Roland Bathes distinguishes between readerly and writerly texts.A team of scholars ar the University of Virginia note he marks the distinction between traditional literary works such as the classical novel,and those twentieth century works, like the new novel,which violate the conventions of realism thus force the reader to produce a meaning or meanings which are invitabaly other than fonal or authorized. Barthes write:
The writerly text is a perpetual present, upon which no consequent language (which would inevitably make it past) can be superimposed; the writerly text is ourselves writing, before the infinite play of the world (the world as function) is traversed, intersected, stopped, plasticised by some singular system (Ideology, Genus, Criticism) which reduces the plurality of entrances, the opening of networks, the infinity of languages.
Readerly texts, by contrast, are anything but readerly;They do not locate the reader as a site of the production of meaning, but only as the receiver of a fixed, pre-determined, reading. They are thus products rather than productions and thus form the dominant mode of literature under capital.(Virginia.edu)
In a considered and well-constructed essay,describe 1)Barthes contribution to the canonisty/textualisty debate and
2)your assessment of the importance (or lack of importance) of his contribution.
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