 In the absence of any signified, Barthes argues, the textual signifiers for "real" objects had for their actual signifieds only the concept of realism itself; further, Barthes suggested that the origins of this textual device came through the development of an "aesthetic finality of language" present in the use of the rhetorical device of ecphrasis in "Alexandrian neo-rhetoric of the second century" ("The Reality Effect" in Barthes 1989).Barthes also showed that this "effect of reality" was a key problem of historical analysis and writing in that historical writing proclaimed an unproblematic realism that was in fact just this textual device in action ("The Discourse of History" in Barthes 1989).It was this aspect of the "effect of reality" that Ankersmit showed helped to explain both the evolution of historical enquiry and the problematic textual nature of history (Ankersmit 1989).