A work has two levels of meaning: literal and concealed.
A Text, on the other hand is engaged in a movement … a deferral … a dilation of meaning … the play of signification.
Metonymy — the association of part to whole — characterized the logic of the Text.
In this sense the Text is "radically symbolic" and lacks closure.


Proposition 3 - From Work to Text (1971)

Roland Barthes Quotes

A work has two levels of meaning: literal and concealed. A Text, on the other hand is engaged in a movement … a deferral … a dilation of meaning...

A work has two levels of meaning: literal and concealed. A Text, on the other hand is engaged in a movement … a deferral … a dilation of meaning...

A work has two levels of meaning: literal and concealed. A Text, on the other hand is engaged in a movement … a deferral … a dilation of meaning...

A work has two levels of meaning: literal and concealed. A Text, on the other hand is engaged in a movement … a deferral … a dilation of meaning...