PAPER 6 UNIT 1

Ronald Barthe is regarded as a preeminent structularist, in literary

studies, the structuralist who develop a method for studying the
structure of critical science and discourses. Although some of the
works of Barthes is difficult & elusive trying not to conform to any
accepted a theory completely.
The theory of the text was developed in the late 1980 &
early 1970s, which was included by people like Barthes, Derrida, Julia
kristeva and sollers .
The work is concrete. The text is a methodological field-
The work has a material existence, the text does not, therefore, they
cannot distinguished as objects. The differences, Barthes says is as
follows:
“work is concrete; occupying a portion of book space,
the text on the other side is a methodological field…”
The work can be seen in book stores, in cart catalogues, etc, while the
text reveals itself, articulates itself, according to or against certain
rules. While the work is held in hand, the text is held in language, it
exists only as discourse. In other words, the text is experienced only in
an activity of reading.
Bather is fairly lucid, here but the lucidity is illusionary, methodology
refers to-
“the process or way in which a particular mental
activity proceeds.”
Barthes refers to the work as something concrete while presents the
text as a process something dynamic & transient.
The text is always paradoxical- ‘Doxa’ refers to a commonly accepted
opinion of more simply public opinion. Therefore, paradoxical mean
something, which goes beyond commonly accepted opinion. The
‘text’ in another words, always calls into question, all pre- existing
assumptions about its meaning.
The text is Plural:-
It is not only that a work can have many meanings, its plurity is
irreducible i.e. it cannot be limited to a fixed number- Every contact
will create its own meaning for the text, the meaning is irreducibly
plural… So in a text many meanings co-exist and each of these
meanings is traversed by the others, constituting a part of it and
constituted by others. Therefore, Barthes says that the text plurality is
not because of ambiguity of its contents but because of its
‘Stereographic’ plurity.
The text is read without the father’s signature:-
The work is usually considered the product or the child of forces
outside it, i.e. both its creation and meaning is seen & determined by
outside forces. Barthes identifies 3 of them –
First includes- ‘Race’ and then ‘history’ secondly. Barthes speaks of
conventional criticism efforts to see works as a part of larger
tradition. Thus, it may see a work as inaugurating a particular. So, the
author enters into a reading of his text, but only as a guest as one of
the texts that will participate in the play of intertextuality not as the
controlling or determining forces.
The text abolishes the distance between writing and reading:-
A work is ordinarily an object of consumption, i.e. to say that in
reading a work we presumed at a reputed / not so reputed name has
something valuable to offer. Thus, meaning and significance, which
had conventially been assumed to be tied to the author, now come to
be associated partly with the reader. It is not that the readers
involvement is intensified in the text.
The text is linked to pleasure:-
The work is linked to a certain kind of pleasure. A reading of
Shakespeare or Milton gives pleasure but this is the pleasure of
consumption/ appropriation. This pleasure, Barthes says, is one of
separation. It is linked to the fact that one can’t write but one is
reading. The play text characterizes a decentered text ensures that
there is going to be no stability.
CONCLUSION:-
Thus it can be concluded that according to Barthe the ‘text’ acts upon
the reader and makes him reproduce the ‘text’ in the process. This is a
great innovation. Barthes proclaims the death of the author and
advocates for the pleasure derived in interpreting & writerly text.
Hence the emphasis by Barthes on the shift ‘from the work to text’ is
not without justification.