Death of the author

[ellajam]

I lean towards "New Criticism", that pretty much defines what I think about " Death of the author". When Barthes wrote his essay " La mort de l'auteur", It seems to me he was just restating what the New Critics had already said. New Critics thought that one should critique the poem by itself without regard to any external items, such as the writer, history, and so on. I mean when you decide to not include the writer in ones analysis it's all a wash isn't it. But Barthes just came up with a very chic way of saying it.
In terms of POV, it is not the POV of the writer we are seeing, but the POV of the speaker. Usually a good writer will not write autobiographically. How could a single person convey the needed universality from only their singular personality, and their limited POV. It is fairly obvious that the writer should never enter into the discussion as it is a set up for the cult of personality.
In my mind Frida Kahlo was never a great painter. It wasn't until her life's story became known, along with her suffering, which was very real, that people (in terms of a lot of people) began to admire her work, but her work did not stand on it's own, it was very much wrapped up in the cult of personalty. People often say that they feel her pain, yet I doubt very seriously they would say that if they came to one of her paintings fresh, without an knowledge of her history.
The same can be said of poetry. You read a poem that you like. Then find out that the writer is a drug addict, and then you say, ah, that's why he did such and such. Yet this does not make the poem more understandable, instead it trivializes the poem. The only allowance I would make is when it is a matter of an allusion. I very much think it is important for the critic to familiarize himself with what the allusion is pointing to. After all, how can one critique a poem, when only understanding two-thirds of what is written?

Dale the anomalous

My bold. My hijack.

This is an issue I have because I am not as well read as the poets I read.

There is a line a poem can cross where it becomes babble due to allusions the reader cannot fathom. A more successful poem can be understood on some level by the uneducated reader who may not even understand that an allusion was made that I can research. Allusions or not, the best pieces can stand on their own, working on many levels.