Literary criticism

I wanted to write about something that’s a bit complicated, but I’m not feeling well enough to put forth the effort.

Essentially I’ve been reading about the “death of the author” and realized it’s all just a land grab on the part of literary criticism. Kill the author and exclude casual readers, and who is left to read the text? The academics and philosophers.

What they’re left with, though, is an idealized version of a text, the writerly text that is so idealized and unattainable it ruins all other real texts. In that cloud of self-delusion, it no longer matters what moved the author to write, and it certainly doesn’t matter what purpose the reader has for a text.

All that matters is what interpretation the literary critic can make to establish their own authority over the text. They kill the author and the reader so they can empty their pockets and claim their possessions.