2013 Volume 62 Issue 8 Pages 84-97
Roland Barthes proclaims the “death of the author” with his concept of textuality. Once the text is liberated from the author, he says, its meaning depends on each reader’s unique reading rather than the authorial intention. As a result, the unity of the text is disrupted through semantic explosion and dissemination. But such radical relativism inevitably entails not only the death of the author but also the death of the reader who is supposed to play a central role in this new way of reading. With the help of Minoru Tanaka’s theory of the “third term,” this article will consider what way of reading is possible after the reader’s death.
