Evie 9/24

    Barthes argues that there are two kinds of texts: a writerly text and a readerly text. The more common of the two, readerly text, can be described as familiar and traditional. This text is linear with a pre-determined meaning. In other words, the meaning is purposefully singular and the reader simply collects the information. In contrast to this commercialized text, there is writerly text. The writerly text is basically what is unsaid about the readerly text. In this text, the reader is in control of the meaning and acts almost as the writer. Reality tends to blur as the reader becomes invested in the text. 

    Barthes describes this investment as tmesis. Tmesis is a phenomenon where our mind actively fills in a gap. As we talked about in class, people tend to find pleasure in reading when one can create their own world or fill in what is unsaid. In the writerly text, the meaning is fluid and the reader has the ability to form one's own opinion and reality. Students mentioned that they are drawn to Harry Potter because they can imagine Hogwarts in their mind. Harry Potter is a prime example of writerly text because the meaning is not fixed and the reader has control to create their own interpretation of the words written in the book. 

    Barthes defines two kinds of texts in his writing, “Text of pleasure: the text that contents, fills, grants euphoria; the text that comes from culture and does not break with it, is linked to a comfortable practice of reading. Text of bliss: the text that imposes a state of loss, the text that discomforts (perhaps to the point of a certain boredom), unsettles the reader’s historical, cultural, psychological assumptions, the consistency of tastes, values, memories, brings to a crisis his relation with language” (p. 110). When I read these two definitions, my mind goes back to the writerly text and the readerly text. I see the text of pleasure as synonymous with the readerly text as they are both comfortable and to the point. I also see the writerly text connecting to the text of bliss; writerly texts push the reader out of one's comfort zone as the text of bliss does. 

    I would love to know what you guys think, are these sets of texts connected/the same?