''The Pleasure of the Text'' (french: Le Plaisir du Texte) is a 1973 book by the literary theorist
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...
.
Summary
Barthes sets out some of his ideas about
literary theory
Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, mo ...
. He divides the effects of texts into two: ''plaisir'' ("pleasure") and ''
jouissance
''Jouissance'' is a French term meaning "enjoyment", which in Lacanianism is taken in terms both of rights and property, and of sexual orgasm. The latter has a meaning partially lacking in the English word "enjoyment". The term denotes a transgre ...
'', translated as "bliss" but the French word also carries the meaning of "orgasm".
The distinction corresponds to a further distinction Barthes makes between ''
texte lisible'' and ''texte scriptible'', translated respectively as "readerly" and "writerly" texts (a more literal translation would be "readable" and "writable"). ''Scriptible'' is a
neologism
A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...
in French. The pleasure of the text corresponds to the readerly text, which does not challenge the reader's position as a
subject (philosophy), subject. The writerly text provides bliss, which explodes literary codes and allows the reader to break out of his or her subject position.
The "readerly" and the "writerly" texts were identified and explained in Barthes' ''
S/Z''. Barthes argues that "writerly" texts are more important than "readerly" ones because he sees the text's unity as forever being re-established by its composition, the codes that form and constantly slide around within the text. The reader of a readerly text is largely passive, whereas the person who engages with a writerly text has to make an active effort, and even to re-enact the actions of the writer himself. The different codes (hermeneutic, action, symbolic, semic, and historical) that Barthes defines in ''S/Z'' inform and reinforce one another, making for an open text that is indeterminant precisely because it can always be written anew.
As a consequence, although one may experience pleasure in the readerly text, it is when one sees the text from the writerly point of view that the experience is blissful.
Influences
Few writers in
cultural studies
Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...
and the
social sciences
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...
have used and developed the distinctions that Barthes makes. The
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
sociologist of education
Stephen Ball has argued that the
National Curriculum A national curriculum is a common programme of study in schools that is designed to ensure nationwide uniformity of content and standards in education. It is usually legislated by the national government, possibly in consultation with Federated stat ...
in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
is a writerly text, by which he means that schools, teachers and pupils have a certain amount of scope to reinterpret and develop it. On the other hand, artist Roy Ascott's pioneering telematic artwork, ''La Plissure du Texte'' ("The Pleating of the Texte", 1983) drew inspiration from Barthes' ''Le Plaisir du Texte.'' Ascott modified the title to emphasize the pleasure of collective textual pleating. In Ascott's artwork, the pleating of the text resulted from a process that the artist calls "
distributed authorship," which expands Barthes' concept of the "readerly text." In Ascott's work, the text itself is the result of a collaborative reading/writing process among participants around the world, connected via computer networking (telematics). Ascott's work thus unravels the distinction between readers and writers, demonstrating a much greater degree of permeability than Barthes' distinction permits (and beyond Barthes' theory of the death of the author). Moreover, the mechanism of distributed authorship enabled Ascott's "planetary fairytale" to self-pleat in a way that, like a surrealist exquisite corpse, could not have been the product of a single mind. Rather, Ascott suggests, the work emerged as the result of an emergent field of
collective intelligence
Collective intelligence (CI) is shared or group intelligence (GI) that emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making. The term appears in sociobiology, politic ...
that joined minds together in a global field of consciousness.
[Edward A. Shanke]
"Telematic Embrace: A Love Story? Roy Ascott's Theories of Telematic Art"
in ''Telematic Connections: The Virtual Embrace'' (online exhibition catalog) Ed., Steve Dietz. Walker Art Center, 2001.
References
*Roland Barthes, ''
S/Z: An Essay''. .
*Roland Barthes, ''The pleasure of the text''.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pleasure of the Text
1973 non-fiction books
Books about literary theory
Books by Roland Barthes
Books of literary criticism
Éditions du Seuil books
French literary criticism
French non-fiction books