Page 82 - Critical and Cultural Theory

TEXTUALITY
When love is not thus colonized, it is rejected as an absurd body
of delusions: it becomes 'atopic', placeless (Barthes 1990b: 35).
Barthes responds to this state of affairs through a circular text
that acknowledges no hierarchies and roams indefinitely, thus
mirroring the 'errantry' of love's 'Ghost Ship': 'Though each love
is experienced as unique and though the subject rejects the notion
of repeating it elsewhere later on', he soon 'realizes that he is
doomed to wander until he dies, from love to love' (Barthes
1990b: 101) -just as texts are adrift in a sea of interpretations that
never fully grasp their textures.
In her early writings, Kristeva - like Barthes - focuses on the
ways in which texts are shaped by cultural codes and conventions,
and argues that texts embody certain ideologies, yet are capable
of subverting them through linguistic experimentation. Kristeva
uses semiotics to show that the idea of a stable sign is a myth
which serves the illusion of cultural stability. Readers should
learn to recognize the lacunae and gaps in texts where meaning
collapses and the dominant system of signs can no longer be
treated as a guarantee of order. In Semeiotike, Kristeva proposes
a shift from the analysis of meaning to the analysis of the signify-
ing process. This project is based on the idea that signs do not
hold permanent meanings but rather aquire significance by being
strung together and by being decoded in particular ways. The
process of production of meaning is termed signifiance and the
method which explores this process is termed semanalysis
(Kristeva 1974). One of the keywords employed in Semeiotike is
ideologeme: a textual formation produced within specific cultural
and historical circumstances. Epic, myth and the folktale pivot on
the ideologeme of the symbol: they are closed because the ideas
they present are supposed to be decodable according to a fixed
repertoire of images. The modern novel, conversely, pivots on the
ideologeme of the sign: it is open insofar as there is no agreed
method for interpreting its signs. Certain textual formations are
more likely to be supportive of the dominant ideology than
others. The monological text (the text that promotes a uniform
ideology) aims at depicting a stable reality. The dialogical text
(the text committed to polyphony) transgresses the law and
stresses that reality is always negotiable. The texts that challenge
most drastically the status quo employ a form of discourse that
refuses to reduce language to communication, suspends logic, and

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