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 101-2, Conversations {{Sem}}[[image:RolandBarthes.jpg|thumb|200x|Roland Barthes]]'''Roland Barthes''' ([[November 12]], [[1915]] – [[March 25]], [[1980]]) was a [[France|French]] [[literary critic]], [[literary theory|literary]] and [[social theory|social theorist]], [[philosopher]], and [[Semiotics|semiotician]].

Roland Barthes was [[born ]] on November 12th, 1915 in the town of [[Cherbourg]] in [[Normandy]]. He was the son of naval officer Louis Barthes, who was killed before Roland reached one year of age in a battle in the North Sea. His [[mother]], Henriette Barthes, and his aunt and grandmother raised him in the French city of [[Bayonne]] where he received his first exposure to [[culture]], learning piano from his musically gifted aunt. When he was nine his mother moved to [[Paris]] and it was there that he would grow to manhood (though his attachment to his provincial roots would remain strong throughout his [[life]]).

Barthes showed great promise as a student and spent the period from [[1935]] to [[1939]] at the [[Sorbonne]], earning a license in classical letters. Unfortunately, he was also plagued by ill health throughout this period, [[suffering ]] from [[tuberculosis]] that often had to be treated in the [[isolation ]] of [[sanatorium|sanatoria]]. His repeated [[physical ]] breakdowns interfered with the [[progress ]] of his academic career, affecting his studies and his ability to take certain qualifying examinations. However, it also kept him out of military service during [[World War II]], and, while [[being ]] kept out of the major French universities meant he would have to travel a great deal for teaching positions, Barthes later professed an intentional avoidance of major degree-awarding universities throughout his career.

His life from 1939 through [[1948]] was largely spent obtaining a license in grammar and [[philology]], publishing his first papers, taking part in a little pre-medical study and continuing to [[struggle ]] with his health. In 1948 he returned to purely academic [[work]], gaining numerous short-term positions at institutes in [[France]], [[Romania]] and [[Egypt]]. During this [[time ]] he contributed to the [[leftist ]] Parisian paper ''Combat'', out of which grew his first [[full ]] length work ''[[Writing ]] Degree Zero'' ([[1953]]). In [[1952]] Barthes was able to settle at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique when he studied [[lexicology]] and [[sociology]]. During his seven-year period there he began writing, bimonthly instalments to ''Les Lettres Nouvelles'', a popular series of essays that dismantled [[myths ]] of [[popular culture ]] (gathered in the ''[[Mythologies]]'' collection published in [[1957]]).

Barthes spent the early 60s exploring the fields of [[semiology]] and [[structuralism]], chairing various faculty positions around France, and continuing to produce more full-length studies. Many of his works were discursive to traditional academic views of [[literary ]] [[theory ]] and specific, renowned [[figures ]] of [[literature]]. His unorthodox [[thinking ]] led to a [[conflict ]] with [[another ]] French thinker, Raymond Picard, who attacked [[New Criticism]] (a too-broad label he brought Barthes under) for being obscure and disrespectful to the culture’s literary roots. Barthes' rebuttal in ''Criticism and [[Truth]]'' ([[1966]]), would accuse the old, [[bourgeois]] criticism of being unconcerned with the finer points of [[language ]] and capable of selective [[ignorance ]] towards challenging [[concepts ]] of theories like [[Marxism]].

By the late 1960s Barthes had established a reputation for himself. He traveled to [[United States|America]] and [[Japan]], delivering a presentation at [[Johns Hopkins University]], and producing his most well known work, the [[1968]] essay [[Death of the author| “The Death of the Author”]], which, in light of the growing influence of [[Jacques Derrida]]'s [[deconstructionist]] theory, would prove to be a transitional piece that would investigate the [[logical ]] ends of [[structuralist]] [[thought]]. Barthes continued to contribute to the [[avant-garde]] literary magazine ''[[Tel Quel]]'', which was very much concerned with the kinds of theory being developed in his work. In [[1970]] Barthes produced what many consider to be his most prodigious work, the dense critical [[reading ]] of [[Balzac]]’s ''[[Sarrasine]]'' entitled ''[[S/Z]]''. Throughout the 70s Barthes would continue to develop his [[literary criticism]], pursuing new ideals of [[textualism|textuality]] and novelistic [[neutrality ]] through his works.

