Christal Selmeyer "What Is an Author"

Michel Foucault does an excellent job of answering the question "What is an author?" in his article appropriately titled "What Is an Author". I felt as though it was a bit lengthy but very thorough in regards to conveying the relationship between an author and a text. My key analytical question while reading this text was "What was the author's motivation behind composing this text?" I found the answer to actually answer the question "What is the thesis of this text?". I feel that Foucault's motivation was to inform readers of what it truly means to author a text with regards to the relationship between the author of the text and the text itself. The passage goes on to describe Foucault's idea that the present day author is considered "dead" to a text. Foucault uses many examples of specific passages to explain the complex web that is authoring. I felt as though his examples were very helpful in helping readers to understand his messages. He used well known poetry and authors in his passage which made his text very relatable. Overall, interesting read but a little lengthy and complex for my liking.