Rochester Complicates Barthes and Foucault

Farley-Hills places the reception of Rochester's poems into a historical context. His conclusions suggest the plurality of the author's name and function within a single society. Receptions of Rochester's name as an author are so varied that they point to a dynamic of the idea of the author that Barthes does not take into consideration and Foucault only touches tangentially, that is the critic's and society's relationship with and reception of the author and his/her works.

The author Rochester is not dead. In fact, he is very much alive and active constructing the way critics and readers read him. Moreover, Rochester himself seems to preempt Barthes and Foucault’s objections to the artificiality of the author.