In [[1977]] he was elected to a rather lauded [[position ]] as [[chair ]] of Semiolgie Litteraire at the [[Collège de France]]. Sadly, this would come the same year that his mother would [[pass ]] away. The [[loss ]] of the [[woman ]] who had raised and cared for him was a terrible blow to Barthes. He had often written works of theory on [[photography]], dating back as far as his [[individual ]] works in ''[[Mythologies]]''. His last great work was ''[[Camera Lucida]]''. The [[text]], which was a meditation on an old picture of his mother, was half theory of [[communication ]] through the photographic medium and half act of grief to his mother’s [[memory]]. Roland Barthes would die less than [[three ]] years after his mother. On February 25, 1980, after leaving a lunch party held by [[François Mitterrand]] (who would be elected president of France the next year), Barthes was struck by a laundry truck while [[walking ]] home through the streets of Paris. He succumbed to his injuries a month later, passing away on March 26.

Barthes’ earliest work was very much a reaction to the trend of [[existentialist]] [[philosophy ]] that was prominent during the [[1940s]], specifically towards the figurehead of existentialism [[Jean-Paul Sartre]]. In his work ''[[What Is Literature?]]'' ([[1947]]) [[Sartre]] finds himself to be disenchanted with both established forms of writing, and more experimental [[avant-garde]] forms, which he feels alienates readers. Barthes’ response is to try and find what can be considered unique and original in writing. He determines in ''Writing Degree Zero'' (1953) that language and style are both matters that appeal to conventions, and are thus not purely creative. Rather, [[form]], or what Barthes calls ‘writing’, the specific way an individual chooses to manipulate conventions of style for a desired effect, is the truly unique and creative act. One’s form is vulnerable to becoming a convention once it has been made available to the [[public]]. This means that being creative is an ongoing [[process ]] of continual [[change ]] and reaction. He saw [[Albert Camus]]’s ''[[The Stranger (novel)|The Stranger]]'' as an [[ideal ]] example of this [[notion ]] for its sincere [[lack ]] of any embellishment or flare.

In ''Michelet'', a critical look at the work of French historian [[Jules Michelet]], Barthes continues to develop these notions and apply [[them ]] to broader fields. He explains that [[Michelet]]’s views of [[history ]] and [[society ]] are obviously flawed, but that in studying his works one should not seek to learn from [[Michelet]]’s claims. Rather, one should maintain a critical distance and learn from his errors. [[Understanding ]] how and why his thinking is flawed will show more [[about ]] his period of history than his own observations. Similarly, Barthes felt [[avant-garde]] writing should be praised for maintaining just such a distance between its audience and its work. By maintaining an obvious artificiality rather than making claims to great [[subjective ]] truths, [[avant-garde]] writers assure their audience’s maintain an [[objective ]] perspective in reading their work. In this [[sense]], Barthes believed that art should be critical and interrogate the [[world ]] rather than seek to explain it like [[Michelet]] would.

Barthes' many monthly contributions that made up ''[[Mythologies]]'' (1957) would often interrogate pieces of [[cultural ]] [[material ]] to expose how [[bourgeois]] society used them to assert its values upon [[others]]. For [[instance]], portrayal of wine in French society as a robust and healthy habit would be a [[bourgeois]] ideal [[perception ]] contradicted by certain realities (i.e. that wine can be unhealthy and inebriating). He found [[semiology]], the study of [[sign (semiotics)|signs]], useful in these interrogations. Barthes explained that these [[bourgeois]] cultural myths were second-[[order ]] [[signs]], or [[Signification|significations]]. A picture of a full, dark bottle is a [[signifier ]] relating to a [[signified]]: a fermented, alcoholic beverage - wine. However, the bourgeois take this signified and apply their own emphasis to it, making ‘wine’ a new signifier, this time relating to a new signified: the [[idea ]] of healthy, robust, relaxing wine. Motivations for such manipulations vary from a [[desire ]] to sell products to a simple desire to maintain the status quo. These insights brought Barthes very much in line with similar [[Marxist]] theory.

