The Death of the Author

In Roland Barthes, Death of the Author, Bartes proposes that a "text's unity" is reliant upon the reader and not the author. The author may put words together, but Bartes believes that it's the reader who puts meaning to the work. The author does not have any power over what the reader takes from his work.The author's only power is to "mix writings," but they are never really his own. "A text is not a line of words releasing a single 'theological' meaning (the 'message' of the Author God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash." (73) From this he means that language by itself is only words. It is the reader that gives them meaning, and the author just puts them in a specific order. Without someone to read and interpret the work, it would only be words on a page.

I agree with Bartes statement to some extent. A work can have multiple meanings, and a reader takes what he will from it. However, an author is also a reader of his own work and his intention still exists, so I wonder does the author really "die?"