Who is Roland Barthes from Literary Theory: An Introduction and what is their importance?

Roland Barthes began his literary career as a member of the reception theory movement. He focused primarily on modernist literature, which was often devoid of conventional considerations of structure and form. Barthes believed this was a kind of archetype for literature because the true literary product in his eyes, was not made by the author, but by the reader. The reading process then can be described as a chaotic peeping into a sea of conflicting, ephemeral meanings which briefly appear and then disappear again. Given his emphasis on the role of the reader, these meanings need not have been intended by the author at all, but may be largely the product of the reader's own imagination.