Treatise on Inspiration (premise)

If you guessed that what they have in common is that they were all composed by the Cooper Temple Clause, then well done, you are correct. But the other correct answer, is that all three had the capacity to inspire.

I've used the Coopers here, because I think they illustrate particularly well the point I want to make. Read the passages. Do you have any idea what they mean? What are they trying to say? Do they have a message? What's glorious here, and absolutely essential, is that the answers to all these questions are entirely ambiguous.

Some people may find meaning here, others may not.

I know how we all love our French academics, so it's nice that it was one such individual, Roland Barthes, who first coined the phrase Death of the Author. Barthes thought that any creative output should be viewed by the reader/audience/listener/admirer in a completely detached way - i.e. it should be the work itself that puts across any meaning or significance to the audience, and not any biographical or contextual knowledge we may happen to have about the author/creator. What ole' Roly was saying was that we should strive for meaning in an objective and uninfluenced way.

Now, I disagree with some of this argument. Occasionally, the author's life, and in particular his influences, are very important. Huge amounts of meaning can be created through use of reference. But what I really like about the Death of the Author theory, is the idea that meaning comes from the audience.