SOURCE: Mortimer, Armine Kotin. Introduction to The Gentlest Law: Roland Barthes's “The Pleasure of the Text,” pp. 1-40. New York: Peter Lang, 1989.

In the following essay, Mortimer examines various influences on Barthes's The Pleasure of the Text and provides detailed explanations of key terms and concepts to aid in a correct understanding of the text.

“Roland Barthes has just published The Pleasure of the Text, incontestably one of the great books of the decade.” So wrote Les Nouvelles littéraires in January 1975 (GV [The Grain of the Voice] 198), and it was not an exaggeration. Well beyond the end of that decade, the book remains one of the great critical texts of a sensational author, a creator of discourses who is cited in an amazing variety of contexts. And there is no apprehending Barthes without understanding this minute but challenging and enigmatic text. Yet people have not fathomed its...