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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 3 page essay that discusses what the French literary critic Roland Barthes means by "writerly" and "readerly" texts in his book-length essay S/Z. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khsz.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
in semiotic terms, to read. The focus of his study is a short story by Honore de Balzac entitled "Sarrasine," which was written in 1830; however, the true focus of
this work is the innovative way in which Barthes addresses this topic. In the opening pages of his essay, Barthes indicates that the main difference between writerly and readerly
text is inherent in the relationship that the author establishes with the reader. Barthes indicates that the writerly text captures the "perpetual present, upon which no consequent language (which would
inevitably make it past) can be superimposed" (Barthes 5). Furthermore, the writerly text is "ourselves writing, before the infinite play of the world...is traversed, intersected, stopped, plasticized by some singular
system..." (Bathes 5). The opposite of the writerly text, its "counter-value," its "negative, reactive value," is "what can be read," rather than written, that is, the "readerly" (Barthes 4).
The readerly text, in other words, is generally referred to as a "classic text" (Barthes 4). In essence, a "readerly" text is one that is similar to the formats
and genres with which the public is familiar, as these types of texts separate the roles of author and reader. The author is the one who produces the text, and
the reader is the consumer. A writerly text is at the other end of this spectrum, as in these texts the reader is also a co-producer of the text. Barthes
realizes that this concept is confusing and he sets about describing what he means. He asks where such texts can be found and comments that they certainly do not
exist in "reading (or at least very rarely...)" as the public "would have a hard time finding it in a bookstore" (Barthes 5). Basically, Barthes appears to mean that a
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