Abstract
The most influential trends in 20th-century literary criticism and theory of literature can be described as revolting against a both Romantic and positivist approach which focused on the person of the author rather than his or her literary product. Formalism, New Criticism, structuralism and post-structuralism denied any importance of the biographical author, and dealt with texts exclusively. After the Barthesian formulation of the death of the author (applauded by towering figures like Foucault or Derrida) the end of the 20th and even more the beginning of the 21st centuries have brought back the importance of the author. For some new trends (especially in post-colonial and gender studies) the personal, or even the bodily experience of the biographical author seems the most important aspect of literature, which is (again) the expression of a personal experience, which is however not of personal, but of social interest. The revival of the author as refusal to look at literature as a self-centered play should not deny the importance of close reading or textual analysis, since the intellectual capital collected by 20th-century literary criticism is still worth applying.
First Page
172
Last Page
181
Recommended Citation
Péter, Hajdu. 2014. "The Death and the Revival of the Author." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 34, (4): pp.172-181. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol34/iss4/16
