ABSTRACT
A critic and theorist who, like Kristeva, has always attacked notions of the ‘natural’, stable meaning and unquestionable truth, Roland Barthes remains the most articulate of all writers on the concept of intertextuality. Bearing in mind our analysis of the work of Kristeva, we need to ask what Barthes means by the term ‘text’, and thus ‘intertextuality’. In his essay ‘Theory of the Text’ (Barthes, 1981a: 31-47) he produces an answer to that question which begins by describing the traditional notions of work and text but ends by practically reversing the relations usually ascribed to them. In traditional terms, as Barthes “explains, a text is ‘the phenomenal surface of the literary work’ (ibid.: 32). A textual scholar is still considered to be someone concerned with manuscript studies, with ascertaining a true text. The textual scholar searches for as complete a version as possible of the author’s intended structure, individual sentences, paragraphing, and so forth. A text is the material inscription of a work. It is that which gives a work permanence, repeatability and thus readability. Barthes puts the case as follows:
Barthes is setting up the traditional viewpoint in order to open it to a new semiotic approach which will dramatically challenge the entire set of premises it contains. The work of Jacques Derrida is just as vital as Kristeva’s to Barthes’s account and ironic strategy, and can be heard echoing through this account of the text and the work traditionally conceived.
