Barthes talks about the death of the author not in a way that means the author is not important but in a way that means when you associate a work with an author, that work is limited by that author's name. The text has lots of different meanings; it's not just a voice for the author. I think he has a valid point because sometimes I read books just because a certain author wrote them, and then they don't live up to my expectations. I always wonder who decided which authors were the authority on literature.

We kind of discussed this in class about Shakespeare and J.K. Rowling. Culture has dictated that Shakespeare is an authority while Rowling is still just considered a children's author (a popular one but still a children's author. Who knows who will be a great authority fifty years from now?