Collage Takes Away the Reasons

At the beginning of “The Death of the Author” on page 143, Barthes talks about how literature and literary criticism focuses on the author and the details of his/her life to explain the “genius” of their work or what have you, (Van Gogh’s madness, he points out, for example). Critics seem to always look for a reason for why they wrote something some way or painted something, etc. I think this is an interesting point in collage because with collage you take that away, because when you compile a bunch of things from different sources, (or even just change something from one source), you can’t really analyze it in the same way.  I think this idea of the collage contributes to the death of the Author because it produces a kind of shade of grey, and then, like Barthes tries to explain, allows the words to come across without the thought in the back of the reader’s mind of “Oh, so-and-so wrote this, so I have to like it,” or whatever, (that’s happened to me, at least). Later on the same page, he writes “…It is the language which speaks, not the author,” and I think that is an important point to make because the words are what should resonate with a reader.