Roland Barthes
See also:  [Art History] (index)
           [Literature Index]
           [Time Line]

           [Text (:LIT:)
           [Huidobro] (poet/writer)
        
Roland Barthes

On this page:  
               {From Work to Text} (essay)
               {Refs}

Next: From Work to Text.

 
 
From Work to Text

From the superb collection:

"Textual Stategies: Perspectives in Post-Structuralist Criticsm",
Ed by Josue V. Harari, LCCN PN 94.T4, ISBN 0.8014.1218.8,
(Cornell, Ithaca NY (see map), 1979).

BEGIN BLOCK QUOTE
[P.73] NB: Could not determine the date/source for this; qv, loc. cit.

Over the past several years, a change has been taking place in our
ideas about langauge and, as a consequence, about the (literary) [emph mine]
work, which owes at least its phenomenal existence to language. [Note 1]

This change is obviously linked to current developments in, [emph mine]
among other fields, linguistics, anthropology, Marxism, and pscchoanalysis (the
word "link" is used here in a deliberately neutral fashion: in implies 
no decision about a determination be it multiple and dialectical). [Note 3]

The change affecting the notion of the work does not necessarily come from
the internal renewal of each of these disciplines, but proceeds, rather, 
from their encounter at the level of an object that traditionally depends
on none of them. Interdisciplinary activity, valued today as an
important aspect of research , cannot be accomplished by simple confrontations
between various specialised areas off knowledge. [Note 4

Interdisciplinary work is not a peaceful operatiojns: it begins effectively
when the solidarity of of the old disciplines breaks down -- a process 
make for violent, perhaps, by the jots of fashion -- to the benefit of a 
new object and a new language, neither of which is in the domain of those 
branches of knowledge that one calmly sought to confront. [Note 5]











END BLOCK QUOTE

Notes
  
(this section only)

[1] So, what *does* "literary" mean? Non-scientific/science?
    Non-maths? Non-art? But, wait *literature* is supposedly one
of the "arts" (it's certainly *not* relativisic physics -- though
naturally, it shares much with that subject and the philosophical
implications of not only relativity but, QM (quantum mechanics),
and so froth). Regardless, we (or rather i, since it is *i* (or
more properly the "i-ness" (that is me) that is pushing this
particular wheel barrow), i wish to assert that in this "work"
(under discussion -- ie, "a (literary) work". Thus, with that 
*co-erced* *interpretation* of the word "literary" (and more
specifically the term "liteary work", i (we?) proceed as follows...
[elipsis intentional] [Note 2]

The question is raised (ie, i assert the following - subject
to my own mis-interpretations, etc) that:  

   "Barthes asserts that the/a/some/etc literary work is 
    dependent upon language. I ask the question:  Is this
    true; ie, is there a counter-example?

    In maths we would say:  Does there exist a 
                            literary work SUCH THAT
                            it is NOT a FUNCTION OF
                            language?

Being the good dadaist that i am (well trained in fire insurance
sales technique) ah ha! [Martin Gardner ref: "Ah Ha Insight", book]

  Collage. 

Thus, we must (cautiously) begin our attack; cautiously, since there
is nothing more vicious (other than ponies) than a collage when cornered.

1. Is a/some/of/which/duck/etc "collage" a literary work?
   NB: Hence forth, i shall refer to "a collage", we will take it
as read that i mean all possible contexts/concepts/extentions/restrictions/etc
of the concept of collage . More info on collage: [Collage] (ah term)

We (i again, hello?  hello?  Halito?) assert that indeed a collage is a most
literary thing. It can (obviously) contain text, but even if it is only
(ie, merely; David Newman's Paradox reference) pictures/signs/symbols (ie,
non-text; yes, i'm aware that:   नान =  bread in Hindi *is* text, and
that of course to the non-hindi speaker/reader these appear to be cute little
(beautiful aren't they, the Moravian Brown is wonderously coloured this
time of year) "symbols", etc.

Regardless, i assert that the juxtaposition (collision of differences and
likenesses) that is at the heart of collage creates the same sorts of
*textual* concept as the use of words; ie, he hurriedly thougth of things
that were-un-hurried.  She didn't know that she had suddenly been written
into the *text* so as to for the author to not be accused of sexism in
survial situations [Jusrassic Park reference].

Thus, in exactly the same way that the above some-what convoluted sentence
presents a flow of ideas (is my mine ever NOT a flow? not with the med's
i'm on!) that is "at least similar to" the flow of borders and areas present
in a collage.

Thus, for our first snipe hunt, we should try to find parallels from the
textual (text, written stuff, words, poems, etc, and at the very least
explanatory and/or tutorial works -- which should always be the *least*
convoluted discourse) and the visual (in particular collage).

