Reading is a peculiar kind of experience. Although its practice and theory have a very long tradition, the question of aesthetic pleasure is as perplexing as ever. Why do we read? What exactly thrills us in the text? Taking the work of Roland Barthes as a central reference, the aim of this collection of essays is to investigate a variety of themes and issues associated with the question of readerly pleasure. Pleasure 'in' the text is related to the content of (...) the text and associated with various methods of representing the pleasures of 'real life', whereas pleasure 'of' the text is discovered in the literary form. The imperfect, if not erroneous, distinction between form and content, constitutes one of the main methodological techniques for identifying the two major sources of pleasure, and serves as a starting point for the inquiry. This bookdoes not merely offer a personal view of the problem in question, nor an exposition of this problem locked within the limits of a given theory, but a broader perspective consisting of the reflections of academics who critically evaluate both its theoretical and practical aspects, across disciplines such as literary theory and criticism, semiology, philosophy and psychoanalysis. (shrink)