A thought on authorial authority and the stultifying murder of the the author

The death of the author was only necessary when people did not fully understand what it was to be a poet - poets have little authority over their work, and they know this. They are as aware of the impossibility of fixity in words, the impossibility of the relationship between ideas and reality, aware of the unique purpose of poetry as discourse and not definition, as we are now after the purposed execution of authorial authority. Surely this must surely rescind their death warrant.
Milton, perhaps, can stay at the block if we need a scapegoat for centuries of authorial oppression, but i would pardon him too.

3:13pm 21st Nov '08. Reading Peter Conrad's History of English literature.