First we are presented with the concept of shape. And of course, we can
take Don Taylor's class in 2-d design for that:

Line, shape, colour, etc.

Thus we have an AREA (a thing enclosed -- i must be enclosed, since it is
a piece of cut out paper; yes, i'm quite aware of the concept of "drawing
in space" and the idea of "infinite extension by implication"; eg, when
we make a print and the design goes off the edge of the paper, one 
possible interpretation is that the design continues on to infinity -- or
at least continues beyond the "mere" (again, wit Professor Noimann! Will
his counter examples never cease to haunt me!?!!?) edge of the paper.
thus, the paper (picture plane) becomes (in the Renaissance tradtion)
a "window" (ie, the canvas as window into the world; and even the
tradition of painting a window or mirror onto the picture -- this is
present in many of the most severe cubist works).

Thus, we have AREA, and thus BORDER (line, demarkation, distingishing
mark [G. Spencer Brown "Laws of Form" reference, book], or in literary
terms:  Compare and contrast.

Thus, (and we haven't even gotten to colour, and the specifics of shape
yet), AREA (with property of SHAPE/SPACE) creates BORDER (with property of LINE).

And so, from even that base example, we have:

    The Woman saw the man and wept.

    The Man saw that he was seen weeping and felt ashamed.

These texts can easily be imagined as cut out pictures from a magzine that
"tell that story" [Mihai Nadin reference, "Culture of Illiteracy", ref ??page??].

The fact that the pictures (again not assuming text at this point)
can not *exactly* tell the story as distinguised in the two 
sentences above, points to the difference in TEXT (writing)
and ART (drawing). They *are* different, after all a blind person
can "understand" any written text better than any visual "text" (art work).

[I should note here that in the same way that by 'writing' i imply all of the 
variants; eg, poems, prose, essay, exposition, speeches, dialog, stage
directions, etc. In he same way by 'art work' or 'drawing', i imply all of the 
variants  of that; eg, drawing, paining, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics,
photography, jewlry making, design, and installation woks. But, that we
should probably restrict ourselves to NOT include performance art (including
drama, music presentations, etc -- although that would (obviously) make for
a very intringuing diversion; alas, i digress]

Thus, i hope (nervously) that i have some-what "proved" that collage IS a 
literary work in that it can (at least) "tell a story" -- which is considered
one of the major domains of literary work.

2. And since our (i again) agenda is to show that there IS a liteary work
   that does not refer to language; and yes, i don't want get into Sartre's
"Being and Nothingness" (which i barely pretend to understand when i am 
outside of its text; ie, when i am "reading and submerged into it" (the 
text), i *think* that i understand what is being said, but when i come
out of the text (back to "the real world" it seems as if i understand 
nothing about it at all; it is as if when i go into the text of 
"Being and Nothingness", that i become charged (electrically) and then
am influenced by the various electrical and magnetic fields, but that
when i emerge back out of the text, i lose this "charge" and become 
once again a neutrino that has little affect upon or little effect by
things around me).

So, at this point, we seek a literary work (collage) that is NOT a function
of language.

It is at this point that i realise the futility of this; ie, if we extend
the definition of "langage" enough (and mindful of the fact that we think
in language [again with Being and Nothingness; ie, we can not be conscious
of our consciousness or rather we are always conscious of our consciousness
except when we forget to be aware. This is the same as Douglas Adams' concept 
of how to levitate:  You throw yourself at the floor, and miss. And of 
course since you are all too aware of the fact that you are about to 
hit the floor (and thus feel pain) you can't NOT miss the floor. So, the
trick is at the last instance get distracted by something, and thus forget
to hit the floor (being distracted) and thsu miss the floor, and definition
if you miss hitting the floor you are obviously levitating.

Thus, i (we?) restrict language to that thing by which we communicate verbally
or through the written word or by sign language -- the "transported thing" is
essentally TEXT (words, ideas, symbols, etc). 

But, collage is (we again haven't introduced text - which it should be obvious
that once we allow text, we could simply type up the *what* of what we wanted
to say, print it out and then paste it onto a piece of paper (being the 
lazy louts that artists supposedly are). (I have done this in my "We want you
to want"collage, which contains texts such as:

      WE WANT YOU TO WANT. WE WANT YOU TO WANT. WE WANT YOU TO WANT. WE WANT YOU TO WANT. 

and:
      WE MAKE YOU WANT THINGS THAT

      YOU DON'T NEED. YOU HAVE TO BUY
      THINGS OR WE WILL BECOME WEAK.
nsume consume consume consume consume consume consume consume consume consume 

and:
       WE DEAL WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE OUR
       ENEMIES. IF THEY PAY US, WE DON'T
       BOTHER THEM. IF THEY DON'T PLEASE
       US, WE WILL MAKE UP AN EXCUSE TO
       DESTROY THEM   .do not anger us.

