Idea and the Intent of the Author

I was intrigued by Barthes' statement that "the inner 'thing' [the writer] thinks to 'translate' is itself only a ready-formed dictionary, its words only explainable through other words" (877). It made me consider what place ideas had in all this talk about language and text. If ideas can only be explained through words, and there are no "original" words, this would seem to indicate that there are no new ideas either. Is the author, then, equated with the idea behind the text in Barthes' view? If the Author dies when a text is born, then it would seem that a text becomes a level playing field, so to speak, without meaning or implications that precede the words.

This negation of inherent meaning is interesting when it is compared to Aristotle's writings about Ideas and agency. In The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses Ideal Good, asking "is there nothing else good in itself except the Idea?" (23). His capitalization of the "I" in "Idea" indicates that the word stands for some overarching concept which does not exist concretely but which is behind all uses of the word "good." But while Aristotle is talking about Ideas, he is not talking about authors or individuals. Rather, his Idea is something that is presumably held by all people who understand or try to understand the concept of goodness. Judging by this example, Aristotle's philosophy implies that words have inherent Ideas behind them, and that although a writer may have motivation for his writing, once he writes, the reader's interpretation of these Ideas is all that matters. Thus, it seems to me that Barthes believes not so much that the author does not precede the text, but that the author dies when the text is written, when it is released into the world of interpretation.