In ''The Fashion [[System]]'' Barthes showed how this adulteration of signs could easily be translated into [[words]]. In this work he explained how in the fashion world any [[word ]] could be loaded with idealistic [[bourgeois]] emphasis. Thus, if popular fashion says that a ‘blouse’ is ideal for a certain [[situation ]] or ensemble, this idea is immediately naturalized and accepted as truth, even though the actual [[sign ]] could just as easily be interchangeable with ‘skirt’, ‘vest’ or any [[number ]] of combinations. In the end Barthes ''[[Mythologies]]'' became absorbed itself into [[bourgeois]] culture, as he found many [[third ]] parties asking him to comment on a certain cultural phenomenon, being interested in his [[control ]] over his readership. This turn of events caused him to question the overall utility of demystifying culture for the masses, thinking it might be a fruitless attempt, and drove him deeper in his [[search ]] for individualistic [[meaning ]] in art.

Barthes' work with [[structuralism]] began to flourish around the same time as his debates with Picard, making the investigation of [[structure ]] one intended to reveal the importance of language in writing he felt was overlooked by old criticism. Barthes “Introduction to the [[Structural ]] [[Analysis ]] of Narratives” is concerned with examining the correspondence between the [[structures ]] of [[narrative ]] with that of a [[sentence]], thus allowing Barthes to view along [[linguistic]] lines. Barthes [[split ]] a work into three hierarchical levels: ‘functions’, ‘actions’ and ‘narrative’. ‘Functions’ are the elementary pieces of a work, such as a single descriptive word that can be used to [[identify ]] a [[character]]. That character would be an ‘action’ and consequently be one of the elements that make up the narrative. Barthes was able to use these distinctions to evaluate how certain key ‘functions’ work in forming characters. For example key words like ‘dark’, ‘mysterious’ and ‘odd’, when integrated together, formulate a specific kind of character or ‘action’. By breaking down the work into such fundamental distinctions Barthes was able to judge the degree of realism given functions have in forming their actions and consequently with what authenticity a narrative can be said to reflect on [[reality]]. Thus, his [[structuralist]] theorizing became another exercise in his ongoing attempts to dissect and expose the misleading mechanisms of [[bourgeois]] culture.

While Barthes found [[structuralism]] to be a useful tool and believed that [[discourse ]] of literature could be formalized, he didn’t believe it could become strict [[scientific ]] endeavour. In the late [[1960s]], radical movements were taking [[place ]] in literary criticism. The [[post-structuralist]] movement and the [[deconstructionism]] of [[Jacques Derrida]] were testing the bounds of such [[structuralist]] thinking as Barthes indulged in. [[Derrida]] [[identified ]] the flaw of [[structuralism]] as its reliance on a [[transcendental ]] signified; a [[symbol ]] of constant, [[universal ]] meaning would be essential as an orienting point in such a closed off system. That is to say, without some regular standard of measurement, a system of criticism that references [[nothing ]] [[outside ]] of the actual work itself could never work. But since there are no [[symbols ]] of constant and universal [[significance]], the entire premise of structuralism as a means of evaluating writing (or anything) is hollow.

