ROLAND BARTHES

IMAGE–MUSIC–TEXT
FROM WORK TO TEXT
1977

THEORY OF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION ! LONDON METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY ! PRESENTATION BY EVELYN JÜRGENSEN ! 10 2014
CONTENTS

"  Roland Barthes / central ideas / time

"  From work to text
"  Discussion
WHO WAS ROLAND GÉRARD BARTHES?

"  1915 – 1980

"  French literary theorist,
philosopher, linguist, critic, and
semiotician
"  Studied classical letters, grammar,
philology and Greek tragedy at the
Sorbonne
"  Teaching career
"  First, Structuralist and Marxist, later
Post Structuralist
"  Intertextuality
STRUCTURALISM
AND
POST STRUCTURALISM
STRUCTURALISM AND POST STRUCTURALISM

Structuralism, 1950s and '60s

"  Intellectual movement in France
"  Studied the underlying structures in cultural products
"  Used analytical concepts from linguistics, psychology,
anthropology, and other fields
"  Text has an inherent meaning
STRUCTURALISM AND POST STRUCTURALISM

Post Structuralism, 1960s and '70s

"  Emerged as a movement critiquing structuralism
"  History and culture condition the study of underlying structures,
both are subject to biases and misinterpretations
"  To understand an object, it is necessary to study both the object
itself and the systems of knowledge that produced the object
"  Meaning of text is unstable
STRUCTURALISM AND POST STRUCTURALISM

Post Structuralism, 1960s and '70s

Jacques Jacques Julia Michel

Derrida Lacan Kristeva Foucault
BARTHES APPROACH TOWARDS TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

His development from Structuralism to Post Structuralism

In his textual analysis, Barthes tried “to say no longer from where the
text comes (historical criticism), nor even how it is made (structural
analysis), but how it is unmade, how it explodes, disseminates – by
what coded paths it goes off” (Barthes 1977: 126-127)
APPROACH OF BARTHES TOWARDS TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

His development from Structuralism to Post Structuralism

In his textual analysis, Barthes tried “to say no longer from where the
text comes (historical criticism), nor even how it is made (structural
analysis), but how it is unmade, how it explodes, disseminates – by
what coded paths it goes off” (Barthes 1977: 126-127)

S: Study of structures
PS: System of knowledge! History and culture
background
S: Study of structures S: important
PS: Study of effects! PS: misinterpretations!
APPROACH OF BARTHES TOWARDS TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

His development from Structuralism to Post Structuralism

“There are said to be certain Buddhists whose ascetic practices

enable them to see a whole landscape in a bean. Precisely what the
first analysts of narrative were attempting: to see all the world’s
stories...within a single structure” (Barthes 1970: S/Z)
APPROACH OF BARTHES TOWARDS TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

His development from Structuralism to Post Structuralism

“There are said to be certain Buddhists whose ascetic practices

enable them to see a whole landscape in a bean. Precisely what the
first analysts of narrative were attempting: to see all the world’s
stories...within a single structure” (Barthes 1970: S/Z)

S: Study of structures S: Inherent meaning

PS: Study of effects! PS: Unstable meaning!
INTERTEXTUALITY
BARTHES ELEMENTS OF INTERTEXTUALITY

"  Attacked the notions of stable meaning and unquestionable truth

"  Text offers a plurality of meanings
"  Woven out of numerous already existing texts
"  Not a unified, isolated object that gives a singular meaning, but an
element open to various interpretations
"  Only Modernist literature and the literature that follows it give
examples of “texts” which can be re-interpreted
TWO TYPES OF READERS

consumers writers of the text

who read the work for readers who are productive
stable meaning in their reading
ROLAND BARTHES
DEATH OF THE AUTHOR
1977
INTERTEXTUALITY: ORIGIN OF A TEXT

linguistic and plurality of

cultural systems other words

Text

other other
texts utterances
INTERTEXTUALITY: ROLE OF THE AUTHOR

is always already in a
compiler,
process of reading and
arranger
re-writing

Author

meaning comes not uses pre-existent

from, and is not the possibilities within the
property of, the language system
individual author
INTERTEXTUALITY: QUOTES OF BARTHES

