Author & Interpretation

WHAT IS AN AUTHOR? , by Michel Foucault

THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR, by Ronald Barthes

AGAINST INTERPRETATION, by Susan Sontag

What struck me most in Foucault’s essay about “what is an author” was his discussion about anonymity in texts, or the “author function”. Any literary, folk, tales, or tragedies were circulated as anonymous and that was accepted, but any scientific text must of had an author for it to be validated. I find this interesting because I am interested and working with anonymity and aliases in my work. I post in blogs and forums all under an alias, trying to keep some sort privacy, or just keeping alive and playing with different personalities traits.
I feel that the anonymity in literary texts, in some cases, is fun/mysterious/cultural. A story that is passed down through time with a somewhat changing storyline based on the amount of times it has been retold in different languages and cultures. There is something about those stories that seem so timeless and that a direct author doesn’t seem to matter.
Although, if a medical text stating that X will cure me and then X gives me cancer- I would be very upset. I would want to know this author and have them meet my lawyer. I would want no anonymity in the medical field, but who is to say that in another culture somewhere that they would want to know the direct author of the story they are telling their children about.

In Barthes’, The Death of the Author, the ideas about removing the author from said piece is something every artist or author must face. The artist cannot personally stand by their piece and walk the audience through it. The artist must let the work speak for itself. The viewer, with all their baggage, arrives to a piece and it is up to them to analyze and interpret the piece.

In Susan Sontag’s, Against Interpretation, I came to comfort that artwork doesn’t have to be all goobly-goo content, but form is still a necessity. Content and form need to work together, but it is very easy to get the two separated in an artwork.
She also stated that “real art has the capacity to make us nervous” and that one must reduce the art to its content to tame the work of art for interpretation.

I will at times look at a piece of art and think to myself “Okay, damn, I know I should get this because I am an artist...but I have no idea what is going on with this piece” I begin to feel nervous.

Sontag states, “we are stuck with the task of defending art”