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Killing Joke: Authorship from Barthes to Nothomb

O'Meara, Lucy (2015) Killing Joke: Authorship from Barthes to Nothomb. L'Esprit Créateur, 55 (4). pp. 101-117. ISSN 0014-0767. (doi:10.1353/esp.2015.0050) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:55519)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/603953

Abstract

In this article, I discuss the ongoing legacy of Barthes’s 1967 essay “La mort de l’auteur” by putting it in dialogue with the fiction of the bestselling Belgian novelist Amélie Nothomb and the biographical criticism of Nothomb’s French-language critics. Nothomb promotes a monological, authorist reading of her work that goes fundamentally against the grain of poststructuralist, anti-authorialist theory. However, Nothomb’s sparring with ideas of authorship and of readers’ interpretation in works such as Hygiène de l’assassin articulates an active – though hostile – engagement with the Barthesian idea of the “death of the author,” demonstrating the ongoing relevance of this totemic essay in the era of the “retour au récit.”

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1353/esp.2015.0050
Uncontrolled keywords: Barthes, Nothomb
Subjects: P Language and Literature
P Language and Literature > PC Romance philology and languages
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of Culture and Languages
Depositing User: Jacqueline Martlew
Date Deposited: 18 May 2016 14:14 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Mar 2023 11:34 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/55519 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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