Such groundbreaking thought led Barthes to consider the limitations of not just signs and symbols, but also Western culture’s dependency on beliefs of constancy and ultimate standards. He travelled to [[Japan]] in [[1966]] where he wrote ''[[Empire ]] of Signs'' (published in [[1970]]), a meditation of Japanese culture’s contentment in the [[absence ]] of a search for a transcendental signified. He [[notes ]] that in [[Japan]] there is no emphasis on a great focus point by which to judge all [[other ]] standards, describing the centre of [[Tokyo]], the Emperor’s Palace, as not a great overbearing entity, but a silent and non-descript [[presence]], avoided and unconsidered. As such, Barthes reflects on the ability of signs in [[Japan]] to [[exist ]] for their own merit, retaining only the significance [[naturally ]] imbued by their [[signifiers]]. Such a society contrasts greatly to the one he dissected in ''[[Mythologies]]'', which was revealed to be always asserting a greater, more [[complex ]] significance on top of the [[natural ]] one.

In the wake of this trip Barthes wrote what is largely considered to be his best-known work, the essay “[[The Death of the Author]]” ([[1968]]). Barthes saw the notion of the [[author]], or authorial [[authority]], in the criticism of literary text as the [[forced ]] [[projection ]] of an ultimate meaning of the text. By imagining an ultimate intended meaning of a piece of literature one could infer an ultimate explanation for it. But Barthes points out that the great proliferation of meaning in language and the unknowable [[state ]] of the author’s [[mind ]] makes any such ultimate realization [[impossible]]. As such, the [[whole ]] notion of the ‘knowable text’ [[acts ]] as little more than another [[delusion ]] of Western [[bourgeois]] culture. Indeed the idea of giving a book or [[poem ]] an ultimate end coincides with the notion of making it consumable, something that can be used up and replaced in a [[capitalist ]] [[market]]. “[[The Death of the Author]]” is sometimes considered to be a [[post-structuralist]] work, since it moves [[past ]] the conventions of trying to quantify literature, but others see it as more of transitional [[phase ]] for Barthes in his continuing effort to find significance in culture outside of the [[bourgeois]] norms. Indeed the notion of the author being irrelevant was already a factor of structuralist thinking.

Since there can be no originating anchor of meaning in the possible intentions of the author, Barthes considers what other sources of meaning or significance can be found in literature. He concludes that since meaning can’t come from the author, it must be actively created by the reader through a process of textual analysis. In his ambitious ''[[S/Z]]'' (1970), Barthes applies this notion in a massive analysis of a short story by [[Balzac]] called ''[[Sarrasine]]''. The end result was a reading that established [[codes ]] for determining various kinds of significance, with numerous lexias (a term created by Barthes to describe elements that can take on various [[meanings ]] for various readers) throughout the text. The codes led him to define the story as having a capacity for [[plurality ]] of meaning, limited by its [[dependence ]] upon strictly sequential elements (such as a definite [[timeline ]] that has to be followed by the reader and thus restricts their [[freedom ]] of analysis). From this [[project ]] Barthes concludes that an ideal text is one that is reversible, or open to the greatest variety of independent [[interpretations ]] and not restrictive in meaning. A text can be reversible by avoiding the restrictive devices that ''[[Sarrasine]]'' suffered from such as strict timelines and exact definitions of events. He describes this as the [[difference ]] between the writerly text, in which the reader is [[active ]] in a creative process, and a readerly text in which they are restricted to just reading. The project helped Barthes identify what it was he sought in literature: an [[openness ]] for [[interpretation]].

In the late [[1970s]] Barthes was increasingly concerned with the conflict of two types of language: that of popular culture, which he saw as limiting and pigeonholing in its titles and descriptions, and neutral, which he saw as open and noncommittal. He called these two conflicting modes the [[Doxa]] and the [[paradox|Para-doxa]]. While Barthes had shared sympathies with [[Marxist]] thought in the past (or at least parallel criticisms), he felt that, despite its anti-[[ideological ]] stance, [[Marxist]] theory was just as [[guilty ]] of using violent language with assertive meanings, as was [[bourgeois]] literature. In this way they were both Doxa and both culturally assimilating. As a reaction to this he wrote ''[[The Pleasure of the Text]]'' ([[1975]]), a study that focused on a [[subject ]] matter he felt was equally outside of the realm of both [[conservative ]] society and militant leftist thinking: [[hedonism]]. By writing about a subject that was rejected by both [[social ]] extremes of thought, Barthes felt he could avoid the dangers of the limiting language of the Doxa. The theory he developed out of this focus claimed that while reading for [[pleasure ]] is a kind of social act, through which the reader exposes themselves to the [[ideas ]] of the writer, the final [[catharsis|cathartic]] climax of this pleasurable reading, which he termed the bliss in reading, is a point in which one becomes lost within the text. This loss of [[self ]] within the text or immersion within the text, signifies a final impact of reading that is experienced outside of the social realm and free from the influence of culturally associative language and is thus neutral.

