LITERATURE QUESTIONS
LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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Biographical information about the author must be considered when evaluating literature.
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A text and its author text are unrelated.
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It is possible to distill meaning from a work based on the author’s politics.
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Literature is inextricably connected to its creator.
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Detailed explanation-1: -In his essay, Barthes argues against the method of reading and criticism that relies on aspects of an author’s identity to distill meaning from the author’s work. In this type of criticism against which he argues, the experiences and biases of the author serve as a definitive “explanation” of the text.
Detailed explanation-2: -’"The Death of the Author” (1967) is a famous essay by Roland Barthes and a meditation on the rules of author and reader in the formation of meaning as mediated by the text. Roland Barthes’s essential argument is that the author has no sovereignty over his own words (or images, sounds, etc.).
Detailed explanation-3: -The unity of the text is not its origin but its destination. According to Barthes, “The birth of the reader must be required by the death of the author”. So the author must die in order to allow a space for the reader. It is the reader, after all, who makes meaning.
Detailed explanation-4: -Barthes argues that most texts are readerly texts. Such texts are associated with classic texts that are presented in a familiar, linear, traditional manner, adhering to the status quo in style and content. Meaning is fixed and pre-determined so that the reader is a site merely to receive information.
Detailed explanation-5: -"Death of the Author is a concept from mid-20th Century literary criticism; it holds that an author’s intentions and biographical facts (the author’s politics, religion, etc) should hold no special weight in determining an interpretation of their writing.