Narratology: A Theory Of Author's "Death" ?

Narrate logy is at once one of the most influential literary theories in the latter art of the 20th century and the one most likely to be misunderstood, With "narrator" as its basis of eorcet, narratology deals with the author as its covert and core issue. According to some narratoeogists, a text is narrated rather than authored and an author is not a narrator. Since the author utters nothing and has nothing to do with the text(except that he/she has written it), the author turns out to be "dead" .Therefore, narratology is denounced as a study of "the author' s death" . The viewpoints of some other group of narratologists are contradictory to that of the above-mentioned. We stand on the side of those who hold quite the opposite, simply because we think that those narratologists who maintain the idea that "the author is dead" will fail to deny the author ' s leading role in literary creation. They intend to forget the author in their analysis of the narration levuls and narration covertness and overtness. While they try to shun the fact that an author is an active role in a literary work, they actually keep themselves away from the fact that literature is a sort of intellectual production. As a matter of fact, an author cannot be "dead" .The theory of "author' s death" in narratology, however, bears a core that is theoretically rational and has its peculiar value and in a sense, it is on the basis of reality. Viewed from level of literary theory, it is the outcome of the logic development in the area of literary theory in the 20th century. The tradi tionai literary theory designates author as the absolute boundary of the textual interpretation and regards the situation of the times in which the author lives(i.e. the outside world of the text) as the indispensable reference for the comprehension of the text. But such viewpoints have encountered forcible refutation from various burgeoning theories in the 20th century. Russian formalism cuts off the 1 ink of li terature with the external world and thinks of form and techniques as where "literality" of 1 iterature is; while new criticism sets the text down as the real object of criticism and holds that it is the text itself that determins the significance of the text. Narratology, in carrying out such a rebellious spirit against tradition, transcend the former two at a higher level. By way of "author' s death" in narratology author has in fact become a substi tute for "center" or "authority" . To put author to "death" means nothing but overthrowing"authority" and dissolving "center" . 1'holding the banner of "killing the author" , narratology has negated any existence that attempts to usur the authori tat i vc position, and whereby if resents us a straewhat reasonable picture of literary world.The theory of "author' s death" also has its connotation in terms of ideology and discourse power, in the eyes of those narratoJoyists such as R.Barthes and so or, the traditional literature (or novels) serves capitalism and the authors are spokesmen of the bourgeois ruling architecture. Hence, "the death of author" is an equivalent to the demand that an author should .shift from the role of the bourgeois literary hack to the role of critics of capitalism. Then "author' s death" can be interpreted as a sort of curse in that "author" could refer to bourgeois ideology and power order. The theory of "author' s death" demonstrates that narratology dare to scorn and negate any authority, and is imbued with an intense criticism of society, which narratology has possessed.To pose the theory of "author' s death" is to negate the so-called exclusive center or authority, which is in truth the academic sound of narratology times. Prom both the perspective of literature and dissolve authority is an objective phenomenon in the context of post-modernism and post-colonialism, and in return, the objective realities have roved the rationality and value of narratology.With time passing by, narratology seems to have been thrown into the shadow of history. However, our opinion is...