Despite this newest theory of reading, Barthes remained concerned with the difficulty of achieving truly neutral writing, which required an avoidance of any labels that might carry an implied meaning or [[identity ]] towards a given [[object]]. Even carefully crafted neutral writing could be taken in an assertive context through the incidental use of a word with a loaded social context. Barthes felt his past works, like ''[[Mythologies]]'', had suffered from this. He became interested in finding the best method for creating neutral writing, and he decided to try to create a novelistic form of [[rhetoric ]] that would not seek to impose its meaning on the reader. One product of this endeavour was ''[[A Lover's Discourse: Fragments]]'' in 1977, in which he presents the fictionalized reflections of a lover seeking to identify and be identified by an anonymous amorous other. The unrequited lover’s search for signs by which to show and receive [[love ]] makes evident [[illusory ]] myths involved in such a pursuit. The lover’s attempts to assert himself into a [[false]], ideal reality is involved in a delusion that exposes the contradictory [[logic ]] inherent in such a search. Yet at the same time the novelistic character is a sympathetic one, and is thus not just open to criticism but also understanding from the reader. The end result is one that challenges the reader’s views of social constructs of love, without trying to assert any definitive theory of meaning.

Throughout his career, Barthes had an interest in photography and its potential to [[communicate ]] actual events. Many of his monthly [[myth ]] articles in the 50s had attempted to show how a photographic [[image ]] could [[represent ]] implied meanings and thus be used by [[bourgeois]] culture to infer ‘naturalistic truths’. But he still considered the [[photograph ]] to have a unique potential for presenting a completely [[real ]] [[representation ]] of the world. When his mother, Henriette Barthes, died in 1977 he began writing ''[[Camera Lucida]]'' as an attempt to explain the unique significance a picture of her as a [[child ]] carried for him. Reflecting on the [[relationship ]] between the obvious [[symbolic ]] meaning of a photograph (which he called the studium) and that which is purely personal and dependant on the individual, that which ‘pierces the viewer’ (which he called the punctum), Barthes was troubled by the fact that such distinctions collapse when personal significance is communicated to others and can have its symbolic logic rationalized. Barthes found the solution to this fine line of personal meaning in the form of his mother’s picture. Barthes explained that a picture is not so much a solid representation of ‘what is’ as ‘what was’ and therefore ‘what has ceased to be’. It does not make reality solid but serves as a reminder of the world’s inconstant and ever changing state. Because of this there is something uniquely personal contained in the photograph of Barthes’ mother that cannot be removed from his subjective: the recurrent [[feeling ]] of loss experienced whenever he looks at it. As one of his final works before his [[death]], ''[[Camera Lucida]]'' was both an ongoing [[reflection ]] on the complicated relations between [[subjectivity]], meaning and cultural society as well as a [[touching ]] dedication to his mother and description of the depth of his grief.

A posthumous book came out in 1987 in [[English]], ''Incidents'', which contained fragments from his journals: his Soires de Paris (a 1979 extract from his [[erotic ]] diary of life in Paris); an earlier diary he kept (his erotic encounters with boys in Morocco); and Light of the Sud Ouest (his [[childhood ]] [[memories ]] of rural French life).

