[Glice]

I think he's a gorgeous writer. By which I mean his style is lovely to read. I've spent the whole with very dry semiotics and Barthes seems like a reading blowjob right now.

I'm never to sure where I stand on his ideas though. I think part of the problem with approaching this sort of thing is that you have to disconnect yourself from the notion of canonical interpretations; intertexuality is irrefutable if Saussure is irrefutable, and you're an idiot if you're refuting Saussure.

If you seriously don't agree with post-Saussurian linguistics (and I'd by no means suggest you should agree) then it's important to look upon it as the dominant paradigm of crit theory. I personally would happily see a cap on the proliferation of polysemic [sic] readings, but this is more to do with the failings of the academic community at large than it is specific theorists.

Sorry, I've dribbled a bit there - in essence, my feeling is that Barthes is necessary not just because the art becomes autonomous but because the author becomes a more passive part of the artform; you don't really get an expansion of an artform without ideas the destabalise the norms.

Have you read Barthes' mythologies? I read the one about wine earlier. Amazing.