EL109 LITERARY CRITICISM

CHAPTER 6: Readerly and Writerly Text

Objectives:

a.) Differentiate readerly to writerly text.

b.) Analyze how it affects the reader’s interpretation of the text.

Readerly Text

- Barthes argues that most text are readerly

texts. Such text are associated with classic text
that are presented in a familiar, linear, traditional
manner, adhering to the status quo in style and
content. Meaning is fixed and pre-determined so
that the readers is a site merely to receive
information. These text attempt, through the use
of standard representations and dominant signifying practices, to hide any elements that
would open up the text to multiple meaning. Readerly texts support the commercialized
values of the literary establishment and uphold the view of the texts as disposable
commodities.

- Readerly texts, by contrast, are anything but readerly; they are manifestations of The
Book. 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.

Writerly Text

- By contrast, writerly texts reveal those elements that the readerly attempts to conceal.
The reader, now in a position of control, takes an active role in the construction of
meaning. The stable meaning, or metanarratives, of readerly texts is replaced by a
proliferation of meanings and a disregard of narrative structure. These is a multiplicity of
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cultural and other ideological indicators (codes) for a readers to uncover. What Barthes
describes as "ourselves writing" is a self-conscious expression aware of the
discrepancy between artifice and reality. The Writerly text destabilized the reader's
expectations. The reader approaches the text from an external position of subjectivity.
By turning the reader into the writer, writerly texts defy the commercialization and
commoditization of literature.

- 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, plasticized by some singular
system (Ideology, Genus, Criticism) which reduces the plurality
of entrances, the opening of networks, the infinity of
languages. (S/Z 5)

Behind these distinctions lies Barthes' own aesthetic and political projects, the
championing of those texts which he sees as usefully challenging--often through the
method of self-reflexivity--traditional literary conventions such as the omniscient
narrator. For Barthes, the readerly text, like the commodity, disguises its status as a
fiction, as a literary product, and presents itself as a transparent window onto "reality."
The writerly text, however, self-consciously acknowledges its artifice by calling attention
to the various rhetorical techniques which produce the illusion of realism. In accord with
his proclamation of The Death of the Author, Barthes insists, "the goal of literary work
(of literature as work) is to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the
text" (S/Z 4).

Barthes and the Ideal Text

Barthes identifies the writerly text as a dominant mode in modern mythological culture in
which forms of representation seek to continually blur the division between the real and

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the artificial. He proposes that the Ideal text blurs the distinction between the reader and
writer: - The network are many and interact, without any one of them being able to
surpass the rest; this text is a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no
beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can
be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as
the eye can reach, they are indeterminable... - The systems of meaning can take over
this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity
of language (S/Z 5)

Hypertext

Possesses many of the qualities Barthes identifies in the

ideal text. In hypertext, the presentation of materials is
non-linear. It is text that branches, links, and connects,
allowing information to be understood in random
sequence. The nature or order of meaning is not pre-
determined by the author, but is rather an interactive
activity in which the reader is free to take any choosen
direction. Hypertext is composed of lexias. Lexias are
blocks of text connected via verbal and non-verbal links. It is a medium of information
that connects words (language) with external commentaries, related or contrary texts-
all towards determining the underlying conceptual and ideological structure of the text.

Intertextuality

- is the shaping of a rext's meaning by another text. Interrextual figures include:

allusion, quotation, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche and parody. Intertextuality is
a literary device that creates a interrelationship between texts' and generates related
understanding in separate works.

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- Intertextuality is a literary discourse strategy (Gadavanji) utilized by the writers in

novels, poetry, theatre and even in non-written texts (such as performances and digital
media)

Examples of Intertextuality

Are an author's borrowing and transformation of

a prior text, and s reader's referencing of one
text in reading another.

- Intertextuality does not require citing or

referencing punctuation (such as quotation
marks) and is often mistaken for plagiarism
(Ivanic, 1998)

- Intertextuality is not a literary or rhetorical

device, but rather a fact about literary texts –
the fact that they are all intimately interconnected. This applies to all texts: novels,
works of philosophy, newspaper articles, films, songs, paintings, etc. In order to
understand intertextuality, it’s crucial to understand this broad definition of the word
“text.”
Every text is affected by all the texts that came before it, since those texts influenced
the author’s thinking and aesthetic choices. Remember: every text (again in the
broadest sense) is intertextual.

