Wen Zhiyue

Author: Roland Barthes
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-06-01
Features: The expression "pleasure of text" might be a new kind of duality: on the one hand, it equates or even identifies the pleasure of writing with the pleasure of reading (; on the other hand, in this expression, "pleasure" lacks aesthetic value: it has nothing to do with the "text of meditation," and is even unrelated to the "text of imagination" or "text of participation"; if the text is an "object," it is purely in the psychoanalytic sense: to understand the text through the dialectics of desire, more precisely, through the abnormal dialectics: it is not an "object" but is always involved with the "subject." There is no desire without an "object," but there is also no tremor without a "subject": the entire issue lies here, in this subversion, in this grammatical turbulence. Similarly, within my intention, "pleasure of text" refers to an aesthetic object that has never been perceived, particularly a literary object, which is a state of intoxication (jouissance), a state of losing consciousness (loss), canceling the state of the subject. Then why say "pleasure of text" instead of "intoxication of text"? Because in the weaving practice of text, there exists an entire area and range of the dispersal of the subject: the subject can extend the consistency and coordination (uneconsistance) (when there is original satisfaction, fulfillment, contentment, pleasure, etc.) to the lost (uneperte) (when there is elimination, gradual disappearance, intoxication, etc.). Unfortunately, French has no single word that can encompass both pleasure and intoxication; thus, we must accept the ambiguous expression "pleasure of text," which sometimes specifically refers (contrasting with intoxication) and sometimes generally refers (to both pleasure and intoxication). The content of this book includes: Affirmation, Babel, Tchotchke, Margin, Playfulness, Rupture, Community, Body, etc.