Roland Barthes's "Death of the Author," Explained

In this video, I introduce Roland Barthes's essay "The Death of the Author" (1967). First, I look at the question of authorial intention, and I compare Barthes's position on authorial intention to Monroe C. Beardsley and William K. Wimsatt's essay "The Intentional Fallacy" (1947). Then, I examine one of the major ways in each Barthes's text diverges from this previous text by looking at the role that structuralism plays in his argument.