The Pleasures Of The Text - Softcover

BARTHES

Softcover

ISBN 10: 063117611X ISBN 13: 9780631176114

Publisher: Wiley–Blackwell, 1990

Synopsis

`Taken together, The Pleasure of the Text and S/Z force us to notice how much of the most interesting thought today is being carried forward in what we used to call `literary criticism,' and how important Barthes' own contribution to redefinition of the field has been.' The New York Times Book Review . What is it we do when we enjoy a text? What is the pleasure of reading? Roland Barthes has found a way of apparently abandoning the systematics of his earlier studies, a way of giving himself up to an evidently random succession of fragments - facets, aphorisms, touches and nudges, bubbles, `phylacteries' of an invisible design. The most arbitrary of orders, the alphabetical, governs his consequent series of proses , which gather like filings in a magnetic field to constitute, for perhaps the first time in the history of criticism, an erotics of reading . The Pleasure of Text is now established as a classic of late twentieth century literary, critial, cultural and semiotic theory. Its impact over the last 15 years has been profound over a range of disciplines, its interest as fresh now as when it was first published. This edition makes readily available one of Barthes' canonical works.

About this title

Review

"Barthes repeatedly compared teaching to play, reading to eros, writing to seduction. His voice became more and more personal, more full of grain, as he called it; his intellectual art more openly a performance, like that of the other great anti-systematizers . . . All of Barthes work is an exploration the histrionic or ludic; in many ingenious modes, a plea for savor, for a festive (rather than dogmatic or credulous) relation to ideas. For Barthes, the point is to make us bold, agile, subtle, intelligent, detached. And to give pleasure." --Susan Sontag
Barthes repeatedly compared teaching to play, reading to eros, writing to seduction. His voice became more and more personal, more full of grain, as he called it; his intellectual art more openly a performance, like that of the other great anti-systematizers . . . All of Barthes work is an exploration the histrionic or ludic; in many ingenious modes, a plea for savor, for a festive (rather than dogmatic or credulous) relation to ideas. For Barthes, the point is to make us bold, agile, subtle, intelligent, detached. And to give pleasure. "Susan Sontag""

"Barthes repeatedly compared teaching to play, reading to eros, writing to seduction. His voice became more and more personal, more full of grain, as he called it; his intellectual art more openly a performance, like that of the other great anti-systematizers . . . All of Barthes work is an exploration the histrionic or ludic; in many ingenious modes, a plea for savor, for a festive (rather than dogmatic or credulous) relation to ideas. For Barthes, the point is to make us bold, agile, subtle, intelligent, detached. And to give pleasure." --Susan Sontag

About the Author

Roland Barthes was born in 1915 and studied French literature and the classics at the University of Paris. After teaching French at universities in Romania and Egypt, he joined the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, where he devoted himself to research in sociology and lexicology. He was a professor at the College de France until his death in 1980.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley–Blackwell
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 063117611X
• ISBN 13: 9780631176114
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80