Etymology

death of the author

Today it means: A technique of literary analysis that disregards authorial intent, focusing only on the text. Full definition →

French la mort de l'auteur
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. French · calque ofla mort de l'auteur
  2. English todaydeath of the author

Calque of French la mort de l'auteur, the title of a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.