However, intertextuality is not always intentional and can be utilized inadvertently this
term was developed by the post structuralists Julia Kristeva 1960's, and since then it's
been widely accepted by postmodern literary critics and theoreticians.

Julia Kristeva

- Contribution to the notion of intertextuality is immense. She not only coined the word
intertextuality but substantially stressed the importance of the potential dynamics that

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lay within the text. Text is not an unilinear entity but

heterogeneous combination of text. Any text is once
literary and social, creative and cultural. They ate
culturally and institutionally fashioned. Most of the
ideas that Kristeva puts toward is a rework or revision
of Bakhtinian notion of intertextuality. Bakhtin also held
the view point that the text cannot be detached from
socio-cultural textuality which is the backdrop in which
the text is created.

Coined the term intertextuality. Intertextuality, through

sufraced as a postructuralist concept, existed as a
universal phenomenon that elucidates the communicative interconnections between a
text and the other and text and context. Her invention was a response to Ferdinand de
Saussure's theory and his claim that signs gain their meaning through structure in a
particular text. She opposed his to her own, saying that reader's are always influenced
by other text, sifting through their archives, when reading a new one.

Basically, when writers borrow from previous texts, their work acquires layers of
meaning. In addition, when a text is read in the light of another text, all the assumptions
and effect of the other text given a new meaning and influence the way of interpreting
the original text. It serves a subtheme, and reminds us the double narratives in
allegories.

Types of Intertextuality

Obligatory Intertextuality

- Obligatory Intertextuality is when the writer deliberately invokes a comparison or

association between two (or more) texts. Without this pre-understanding of a prior hypo
text, before fill comprehension of the hypertext can be achieved (Jacobmeyer,1998)

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Some media texts can directly refer to others, such as 'remakes' of films, extra-diegetic
references to the media and society, etc. The interpretation of these references is
hugely influenced by the audiences' prior knowledge of the second text. By using
something familiar to the audience they may create both potential good associations
and new meanings.

Audience Pleasures

Audience Pleasure is a self-conscious form of Intertextuality in which it gives its

audience the necessary experience to make sense of the references and offers the
pleasure of recognition. By referring to other media texts or events in our society it can
make audiences believe in the on-going reality of the narrative present.

Intertextuality in Music Videos Example

Robert Palmer's 'Addicted to Love' recalls to fashion

photography and has been parodied many times for its use
of mannequin style females in the band fronted by a be
suited male.
Shania Twain copied it for her 'Man I Feel Like a Women' but
changed the gender roles around, changed the backdrop slightly and used other
instruments.

Optional Intertextuality

- Optional intertextuality has a less vital impact of a significance of the hypertext. It is a

possible, but not essential, intertextual relationship that if recognized, the connection will
slightly shift the understanding of the text (Fitzsimmons,2013)

- Optional Intertextuality means it is possible to find a connection to multiple texts of a

single phrase, or no connection at all (Ivanic,1998)

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Accidental intertextuality is when readers often connect a text with another text, cultural
practice or a personal experience even though the writer has no intention of making an
intertextual reference and it is completely upon the reader’s own prior knowledge that
these connections are made.

Examples: The use of optional Intertextuality may be something as simple as parallel

characters or plotlines.

For example, J.K Rowling's Harry Potter series shares many similarities with J. R. R.
Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. They both apply the use of an aging wizard mentor
(Proffesor Dumbledore and Gandalf) and a key friendship group is formed to assist the
protagonist (an innocent young boy) on their arduous quest to defeat a powerful wizard
and to destroy a powerful being (Keller,2013)

Accidental Intertextuality

- Accidental Intertextuality is when readers often connect a text with another text,
cultural practice or a personal experience, without there being any tangible anchor point
within the original text (John Fitzsimmons).

Examples: When reading Herman Melville's Mint Dick, a reader may use his or her
prior experiences to make a connection between the size of the whale and the size of
the ship.

For More Knowledge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VrfNe0D1r0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaEN4CusGx4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8yNPwaZhPA

Reference:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introliterature/chapter/introduction-to-critical-
theory/

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