Sobre la interpretación en Barthes: hacia una hermenéutica plural

Abstract

This paper takes a stand against the commonplace understanding of Roland Barthes as indifferent or even hostile to interpretation; on the contrary, he is to be credited with having made one of the most relevant contributions to literary hermeneutics in the 20th century. The main hypothesis is that Barthes kept himself at a distance from structuralist scientificism, in order to leave room for the task of literary criticism and consequently for interpretation. Besides, I suggest understanding Criticism and Truth as an explicit hermeneutical turn in Barthes’s work, under the influence of Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the symbol. Lastly, Barthes’s rectification of his concept of literary criticism in S/Z comes to the foreground. S/Z contains the most developed and decisive contribution by Barthes to the theory of literary interpretation. By showing the internal necessity of such an evolution in Barthes’s work, the paper aims at shedding light on the desideratum –still pending– of a hermeneutics specifically adapted not only to the plural of the contemporary text but also to the plurality or rather multiplicity of literary ecritures and poetics.