Roland Barthes (1915–1980) was among the most important thinkers and

writers of the 20th century. Through his writings, which were diverse in
both approach (e.g., analytical, aphoristic, and autobiographical) and
subject matter (wrestling, advertising, Japan, love, and photography), he
made significant contributions to the fields of literature, philosophy,
communication, media studies, and cultural studies. Despite his
considerable influence, Barthes’ scholarly career did not follow a
traditional academic path and, in fact, he generally viewed himself as an
outsider to academe. This outsider status was evident in his writings,
which continually challenged conventional wisdom. He is known for his
serious contribution in the area of semiotics, study of signs and symbols.
His is primarily a structuralist approach that considers a literary text in
terms of certain structures which can be explained with specificity.
However, Roland Barthes’s writings defy strict classifications as many of
his writings challenge the boundaries of structuralism, and quietly slip in
the direction of post structuralism.

This essay ' From Work To Text ' by Roland

Barthes is perhaps the most comprehensive and seminal contribution to
the debates over the difference between the humanistic and the
poststructuralist approaches to the readings of literature. Barthes’ essay
‘From Work to Text’ is one of the Most anthologized essays in the studies
of literary theory.This particular essay has all This the overtones of post
structuralism.
 In his essay ‘From work to text’ ,Barthes puts
forward an epoch-making theory of the Text. He distinguishes the work
and the text, denies the authority of the author and gives the reader the
right to reproduce; he affirms the Text is a dynamic, open system and
tries to construct a Text utopia. The post-structuralism theory of Barthes
and other French philosophers as Foucault, Derrida, Lacan and Leotta
was contributed to art history from 1970s. Barthes lays out seven
characteristics of the Text in his From work to text: 1. the Text is different
with traditional the work which is dependent on the activity of discourses;
2. the Text is unclassifiable; 3. the Text generates perpetual signifiers and
the signified is infinitely deferred; 4. the origin is emphasized in the work
but the Text is untraceable; 5. the work is owned by its father-the author,
but the Text refers to each other; 6. the Text is opened to the readers’
participating; 7. the reading of text arouses a pleasure as in utopia.
When discussing ‘text’ and ‘work’ in From
Work to Text, Barthes does not try to define what he means by ‘text’ but
explains the differences in the two concepts based on seven propositions:
method, genre, signs, plurality, filiation, reading, and pleasure; how he
viewed the developing relationship between ‘text’ and ‘work.’ Barthes
explains that ‘work’ can be handled. It is a concrete object; something that
is definite and complete, “a fragment of a substance occupying a part of
the space of books,” whereas the text is the composition or the meaning
the reader takes from the ‘work’ and it is not a definite object.Unlike the
rigid classifications applied to the ‘work,’ the text cannot be pigeon-holed
into a genre or placed in a hierarchical system.The ‘work’ is ‘complete’
and comprehensive; it is signified, there is no arbitrariness involved in its
literal understanding or interpretation. Therefore, it can be categorized and
function as a symbolic sign to whatever subject it signifies. The text is
‘incomplete’ in that it is metonymic; its words or phrases may be
exchanged for others with similar meanings or associations. Its meaning
becomes interrupted since it encourages the reader to produce overlapping
ideas and make associations.Its ambiguity causes it to become extremely
symbolic and makes its signifiers arbitrary and undetermined.Unlike the
‘work’ which has closure and can be interpreted literally and is
explanatory and is a sign in itself, the text is opened-ended, has a multitude
of associations and is deeply symbolic, accordingly, it has plurality of
meaning. Barthes says the text is like a ‘woven fabric’ that comes with
known codes that are assembled differently and maybe be woven with
‘citations,’ ‘references,’ and ‘echoes;’ it is intertextual in that it is “the text
between of another text.” If writing is seen as a ‘work’ it is defined by a
process of association or authorship. It becomes affiliated and identified
with its author and the reader’s knowledge of the author and previous
works may become the key to its understanding. If writing is viewed as a
text, then it is not limited and confined to a genre and the reader does not
expect it to fit into a category of type since it is part of a grid and free to
be interpreted beyond the author’s signification.The ‘work’ is a
commodity — an object of consumption in that the reader tends to be
passive and is expected to be fed and entertained when reading. The text
narrows the distance between reading and writing by replacing
consumption with the free play of collaborative reading. When interacting
with a text rather than a ‘work,’ the reader questions and thinks about the
writing instead of taking it for granted. If readers passively consumes
words, they will tire from reading; as Barthes puts it: “to be bored means
that one cannot produce the text, open it out, set it going.” The pleasure of
reading classic literary works may feel like consumption since the reader
cannot rewrite those texts and thus a distance is created between the reader
and the ‘work.’ If viewed as an accessible text, however, a piece of work
arouses feelings of pleasure because there is no feeling separation between
the reader and the writer and the text transcends any language or social
barriers.
According to the Humanistic approach ,the
creator of the literary text is a creative genius born with creative faculty,
a human self who can transcend the material conditions of life to write/
create something that is unique, organically artistic whole. The writer like
God is called the creator, who is born with the creative powers to create
art that promotes the human values like, kindness, morality, dignity,
social values etc. But In the poststructuralist sense the writer is considered
to be a consciousness that is created by the culture, ideology, narratives,
social and economic conditions etc.. His/her writings reflect the contents
of his consciousness. Such content is skilfully structured in the artistic
forms which have been accepted quite arbitrarily by the art community
as artistic. The creative writer is not creative genius but only an
assimilator. Barthes calls him the ‘scriptor’ as against the writer. The
creative writer need not be ‘worshipped’ as creative genius; instead his
consciousness needs to be analysed for the ‘ stuff’ that he/she has
‘assembled’. As a subject he has gaps, fears, ideologies, because it is the
Symbolic system that creates the person that he is. As Barthes poetically
explained, “a text is made up of multiple writings, drawn from many
cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody,
contestation, but there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and
that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author. The reader is
the space on which all the quotations that make up a writing are inscribed
without any of them being lost; a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in
its destination”.
The literary text is created by the imaginative
faculty of The consciousness( the so called Author), who himself is a
product of ideologies. This Literary text is not the storehouse of universal
human values but the narrative that Participates in narrating the beliefs,
conventions and convictions of a particular time and Place. The texts
cannot claim any universal relevance and application. Their value is
Relative and fluid. Their value is limited to their nature, i.e. symbolic.
Symbolic text, Symbolic value. In the making of a literary text, the other
symbolic texts participate – Texts of psychology, texts of philosophy,
texts of sciences, texts of sociology(all symbolic), And all other kinds of
narratives and discourses. The literary text is in constant dialogue With
other texts. The intertextuality of the literary text has become the most
fascinating Feature in the analysis and interpretation of the text. The text
is in flux, always in the Process of becoming, because as it interacts with
other ‘texts’, its meaning, its relevance, Value etc. becomes different. The
work is stable, the text is becoming.
The reader, like the writer, is a consciousness
that is Created by the Symbolic system. His reading of the text is not a
simple exercise but a Complex act in which his own subjectivity interacts
with the literary text (along with the Material and ideological conditions
of its time and space). Any claim of objectivity in Interpretation is
misplaced. The reader’s response is only a personal response. All
readings Need re-reading, as all interpretations are fraught with the
ideological prejudices.
The meaning is the product of the interaction
between the Consciousness of the reader and the text. The contexts of the
reader and that of the text Are engaged in complex ways in meaning
making processes. The meaning is neither unique Nor essentialist, it is
fluid and coloured with the thick material and ideological conditions Of
the text and its context. Hence the meaning needs to be constantly
interrogated.