Roland Barthes influence can mainly be found in the multiple fields his work brought him into contact with. The [[development ]] of [[schools ]] of theory such as [[structuralism]], [[semiology]], [[existentialism]], [[Marxism]] and [[post-structuralism]] were all effected by his incisive contributions and criticisms. Today, the influence of his works can still be felt in all fields that concern themselves with the representation of information and models of communication, including computers, photography, [[music ]] and literature. However, one consequence of the [[nature ]] of Barthes’ various works is that he does not have dedicated following of thinkers who attempt to [[model ]] themselves after what he wrote about. The fact that Barthes’ work was ever adapting and always refuting notions of [[stability ]] and constancy means there is no canon of thought within his theory to be modelled after. Of course, while this means his [[name ]] and ideas may lack the visibility of a [[Marx]], [[Einstein]] or [[Freud]], it is probably what Barthes would consider proper. After all, he was always opposed to the notion of adopting inferred [[ideologies]], regardless of their source. In this sense, by giving rise to the notion of individualist thought and adaptability rather than conformity, any thinker or theorist who takes an oppositional stance to inferred meanings within culture can be thought to be following Barthes’ footsteps. Indeed such an individual would have much to gain from the views of Barthes, whose many works remain valuable sources of insight and tools for the analysis of meaning in any given manmade representation.

Readerly Text: Both the "readerly" and "writerly" are ways of reading which Barthes implicitly interrogates throughout his [[texts]]; "S/Z", however, is perhaps the best and most [[explicit ]] text in [[terms ]] of watching how these definitions are fleshed out ("From Work to Text," an essay from "Image--Music--Text" (1977) also serves as a great analogous parallel look at the active and [[passive]], [[postmodern ]] and modern, ways of interacting with a text). As has already been implied, it is important to note that the "readerly" and "writerly" are more like positive or [[negative ]] habits by which the modern reader brings with him or her to texts themselves. Regardless, there remains a spectrum of literature Barthes terms "Replete Literature," which are "any classic (readerly) texts that" work "like a cupboard where meanings are shelved, stacked, [and] safeguarded" (S/Z p.200). A readerly text, in other words, is one wherein the reader [[need ]] not "write" or "produce" his or her own meanings but one where one can find, by passive means, meaning "ready-made". In another variation upon the "readerly," Barthes writes that these sorts of text are "controlled by the [[principle ]] of non-[[contradiction]]" (156), that is, they do not disturb the "common sense," or "Doxa," of the surrounding culture. The "readerly texts," moreover, "are products [that] make up the enormous mass of our literature" (5).

Writerly Text: Unlike the required [[passivity ]] before the readerly text, i.e. one which is "replete" with meanings already easily discernable, the [[goal ]] of any "writerly text" for Barthes is the proper goal of literature and criticism: "...the goal is to make the reader no longer a consumer but a producer of the text" (4). "Writerly texts" and ways of reading are, in short, an active rather than passive way of interacting with a culture and its texts that Barthes implies should never be accepted in its given forms and traditions. As opposed to the "readerly texts" as "product," the "Writerly text is ourselves writing, before the infinite play of the world is traversed, intersected, stopped, plasticized by some [[singular ]] system ([[Ideology]], Genus, Criticism) which reduces the plurality of entrances, the opening of networks, the infinity of [[languages]]" (5). In the end, for Barthes reading "is not a parastical act, the reactive complement of a writing," but rather a "form of work" (10).

Barthes, Roland. S/Z: An Essay. Trans. Richard [[Miller]]. New York: Hill and Wang, 1974.

*''[[A Lover's Discourse]]''. A beautiful and original work that stands somewhere between [[poetry ]] and criticism. It is considered a novel by some.

* Louis-Jean Calvet, trans Sarah Wykes (1994), Roland Barthes: A Biography, Indiana [[University ]] Press, Bloomington, ISBN 0253349877 (This is a fine popular biography)

* Graham, Allen. Roland Barthes. [[London]]: Routledge, 2003

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