Author: Roland Barthes
Profile: Roland Gérard Barthes (full name) or Roland Barthes was a French essayist, literary critic, theorist, philosopher and semiotician. With his ideas he was influential in developing a number of schools of theory, including design theory, structuralism, post-structuralism, semiotics, anthropology and social theory and explored fields in a diverse range. He was born in Cherbourg-Octeville, Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, France and died in Paris France. Claude Levi-Strauss and Ferdinand de Saussure had a strong influence in his life.
In 1930 he took a degree in classical letters at the University of Paris and in philology and grammar in 1943. He worked at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (1952-1959) and was appointed to the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. He was the first person to hold the chair of literary semiology at the College de France in 1976.
Writing style: Roland Barthes writings on the formal study of symbols (semiotics) and signs pioneered by Ferdinand de Saussure, were helpful in establishing the New Criticism and structuralism as prime intellectual movements.
Published Texts:
Works
1953 – Le degree zero de l’ecriture
1954 – Michelet par lui-meme
1957 – Mythologies
1963 – Sur Racine
1964 – Elements de semiologie
1970 – S/Z
1971 – Sade, Fourier, Loyola
1972 – Le Degre zero de l’ecriture suivi de Nouveaux essais critiques
1973 – Le plaisir du texte
1975 – Roland Barthes
1977 – Poetique du recit
1977 – A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments
1978 – Preface, La Parole Intermediaire
1980 – Recherche de Proust
1980 – La chamber Claire: note sur la photographie
1981 – Essais critiques
1982 – Litterature et realite
1988 – Michelet
1993 – OEuvres completes
2009 – Carnets du voyage en Chine, Christian Bourgeois: Paris
2009 – Journal de deuil
Translations to English
1967 – The Fashion System
1968 – Writing Degree Zero
1968 – Elements of Semiology
1972 – Mythologies
1975 – The Pleasure of the Text
1975 – S/Z: An Essay
1976 – Sade, Fourier
1977 – Image-Music-Text
1977 – Roland Barthes
1979 – The Eiffel Tower and other Mythologies
1981 – Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
1972 – Critical Essays
1982 – A Barthes Reader
1983 – Empire of Signs
1962-1980 (1985) – The Grain of the Voice: Interviews
1985 – The Responsibility of Forms: Critical Essays on Music, Art and Representation
1986 – The Rustle of Language
1987 – Criticism and Truth
1987 – Michelet
1987 – Writer Sollers
1988 – Roland Barthes
1990 – A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments
1990 – New Critical Essays
1992 – Incidents
1992 – On Racine
1994 – The Semiotic Challenge
1977-1978 (2005) – The Neutral: Lecture Course at the College de France
2006 – The Language of Fashion
2007 – What Is Sport?
2010 – Mourning Diary
1978-1979 and 1979-1980 (2011)
1976-1977 (2013) How to Live Together: Notes for a Lecture Course and Seminar at the College de France
Awards and Acknowledgements:
‘Writing Degree Zero’ was ranked at the no.63 position on Le Monde’s list of ‘100 Books of the Century’
S/Z published in 1970 is considered a masterpiece that helped in the development of structuralism and post-structuralism ideologies and is believed to had a major impact on literary criticism.
