Practice question · Match the pairs
Match each figure to the claim they are associated with.
- Wimsatt and Beardsley
- Roland Barthes
- Michel Foucault
- Umberto Eco
- A text can rule readings out even where it cannot fix one
- The author is a function that organises discourse rather than a person
- The author's intention is not the standard for judging a work
- The reader's birth is bought at the cost of the author's death
Hints
- Two of the four remove an authority and two describe what replaces it.
- One of the four is the brake on the other three.
Show the answer
- Wimsatt and Beardsley → The author's intention is not the standard for judging a work
- Roland Barthes → The reader's birth is bought at the cost of the author's death
- Michel Foucault → The author is a function that organises discourse rather than a person
- Umberto Eco → A text can rule readings out even where it cannot fix one
Why
Eco is the brake, and he is the one a student project needs. Without limits the removal of the author leaves nothing to argue about; with them, a reading can still be shown to be unsupported by the work, which is what makes a crit a discussion rather than a series of unfalsifiable reports.
Practise Meanings, and Who Decides Them
The app has 6 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Painting I is free to start.
More questions on Meanings, and Who Decides Them
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