Literary History in the Wake of Roland Barthes: Re-Defining the Myths of Reading

This study, Literary History in the Wake of Roland Barthes..., addresses the concept of reading and its relationship with the literary text as proposed in the works of Roland Barthes, a major proponent of the New Criticism that transformed academic formalism in literary studies from Lansonism (a scientific approach to criticism espoused by Gustave Lanson) to the reader as a necessary participant in giving meaning to the written text. All French citations have been translated into English.