This is my first experience reading something by Barthes, although I have heard lots about him. This essay is so dense with information, that it's hard to choose one point to concentrate on. What apllealed to me was his idea of writing being the death of the author. I like the example of Mallarme, for whom "it is language which speaks, not the author; to write is,to reach that point where only language acts, 'performs', and not 'me'. Mallarme's entire poetics consists in suppressing the author in the interests of writing (which is, as will be seen, to restore the place of the reader)." With the death of the author, Barthes says that the modern "scriptor" differs from the old "author" is not an antecedent of the written work, but rather he is born at the same time with his work.
Another important point of this essay is: "the writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original." It's again related to translation: there is always a subject and a situation that has already been discussed/written/translated. That's why no matter what the subject it is repeated by a writer or a critic. We can only mix ideas and paraphrase, but it's very hard to invent new literature. Therefore, to translate is to transfer information into another language (or sometimes express in the same language) while taking into consideration the particular reader at the particular time, and also keeping in mind the effect the the original created in the audience of its time and try to create the same effect on the "new" audience.
Now, that's all for today. Looking forward to tomorrow's discussion, should be great!
I agree with the last part of your post that focuses on the translation of things. You can totally translate information in the same language and just "express" it in a different way so this "new audience" gets a full on experience just as good or just as bad as the original one.
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