The Pleasure of the Text

The Pleasure of the Text is a book by Roland Barthes. Barthes divides the effects of texts into two: pleasure and bliss.

The pleasure of the text corresponds to the readerly text, which does not challenge the reader's subject position.

The blissful text provides Jouissance (bliss, orgasm, explosion of codes) which allows the reader to break out of his/her subject position. This type of text corresponds to the "writerly" text.

The "readerly" and the "writerly" texts are identified and explained in Barthes's S/Z: An Essay (ISBN 0374521670).