Readerly and Writerly

Hypertext blurs the boundaries between reader and writer and therefore instantiates another quality of Barthes' ideal text. From the vantage point of the current changes in information technology, Barthes' distinction between readerly and writerly texts appears to be essentially a distinction between text based on print technology and electronic hypertext, for hypertext fulfills “the goal of literary work (of literature as work) [which] is to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text” (S/Z).

Readerly texts are texts that ‘force’ us to read passively (e.g. classical texts); Readerly also refers to a way of reading texts.

Writerly texts are texts that invite us to collaborate in the production of meaning (e.g. modernist texts); Writerly is also a way of reading texts.