本論文探討羅蘭巴特的情慾閱讀理論，並將之運用於閱讀巴特本人的《Ｓ/Ζ》、以及朱天文的《荒人手記》。巴特聲言經由身體閱讀，讀者與文本產生慾望互動，在此過程內讀者獲致文本歡悅甚至銷魂喪我。由於文本和身體係經由符號運作產生互動，本論文首先拈出「符號之身」，以強調身體和符號的密切關連，並進而探觸身體與不同符號系統之間的交互作用，希望帶出「身體」一詞在巴特書寫中的複義及差異。另一方面，有論者指陳巴特在其文本理論之表述中銘刻了男同性戀的身體經驗。本論文乃利用此一論點，試圖析讀這位法國文論家作品內體象、文象、性象的錯綜牽連。
論文第一章綜覽巴特的作品，標示其閱讀實踐中身體所據有的多重位置，鋪陳其情慾閱讀理論內身體和文本的關係，並點出「作者之死」、「文本歡愉」、「音聲質粒」等重要概念中滲透的男同性情慾。第二章應用巴特的情慾閱讀理論，解讀巴特自身在書寫《Ｓ/Ζ》時流露的慾望，分析《Ｓ/Ζ》裡面體象、文象、性象的交相影響，追索巴特在將巴爾札克中篇小說《撒哈津》轉寫為《Ｓ/Ζ》時，所觸動的符號變換、身體逾越、和情慾齟齬。第三章企圖在朱天文《荒人手記》的互文空間內召喚巴特的魅音及身影，以小說互文結構的交雜映照其書寫者繁複情慾的糾葛，並闡明作者的身體如何在讀者的情慾閱讀過程中被幻象化，及其內牽涉的性別政治議題。第四章嘗試在《Ｓ/Ζ》跟《荒人手記》之間穿針引線，編織一巴特式的「可寫之文」，透過「可寫之文」在可寫與不可寫之間的弔詭擺盪，探究身體與文本交接時引發的歡愉、恐懼、厭膩、顛狂。

My dissertation explores and enacts Roland Barthes''s erotics of reading in the three aspects of corporeality, textuality, and sexuality. The French semiologist''s erotics of reading involves reading "the body" in "the text." Since the body is always saturated in semiosis, I attempt to approach the Barthesian figure of the body as "bodies of signs." In so doing, I hope to observe more clearly the plurality and heterogeneity of "the body" in Barthes''s corpus of writings and to trace the polymorphous relations between the body and a variety of sign systems. Furthermore, as Barthes claims that he achieves his textual pleasure through following his body''s ideas, it becomes intriguing to investigate how his "homosexual body" is imbedded in his theory of the text. Having sketched out the general contour of the Barthesian erotics of reading, I then apply it to his own S/Z and the Taiwanese woman novelist Chu T''ien-wen''s Huangren shouji (Notes of a Desolate Man).
In the first chapter, an overview of Barthes''s practice of reading in the three aspects of corporeality, textuality, and sexuality is provided. I explicate the relations between the figure of the body and Barthes''s theory of the text in his erotics of reading. In connection with Barthes''s textual practice of the body, I touch upon such matters as "the death of the author," "the pleasure of the text," and "the grain of the voice" to reveal their homoerotic overtones. The second chapter is specifically devoted to an inspection of S/Z, in which Barthes postulates a distinction between the readerly and the writerly text through reading Balzac''s Sarrasine. Barthes''s homosexuality complicates the picture that he is using a text that plays with the instability of gender and sexuality to tackle the issue of textuality. This chapter accordingly attempts to read how Barthes''s erotic body responds to different bodies of signs in his textual analysis of Sarrasine. In the third chapter, I continue to pursue the problematics of Barthes''s body--in its relevancy to the reading of Chu''s "gay novel." I will bring out "Roland Barthes" as an unnamable textual figure from the intertextual field of Chu''s novel. In the process of my reading, not only Barthes''s body but also Chu''s will become phantasmatic bodies of signs to haunt the scene of reading. In the final chapter, I strive to envision a writerly project in which a mock ceremony of union can be conducted between S/Z and Huangren shouji. In this endeavor we will find that the Barthesian writerly text can elicit an assortment of responses from the body, in the body''s susceptibility to pleasure, fear, boredom, and jouissance.