Semiotics, Erotographics, and Barthes's Visual Concerns

Inasmuch as semiotics does not always limit itself to the study of the categories of the sign (Sa/S6) as atomic units of analysis, this essay will also focus on the condition of the sign i.e., the essential gap out of which these categories emerge to be monitored by the Derridean concept of diffirance. Thus, I will examine the recent texts of Roland Barthes for they exhibit both aspects of the sign: on the one hand, the overevaluation of the binary sign, functioning as an object-fetish and related to what Barthes has called plaisir,2 and, on the other, the notion of jouissance which decenters the entire narrative structure (Derrida's grammatological project), making visible a primordial lack at the center of existence (the Lacanian beance) which defines the sign as nothing more than a legible, albeit unavoidable tool. The main objective of this essay, therefore, will be to relate Barthes's notion ofplaisir andjouissance (developed in the Pleasure of the Text3) to two different types of visual signs. Consideration will be given first to a metonymized visual structure functioning as object-fetish and already mentioned by Barthes in his Diderot, Brecht and Eisenstein.4 Discussion will then focus on the second type of visual signs (i.e., jouissance), exemplified in Barthes's renewed romance with the letter. This is the Roland Barthes known as

Aesthetics · Art · Linguistics · Semiotics · Visual arts · Visual semiotics · French Literature and Critical Theory · French Literature and Criticism · Philosophy · Semiotics and Representation Studies