'A text is... a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings,

none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of
quotations... The writer can only imitate a gesture that is always
anterior, never original. His only power is to mix writings, to counter
the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of
them' (Barthes 1977, 146)

‘Literature becomes the utopia of language’ (Barthes: 1953/88)

INTERTEXTUALITY: QUOTES OF BARTHES

'A text is... a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings,

none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of
quotations... The writer can only imitate a gesture that is always
anterior, never original. His only power is to mix writings, to counter
the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of
them' (Barthes 1977, 146)

‘Literature becomes the utopia of language’ (Barthes: 1953/88)

PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW YOU UNDERSTAND THIS…

INTERTEXTUALITY: QUOTES OF BARTHES

‘… a text is made from 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 hitherto said, the author. The reader is
the space on which all the quotations that make up the writing are
inscribed without any of them being lost; a text’s unity lies not in its
origin but in its destination… the birth of the reader must be at the
cost of the death of the Author.’ (Barthes 1977, 148)
INTERTEXTUALITY: QUOTES OF BARTHES

‘… a text is made from 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 hitherto said, the author. The reader is
the space on which all the quotations that make up the writing are
inscribed without any of them being lost; a text’s unity lies not in its
origin but in its destination… the birth of the reader must be at the
cost of the death of the Author.’ (Barthes 1977, 148)

PLEASE EXPLAIN HOW YOU UNDERSTAND THIS…

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS – SHIFTING PARADIGMS

Auteurism New Criticism Structuralism

> 1920s 1920s-60s 1950s-80s >
! ! !
"  Author as source "  Text has inherent "  Text has inherent
of meaning meaning meaning

"  Author’s life and "  Interpretation by "  Relationship

times experts and between
academics elements in text
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS – SHIFTING PARADIGMS

Structuralism Semiotics Post-structuralism

1950s-80s > 1950s-80s > 1980s>
! ! !
"  Text has inherent "  Inherent meaning "  Text’s meaning
meaning "  ‘Text’ more widely unstable
defined "  Context and
reader key

"  Relationship "  Myth, ideology "  Audience

between research
elements in text "  Discourse analysis
FROM WORK TO TEXT
ABOUT IMAGE – MUSIC – TEXT

"  Written in 1977

"  Poststructuralist thinking
"  Dominant perspective of the thirteen essays is semiology
"  Essays about author, writing, reading, photography, film and the
phenomena of sound and image
"  ‘From work to text’ about difference between ‘work’ and ‘text’
FROM WORK TO TEXT

"  Term “text” had replaced “work” in common usage / fashionable

"  Barthes had his own theory of the word or concept ‘text’
"  Idea based on including Derrida, Lacan, Kristeva
"  Contrasts between a work and a text defined by seven
propositions: method, genre, signs, plurality, filiation, reading,
and pleasure
1 METHOD

Work Text
! !

"  A concrete object "  Text is a methodological field

"  Something that is definite
and complete
"  “A fragment of a substance
occupying a part of the space
of books”
"  “The work can be held in the
hand..
"  Composition or the meaning
the reader takes from the
‘work’
"  It is not a definite object
"  …the text is held in language,
it only exists in the movement
of a language”
2 GENRE

Work Text
! !

"  Rigid classifications "  Text cannot be pigeon-holed

into a genre or placed in a
hierarchical system
"  Functions as a paradoxical
and subversive force
"  Pushes the limits of
readability and rationality
FOUCAULT: ELEMENTS OF THE SIGN

Sign
The basic unit of language (e.g. a word)

A sign is composed of a signified

and signifier

Signifier Signified
Material form (the sound and Mental concept evoked by
image) of the sign the signifier
FOUCAULT: ELEMENTS OF THE SIGN

Sign
The basic unit of language (e.g. a word)

Signifier Signified
Material form (the sound and Mental concept evoked by
image) of the sign the signifier
3 SIGNS

Work Text
! !

