ITTOL - Lecture 8 - Barthes, The Structural Activity
Roland Barthes 1972 essay on "The Structural Activity" The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, Third Edition, David H. Richter, Bedford/St. Martin's, Boston, NY, 2007 p 871-74) claims there is "...no technical difference between structuralism as an intellectual activity on the one hand and literature ... on the other hand: both derive from a mimesis [imitation] based not on the analogy of substances...but the analogy of functions..."(872).
He argues that structural activity (dissection and articulation) has, as its main purpose, the "...reconstruction of an object..." (871) and it is irrelevant whether the reconstructed object exists in a real or imaginary world as the activity "...manifests a new category of object which is neither the real nor the rational, but the functional...subsequently and especially, it highlights the strictly human process by which men give meanings to things..." (873). In this he is similar to Gadamer and Iser, where text + reader = an effective history or a virtual text; in other words 1+1=3, something new arises: meaning.
For Barthes, the meaning comes from the way the dissected fragments or units are associated and put back together; it is this reconstruction of the parts that creates the new thing as "...the slightest variation wrought in its [the original object's] configuration produces a change in the whole." (872) For him, the whole point of this reconstruction is to render the invisible, intelligible.
By implication, the manner in which one dissects the original into fragments would also alter the whole and thus the meaning.
He argues that structural activity (dissection and articulation) has, as its main purpose, the "...reconstruction of an object..." (871) and it is irrelevant whether the reconstructed object exists in a real or imaginary world as the activity "...manifests a new category of object which is neither the real nor the rational, but the functional...subsequently and especially, it highlights the strictly human process by which men give meanings to things..." (873). In this he is similar to Gadamer and Iser, where text + reader = an effective history or a virtual text; in other words 1+1=3, something new arises: meaning.
For Barthes, the meaning comes from the way the dissected fragments or units are associated and put back together; it is this reconstruction of the parts that creates the new thing as "...the slightest variation wrought in its [the original object's] configuration produces a change in the whole." (872) For him, the whole point of this reconstruction is to render the invisible, intelligible.
...the imitated object makes something appear which remained invisible...there occurs something new, and what is new is nothing less than the generally intelligible. (871-2)The individual, dissected part, as a fragment "... has no meaning in itself..." (871); the context in which the part, is found, the manner by which it is associated with the other parts, gives meaning to the whole and, by implication, to itself. Change the part's association and you change the meaning of both the part itself and the whole.
By implication, the manner in which one dissects the original into fragments would also alter the whole and thus the meaning.