Foucault's View on the Writer

"Unlike a proper name, which moves from the interior of a discourse to the real person outside who produced it, the name of the author remains at the contours of the texts -- separating one from the other, defining its form, and characterising its mode of existence."

-- Foucault, What is an Author

The author is the entity 'defining its (the text's) form, and characterising its mode of existence'. This means that the text's existence depends upon the ideas of the author. This is in contrast with Barthes' view of the author merely an entity whose control ends as soon as his work is finished.