In his essay, Foucault examines two of
the notions that complicate literary understanding and criticism
in a world without the author, “work” and “writing”.
Both of these terms are problematically defined and seem to give
to the critic as false a sense of unity as the earlier term of
the author did. Foucault says that it is therefore not enough to
repeat the “empty affirmation” that the author is dead. We must analyze what the author means (or
meant) so as to better ground the critical terminology that
replace him/her.