"  Complete and "  ‘Incomplete’, metonymic

comprehensive
"  Has closure
"  It is signified
"  Symbolic sign in itself
"  Can be interpreted literally
"  Can be categorized
"  Extremely symbolic
"  Open-ended
"  Meaning becomes
interrupted: overlapping
ideas and associations
"  Makes its signifiers arbitrary
4 PLURALITY

Work Text
! !

"  No plurality "  Has plurality of meaning

"  Explanatory "  Multitude of associations
"  A ‘woven fabric’  that comes
with known codes that are
assembled differently and
maybe  be woven with
‘citations,’ ‘references,’ and
‘echoes;’
"  Intertextual 
5 FILIATION
Work
! !
"  Defined by a process of
association or authorship
"  Becomes affiliated and
identified with its author and
the reader’s knowledge of the
author
"  Previous works may become
the key to its understanding
Text
"  It’s not limited and confined
to a genre
"  Reader does not expect it to
fit into a category of type
"  Part of a grid and free to be
interpreted beyond the
author’s signification
6 READING
Work
! !
"  A commodity: an object of
consumption
"  The reader tends to be
passive and is expected to be
fed and entertained
Text
"  Interactive reading
"  Narrows the distance
between reading and writing
"  Free play of collaborative
reading
"  Reader questions and thinks
about the writing instead of
taking it for granted
6 READING
Work
! !
"  A commodity: an object of
consumption
"  The reader tends to be
passive and is expected to be
fed and entertained
Text
"  If readers passively
consumes words, they will
tire from reading: “to be
bored means that one cannot
produce the text, open it out,
set it going.”
Remind yourself of the two types
of readers!
7 PLEASURE
Work
! !
"  The pleasure of reading
classic literary works may feel
like consumption
"  Reader cannot rewrite those
texts
"  A distance is created
between the reader and the
work
Text
"  Arouses feelings of pleasure
"  No feeling separation
between the reader and the
writer
"  Transcends any language or
social barriers
CHECK YOURSELF: ARE YOU READING WORK OR TEXT?

"  The next time you pick up something to read, notice whether you
are consuming and taking the written word for granted, or you
are making associations and interacting with the text.
"  Are you treating those written words as if they are etched in
stone with only one meaning, or as a layered tapestry that
echoes several possibilities?
DISCUSSION
DISCUSSION

Now you:
"  What is your opinion about Structuralist and Post Structuralist
thinking? What do you think is the best way to get the meaning
of a text/to analyse it? Are there points where you disagree or
particularly agree with Barthes?
 QUOTES
Web-Content
h#p://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/lisa_smith.barthes.php!!
http://monoskop.org/Roland_Barthes
http://www.decodedscience.com/roland-barthes-from-work-to-text-explained/28252/2
http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/staffhome/siryan/academy/Foundation/What_Is_A_Text.htm
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:517916/FULLTEXT01.pdf
http://amr.obook.org/barthes.php
http://www.simandan.com/?p=2153
http://www.simandan.com/?p=2175
http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/S4B/sem09.html
http://us.macmillan.com/imagemusictext/rolandbarthes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/Z
http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/postmodernism/Barthes_Foucault.html
http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/S4B/sem07.html
Presentation: Foucaultpost-struc-3.ppt

Pictures
http://madamepickwickartblog.com/2010/08/semiotically-speaking-purposiveness-without-purpose/
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Ffaculty-staff.ou.edu%2FL%2FA-Robert.R.Lauer-1%2Froland-barthes.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.simandan.com%2F%3Fp
%3D2153&h=249&w=280&tbnid=p31PGkF6soQamM
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http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Roland-Barthes-1.jpg
http://conversationalreading.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/roland-barthes-lecture.jpg
http://www.religion.ucsb.edu/projects/irreconcilabledifferences/Derrida.jpg
http://www.philosophybasics.com/photos/foucault.jpg
http://songandsin.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/lacan-jc2a9jerry-bauer001.jpg
https://lareviewofbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/1340405074.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IOny1vHBgpw/UuDAi_FwtTI/AAAAAAAAGTs/QgjDXVSoHOc/s1600/Barthes-765775.jpg

THEORY OF MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION ! LONDON METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY ! PRESENTATION BY EVELYN JÜRGENSEN ! 10 2014