true, I do think that does happen a lot but I think for the most part if there is no author name tied to a piece of work because someone forgot to include it.
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