Question for Lit. Crit. types, especially on the Theory Side of Things...

[steepholm]

Does anyone today use Barthes' five 'codes' (hermeneutic, proairetic, semantic, symbolic and cultural) except in the context of teaching Barthes' ideas?

I mean, I see (for example) Bakhtin's concepts and terminology being used all the time, but I can't remember the last time I saw an essay that drew on those codes because the writer thought they were the most helpful way of understanding a text. But perhaps I'm just living in a non-Barthesian bubble?

Comments

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

I kind of do, though not his terminology. I think his ideas have either been sufficiently assimilated into how people think about narrative or are sufficiently descriptive of how people think about narrative anyhow, that the terminology fell by the wayside.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

"I think his ideas have either been sufficiently assimilated into how people think about narrative or are sufficiently descriptive of how people think about narrative anyhow, that the terminology fell by the wayside."

Thank you - that's pretty much exactly how I feel, too.