Currents and directions in Anglo-American criticism of the 20

th
century
Seminar presentation
David Andreea
2
nd
year,MA.
11
th
of April 2014


The Poststructuralist Turn : Metafiction , Self-Referentiality and
the Limits of Reading

Articles analysed: The Death of the Author and From Work to Text by Roland Barthes

The Death of the Author
by Roland Barthes
Unlike Structuralism that primarily has its roots in linguistics, Poststructuralism is
rooted in the philosophy. This point of view condenses Nietzsches famous remark ''There are no
facts, only interpretations," which is materialized in the feature of skepticism, almost everything
being put under question.

Poststructuralism developed in France in the late 1960s. There are two figures mostly
associated with this development are Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes. The latter started as a
structuralism but around this time he began to change his point of view and moved from
structuralism phase to post structuralism phase. Barthes turning viewpoint is marked by his
crucial essay The Death of the Author." This article stands as a rhetorical way of asserting the
independence of the literary text and its immunity to the possibility of being unified or limited by
any notion of what the author might have intended in the work." In other words, the article is a
shift of attention from the text seen as something produced by the author to the text seen as
something produced by the reader. After this early post structuralist phase of textual
permissiveness, another necessary change comes under the shape of deconstruction a
disciplined identification and dismantling of the sources of textual power.

From Work to Text
By Roland Barthes

In the 1970s, noticing that a change was taking place in the concept of language and
consequently in the perception of literary works, Barthes stated that disciplines were breaking
boundaries and beginning to interact. He viewed this move as part of the development of thought
on linguistics, anthropology, Marxism, and psychoanalysis pointing out that the adjustment in
attitude was not coming from the internal recasting of each of these disciplines, but rather from
their encounter in relation to an object. He also underlined the fact that these transformations
should not be over-estimated since they constituted just an epistemological slide.
Barthes continued to explain that the interdisciplinary nature of literary and cultural
analysis had modified the conception of language and of what was traditionally understood to be
a literary work. Thus, the readers focus had changed from a piece of work as a whole to an
object known as the text.
Due to this new way of approaching written work, Barthes felt a positive change between
the writer and the reader. Within this change the reader was promoted from a passive consumer
of works to one who was able to interact with texts.
Barthes Description of the Object Text
When discussing text and work in From Work to Text, Barthes does not try to define
what he means by text but explains the differences in the two concepts based on seven
propositions: method, genre, signs, plurality, filiation, reading, and pleasure; how he viewed the
developing relationship between text and work.
Method: Barthes explains that work can be handled. It is a concrete object; something
that is definite and complete, (a book in a library, for instance) whereas the text is the
composition or the meaning the reader takes from the work it is a methodological
field and it is not a definite object. While the work can be held in hand, the text is
held in language.
Genre: Unlike the rigid classifications applied to the work, the text cannot be pigeon-
holed into a genre or placed in a hierarchical system.
Signs: The work is complete and comprehensive; it is signified, there is no
arbitrariness involved in its literal understanding or interpretation. Therefore, it can be
categorized and function as a symbolic sign to whatever subject it signifies. The text is
incomplete in that it is metonymic; its words or phrases may be exchanged for others
with similar meanings or associations. Its meaning becomes interrupted since it
encourages the reader to produce overlapping ideas and make associations. Its ambiguity
causes it to become extremely symbolic and makes its signifiers arbitrary and
undetermined. Unlike the work which has closure and can be interpreted literally and is
explanatory and is a sign in itself, the text is opened-ended, has a multitude of
associations and is deeply symbolic, accordingly, it has plurality of meaning.
Plurality. Barthes says the text is like a woven fabric that comes with known codes that
are assembled differently and maybe be woven with citations, references, and
echoes; it is intertextual in that it is the text between of another text.
Filiation: If writing is seen as a work it is defined by a process of association or
authorship. It becomes affiliated and identified with its author and the readers
knowledge of the author and previous works may become the key to its understanding. If
writing is viewed as a text, then it is not limited and confined to a genre and the reader
does not expect it to fit into a category of type since it is part of a grid and free to be
interpreted beyond the authors signification.
Reading: The work is a commodityan object of consumption in that the reader tends
to be passive and is expected to be fed and entertained when reading. If the reader
approaches a text as writing and not as a work, then the reading experience becomes
interactive. The text narrows the distance between reading and writing by replacing
consumption with the free play of collaborative reading. When interacting with a text
rather than a work, the reader questions and thinks about the writing instead of taking it
for granted.
Pleasure: The pleasure of reading classic literary works may feel like consumption since
the reader cannot rewrite those texts and thus a distance is created between the reader and
the work. If viewed as an accessible text, however, a piece of work arouses feelings of
pleasure because there is no feeling separation between the reader and the writer and the
text transcends any language or social barriers

A post-structuralist approach to the novel To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Although Virginia Woolf was one of the most prolific modernist writers of the 20
th
century,
approaching her work from a post-structuralist perspective may illuminate aspects of Woolfs
thinking.
One important feature of the post-structuralism is to show textual disunity of the literary works.
In To the Lighthouse, the major theme is the characters experience of time. As it can be
noticed,Woolf s writing does not so much theorize time or describe events that occur in time but
enables the intuition of time as such. That is, the literary form rather than what is said in To The
Lighthouse creates a disjunction between two planes of time.
The first section describes The Ramsay family with their eight children. Mrs Ramsay is
concerned with a future defined in terms of filiation who will marry whom, the generations that
will follow while Mr Ramsay worries about his legacy in philosophy. The final section of the
novel, after Time Passes which develops at a very fast pace, is not another moment in a straight
line of time, but a different mode of time, one in which the chronological time of one now after
another shifts to the perception of time in its pure state. Lilys act of painting or vision occurs
after linear temporality is broken; she is overtaken by the forces of sensation, and rather than
being a subject who views a sequence of events that occur in time, she encounters the forces of
difference as such, the forces of becoming or eternity from which something like chronological
or differentiated time emerges.
In her work, Woolf succeeds not only to bring together the two planes of time by creating the
impression that after the dinner party from the night before it follows the voyage to the
lighthouse in the next morning, but she also brings together people with very different
personalities and characters; people that in the end make a memorable evening. Moreover, the
writer goes to a level even smaller - marriage. Mrs. Ramsays inability to express her feelings
towards her husband is balanced by Mr. Ramsay easiness to tell her the words. Each partner has
contrasted gifts, otherwise they would had been wasted.



Bibliography:
http://www.tbook.constantvzw.org/wp-content/death_authorbarthes.pdf
http://areas.fba.ul.pt/jpeneda/From%20Work%20to%20Text.pdf
http://lypheneveryword.hubpages.com/hub/how-to-analyze-literature-using-the-post-
structuralism-school-of-criticism
http://ecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=english_facpubs
Barry, Peter. Beginning theory An introduction to literary an cultural theory. Pdf
Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. pdf