These texts are used to counter-point the pictures (mostly clipped from (ahem) a
certain "men's magazine") the theme being unbridled materialism [Monty Python
reference, episod #23 (i think) ??episode??]. 

Thus, i hope that it "is at least arguable" that collage represents (potentially)
a literary work that does not (directly; can i have *any* more qualifiers in this
sentence??? ;) use language or depend upon language as for its "phenomenal
existence".  

I would go further that a collage (a created work, and therefore existAnt), does
protude into our sphere of awareness by its juxtaposition of SHAPE and LINE
and thus achieves its "phenomenal existEnce" without language.

{Back to the tExT!}

  
[2] Egad! Now, i'm even annotating my own texts (works!). Is there
    any end to this madness?  "Nothing to be done" [godot reference]

   "I can see no semblence of a beginning; no prospect of an end".
     -- James Hutton; "father" of modern geology commenting
        on his first encounter with what Stephen J. Gould
        refered to as "deep time"; ie, geological eras, etc.
{Back to the taxT!}

 
[3] The word link is indeed NON-neutral. By that i mean (or intend) that
    one may link anything with anything -- going back to the concept of
collage (as well as the "illogic" of dada, Eugenio Montale, and others).

Thus, this linkage allows for the connecting (in theory) of any idea/thing
with any other idea/thing and includes the idea of an idea/thing being
connected with itself. That is 

This goes back to language in general. There is no rhyme or reason to words in
general (and yes, i am thorough mis-informed about Ferdenad de Sausure ?sp? and
his work on signs and such). But, really: Think about the word "dog (especially
this word since it has no cognates in French that i know of). We see that:

     docga (Late Old English; ref to: The Oxford English Dictionary)

introduced into the continental languages as a kind of strong breed of "dog". 
And othewise the origins are gone. Note that the loss of "origin" is NOT just
because the word is ancient, for example, the use of the word "fuzz" for
police/cop has been lost as well and that is well within confines of the
*modern* thorougly documented [15 minutes of fame, Andy Warhol reference]
TWENTIETH CENTURY (1900c modern usage these works).

So, there is no *reason* for the word dog to be dog (other than the most
profound bit of wit that dog backwards spells god; gee wizz, does that mean
that agcod (docga backwards) is god in Late Old English?? ;)

Hence, ofi (Chatah for dog) would do as well. And then we can play all of
the usual "word association" games of *linking* any word to any other. This
becomes readily apparent on so-called intellegence tests [refer to the 
superb books "The Mis-measure of Man" (Stephen J. Gould's wondrous work
that in turn gave rise to "This Mis-measure of Woman by Carol Tavris)].
I've have found great pleasure when taking one of these tests in finds
a *good* reason (and often valid reason as well) for EACH answer being
correct -- not just the so-called "obvious" one.  Or as the composer/artist
Juan Ramón Jiménez put it:

   "If they give you ruled paper, write the other way".

{Back to the tarxT!}

  
[4] This brings up the question/problem of interaction (I/A for short). 
    The interaction vs. the collision as per Barthe's statement:

   [The interdisciplinary activity] cannot be accomplished 
   by simple confrontations between various specialised 
   areas off knowledge

Thus, we would say that the areas of knowledge (and i don't intend to restrict
it to "specialised") must interact and influence each other in order for
the "interdisciplinary" *act* to occur. The clearest example of this which
springs to mind is the idea of "relativity". Once relativity was "out of
the box" its influence on philsophy, sociology, etc was immense. Thus, in
each are of knowledge (eg, history) considering the external element (eg,
relativity physics) was the process of interaction. Thus, a historian might
ask "If Einstein has established that there is NO prefered reference frame,
then what does this mean in the various *interpretations* that historians
have traditionally given events?" This would of course lead to a re-evaluation
of those interpretations in the "light" of the "external element".

Thus, rather than a distancing the external element intrudes into and pervades
the area of knowledge. Thus, it interacts - forcing new interpretations, new
paradigms, and indeed a new version of the established cannon of knowledge.
Again, the concept of "cultural relativism" springs to mind -- following 
relativistic thinking, "cultural imperialism" would never hold water again.

If we now contrast this *interactive* nature of the interdisciplanry activities
with the non-interactive nature of collage, we proceed as follows.

1. Certainly interaction is possible in collage, but mostly it is the
   juxtaposition of the collage that creates an effect. This occurs 
ostensibly at the *boundary* of one image and the next, but also as
noted before, occurs because of the substance of the area as compared
to the substance of the area next to it. This goes back to the argument
of the *content* being more important than *context*, thus violating
Umberto Ecco's ??sp?? ??exact quote?? idea that "context is king". 

