Romance Languages and Literatures · Boston College
Since the appearance of Roland Barthes' article, "The Death of the Author" (1968), this eye-catching phrase has received much attention. But if the author is dead, then who does the writing? This course covers a period of 20th century French literature and criticism during which the traditional figure of the literary author fades, and a new kind of literature appears, one that seeks to be mechanical, impersonal, and based on objective rules. What did this literature look like? It was playful but rigorous, and it
