Structuralism: A Destitution of the Subject?

The paper I would like to present to you today represents a simple attempt on my part to establish an order among a certain number of texts. My working hypothesis will be that the notion of text occupies a point in between those of work (œuvre) and statement (énoncé ). Both of these possibilities—extension in the direction of totality and restriction in the direction of the elementary—are implicated in the notion of text, but no a priori suppositions are justified concerning either the unity of works, classified by author or by groups of authors, or the univocality of statements, subjected as they are to the inevitable process of dissemination through reading and appropriation. The perspective of assembly and interpretation of texts corresponds to a practical, even professional goal of mine, which forms the immediate background and condition of possibility of my participation in this colloquium. Having signed a contract