Indeed if we look at just two images side-by-side there may be little
context at all between them; eg, a picture of a duck, and a picture
of a pickup truck. The only context that i can think of is that they
are pictures and that they are pasted/taped next to each other. 

As to the content, and the *story* [Mihai Nadin ref] that they imply, it
is at best *weak*. Thus, we would need more images to create anything 
approaching meaning or a story. It would be at this point that the viewer
might wonder what the *title* of the piece might be. We could imagine a
series of title that would "create" the story/meaning. Consider the
following titles:

     "My love has left me for someone else"

     "Rhymes with *uck"

     "Nothing in common"

The first clearly creates the story desipte the desparity of the two
images. The second is clearly a literary reference (word play, etc),
and the third is perhaps the "intention" of the artist. Indeed as
Nadin would point out, we can not help but create a story -- even
if our intention is to *not* create a story, then that in itself is
the creation of a story. 

2. Next we should consider the problem of "layering". At the simpest
   level this would indicate to take a concept (eg, "cultural superiority")
and then illuminate it with the external element (eg, relativity). Thus,
this forces a new interpretation of "culutral superiority" and will
(i would guess) lead to "cultural imperialism". Thus, the external
element acts as a *filter* through which the pre-existing bits of
knowledge are given a new "twist". Thus, in the tradtional literary
work, the "external element" is translucent. 

In the case of collage, he images is opaque -- unless printed on 
translucent film, a mark made on a picture, a small image pasted 
over a larger one that does not make the under-image non-recognisable.
Thus, we have *layering* in the sense that one layer masks another
under it. A little thought tells us that this would be the same as
tearing the edges concurently and then pasting them carefully to
the matrix. On the other hand, if we simply paste one over the
other (very physically indicating the three-dimensional layering),
then we create an effect that is more interactive and therefore
(in my use of the term) *literary*. Thus, if we paste the picture
of the duck into the bed of the pickup, this is different than if
we paste the duck under the pickup; ie:

    +-----------------+
    |                 |               +-------------+
    |     duck        |               +-------------+
    +-----------------+                  duck

In the first case (in the pickup truck) the duck "tells the story" of
being transported somewhere. In the second case, the duck is either
being squashed or supressed by the truck; again, as Nadin would say
"we can not but help to tell a story" in either case. And of course
if the duck is placed over the truck it is either in triumph or again
in the context of "have you got transport?".

3. Thus, we see a whole rnage between interaction and juxtaposition.
   Metaphorically, we might say that this range is analogous to 
the range between nurturing and domination. Which again goes back
to the impact that relativity had on the "might is right" thinking
that pervades much of the world still. 

{Back to the VarxT!}

 
[5] Again, this speaks more to juxtaposition rather than interaction.
    To a certain extent, i understand Barthes' point about "confrontation",
but again if we consider (for eg) bio-chemistry. Is it indeed a violent
confrontation or not? I would say that interpreting life in terms of
chemistry (ie, life in terms of life-less-ness), gives us a new view of
the world or the subject at hand. 

On the other hand, it certainly was a *violent* overthrow when relativity
impacted cultural imperialism. To a certain extent, i would say that the
introduction of the external element (which is what happens when the
interdisciplinary method is used) cause the traditional views of the 
pre-existing subject to be called into question. Thus, we "test" each
assumption using the external element to see if it can bring illumination
to the subect. Alternatively, if the external element is used to 

{Back to the VarxtExTSH!}


[6]

{Back to the VarxtEhxTSH!}


[7]

{Back to the VartEhSH!}


[8]

{Back to the Varthes!}


[9]

{Back to the number "9", number "9", number "9", number "barthes"!}


[1]

{Back to the tExT!}


[1]

{Back to the tExT!}




Chronology


Next: Refs.

 
 
Refs

"Textual Stategies: Perspectives in Post-Structuralist Criticsm",
Ed by Josue V. Harari, LCCN PN 94.T4, ISBN 0.8014.1218.8,
(Cornell, Ithaca NY (see map), 1979).

"Critical Essays", translated from the french by Richard Howard, LCCN PN 710.B21, 
ISBN 0.8101.0370.2, (Northwestern Univ. Press, Evanston, ILL, 1972).
(Translated from Barthes' "Essais critiques", 1964. With the
dedication:  To François Braunschweig ??who??  ** always with more to do!!!! ***
(listening to Jean Francaix's "Concerino pour Piano" performed by his
 daughter!)  -- beauty, beauty squared!

"A Barthes Reader", edited with an introduction by someone called
"Susan Sontag", (curiouser and curiouser [Alice in Wonderland reference],
LCCN NX 65.B37'1982, ISBN 0.88029.015.3, (Hill and Wang, New York (see map), 1982).