In either case, I'm afraid you're going to be
disappointed. Rather, it is a reference to The Death of the
Author, an essay by the French
literary critic and author Roland Barthes (it's original French title
itself being a play on the title of Le Mort d'Arthur,
but that's too tangential a path for me to dive down here), and of
the literary theory concepts that derive from it.
The essential principle
of the essay, and the related (but separately posited) theory of the
“intentional fallacy”, is that the author is not the authority
when it comes to the meaning of a piece of work. Once an author has
created a work, they might tell you what their intent was, you might
infer it from other sources, but intent is not the determining factor
of meaning. I don't say that this theory is universally accepted in
the study of literature; I also probably don't understand it
perfectly, not having studied literary theory or analysis, so please
don't rely on my explanation (or lecture me too harshly if you know
it better – I'm glad to learn more, but please keep it friendly).
