Death of the Author

My first reaction upon reading this essay was to ponder to the fact that Barthes managed to stuff almost all of what I know about postmodernism into one very short essay. Language is the only source of meaning, with each text "eternally written here and now." Each re-reading is a new reading, with language impressing itself upon the reader and vice-versa. I would, however, like to know where this leaves the critic. How can one ascribe a meaning to a text that has meaning only in the reactions of its readers (and is eternally in the moment, eternally changing)? This essay seems to reject the concept of a single explanation (and therefore almost the entirety of New Criticism and to some extent Structuralism), and in some ways redefine the purpose of criticism.