Roland Barthes
Born: 11-11-1915
Roland Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, and semiotician, renowned for his influential works on the nature of signs and symbols in culture. Born in 1915, he explored the interplay of language and society, contributing significantly to structuralism and post-structuralism. His notable works include "Mythologies" and "Camera Lucida," where he dissected cultural myths and the essence of photography, leaving a lasting impact on literary criticism and cultural studies.
Book summaries for books written by Roland Barthes
Quotes
Writing is the search for the absolute, the search for a foundation, the search for a being.
Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.
Writing is the enemy of speech, yet speech is also its substance.
Literature is that which unites the written and the oral, the fixed and the fluid.
Writing is the space where one is tempted to die, the adventure which consists in pushing the limits of language towards the outside, in order to keep life within.
The writer is not an author, but a producer of signs.
Writing is a struggle against silence.
The writer is someone who plays with language, who toys with it, who uses it as a means of pleasure.
Writing is a challenge to the established order, a rebellion against conformity.
The language I speak is not my own, it is a borrowed language, a language that belongs to others.
Writing is a form of seduction, a way of enchanting the reader with the power of words.
Language is a mask that we wear to hide our true selves.