by Shannon Johnston, Blogging Circle 1
In 1967, celebrated French literary theorist and critic Roland Barthes wrote his essay “The Death of the Author.” In his essay, Barthes declares the the language and words and statements of a text do not belong to the author once they are written down and read, thus the text looses it’s origin and becomes it’s own entity. I found that this went along quite nicely with our latest discussions on the implications of Petruccio’s behaviors according to Shakespeare himself and reading about Shakespeare’s life in order to find answers to questions raised by the text of “The Taming of the Shrew.”
Throughout my reading of this play, Petruccio rubbed me the wrong way more and more with every scene I read; I ultimately believe Petruccio’s intention throughout the entirety of the play to be devious, selfish, and cruel. Petruccio from the start comes across as a very powerful character, and just adds to that idea as the play goes on. I find the height of Petruccio’s power and the death of Shakespeare’s authoritative power as the author in the first instance that he renames Katherine to “Kate” and creates a new entity within the walls of the play; as we know, Katherine and “Kate” are two VERY different characters. In his essay, Barthes claims that “As soon as a fact is narrated no longer with a view to acting directly on reality… the voice loses its origin, the author enters into his own death, writing begins.” (1322). In the case of Petruccio renaming Kate, this theory may apply;
P: Good morrow, Kate, for that’s your name, I hear
K: Well have you heard, but something heard of hearing:
They call me Katherine that do talk of me.
P: You lie, in faith, for you are called plain Kate…”
Petruccio has created a new reality with a new entity, no longer is Katherine and the reality of Katherine still alive, it has deceased along with Shakespeare’s voice. The origin of this new entity really belongs to Petruccio because this is something created within that reality, not Shakespeare’s. Petruccio holds to power as he has shifted the entire reality of the play with just a simple name change, and we can no longer to Shakespeare, the authoritative figure in reality, for answers because the text has lost that origin and has created its own. This really puts into perspective the debates and discussions on meanings and analyses of the play; we have all these questions with no answers because there is no one to ask who has an answer. Barthes also states that “The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author” (1326), which here can be applied to the readers consistent search throughout the text, or close reading, in order to find evidence to support whatever their findings and ideas were on the text.