Reader Meets Author

In his essay What is an Author?, Foucault tries to define for us the role of an Author and the definition is much more complicated than simply the writer of a certain text. For Foucault, the idea of the Author encompasses the historical background to his work, the reader's own knowledge of the what the Author represents, and also the Author's motivation behind his entire oeuvre. The last two factors are entirely subjective. He believes that the name of the Author alone holds a "specific link" to his work (907), but at the same time, he argues that these transcendent characteristics we, as readers, assign to the Author "are only a projection...of the operations that we force texts to undergo...(909). In short, the Author's reputation as the Author inevitably influences how the reader interprets the text.

I think it would be interesting to not see such rigid lines between the Author and the reader since at one point, the Author was a reader himself. Barthes hints at this idea when he says that the Author's "power is to mix writings to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them" (876). In other words, to be able to build and reconstruct ideas and works of the path, an Author has to become the interpreter of these texts. If we keep in mind that perhaps our role of the reader is not so different than that of the Author whom we are reading, the problem of the Author's influence is diminished.

I see the author-reader relationship as more harmonious; the Author gives, the reader takes, but eventually, the reader will offer up a different interpretation for other readers to take and digest. I chose the title "Reader Meets Author" because I do see the author-reader relationship as a meeting, the shaking of hands, and the working out of ideas. This concept reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, when both the writer of the book and the main character he creates end up in the same diner. This idea is rather metaphysical, but it does show that Author and the reader can exist in the same way (or in the same space and time) and that the Author doesn't necessarily have to have this God-like presence.