A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

ROLAND BARTHES

A Lover's Discourse FRAGMENTS

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tditiOM 011 SeW! 1977 Tbia traDlktioD 6nc publ;.lro:od in u. USA by Farrar,



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StraUtand Oirolll, Inc. 1978 fiN publilhed in Oral BritLin by I_o..n Cape LId 1979 Publilhed in Peaa;uill Boob 1990 51 91016 Copyrillll C &li\lolll 011 ScWI. 1917

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&oBpt in the U IIi!ed State. ol Amaic&, LlIiI book iI aoId 1IIt.;ect 10 the ODDditlolll throl it Il0l, by _ , of track or be len!. bIred out. or cimabud without th& pubtilDcr'l prior_I • .., form oIbindi.. or _ _ .... that in wbdI It II pubtilhed ..t witlloul.limilar ODDditioa iDdlidina this OOIIditioa beiac impollld OQ !be 1Ut.q1lCll1 poura..r

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compuaion " ".,"1>111", , to undenllnd 59 I ....vior 62 rs hm I COlUIivancc 6' _ I CODlKt. 67

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• _V'NC'.I I CODtinaencies 69 71 . . . . lJiM I declaration 73 1'#1 ... I dedication " . . . . , I demona 80 MJIIItiMttu , dependency 12 M,.". 'expeactilUre 14 I disruUty .7 . . . . , body

dnma ., kOfdll I ftayect 9' Icrlrr I to 97 I urlUllty 101 4rrt!i,"t! I embrace 10--Originally the action of running here and

there, comings and goings, measures taken, "plots and plans": the lovcr, in fact, cannot keep his mind from racing, taking new measures and plotting against himself. His discourse exists only in outbursts of language, which \ OCCur at the whim of trivial, of aleatory circumstances. These fragments of discourse can be called figures. The word is to be understood, not in its rhetorical sense, but rather in its gymnastic or choreographic acceptation; in

4 short, in the Greek meaning: OX;JUZ is not the "schema," but, in a much livelier way, the body's gesture caught in action and not contemplated in repose: the body of athletcs, orators, statues: what in the straining body can be immobilized. So it is with the lover at grips with his figures : he struggles in a kind of lunatic sport, he spends himself, like an athlete; he "phrase5," like an orator; be is caught, sluffed into 11 role, like a statue. The figure is the lover at work. Figures take shape insofar as we can recognize, in pass- . ing discourse, something that bas been read, heard, felt. The figure is outlined (like a sign) and memorable (like an image or a tale) , A figure is established if at least someone can say: "Thol" so true! J recognize that seeM of language." For certain operations of their art, linguists ,make use of a vague entity which they call linguistic fecl!!!B; in order to constitute figures, we require neither more nor less than this guide: amorous feeling. Ultimately it is unimportant wbetber the text's dispersion is ricb hero and poor there; there are nodes, blanks, many figures break off sbort: some, being hypostases of the whole of the lover's discourse, have just the raritythe poverty--of essences: What is to be said of Languor, of the [mage, of the Love Letter, since it is the whole of the lover's discourse which is woven of languorous desire, of the image-repertoire, of declarations? But be who utters this discourse and shapes its episodes does not know that a book is to be made of them; he does not yet know that as a good cultural subject he should neither repeat nor contradict himself, Dor take the whole for the part; all be knows is that what passes through his mind at a certain moment is marked, like the printout of a code (in otber times, this would have been tbe code of courtly love, or the Carte du Tendre) ,

S Each of us can fill in this code according to his own history: rich or poor, the figure must be there, the site (the compartment) must be reserved for it. It is u if there were an amorous Topic, whose figure wu a site (topos) . Now the property of a Topic is to be somewhat empty: a Topic is statutorily half coded, hatt projective (or projective because coded) . What we have been able to say below about waiting, anxiety, memory is no more than a modest supplement offered to the reader to be made free with, to be added to, subtracted from, and passed on to others : around the figure. the players pass the handkerchief which sometimes. by a final parenthesis, is held a second longer before handing it on. (Ideally. the book would be a c0operative: "To the United Readen and Lovers.") What reads as the heading of each figure is not its definition but its argument. Argumelltum: "exposition, account, summary, plot outline. invented narrative": I should add: instrument of distancing, signboard 1 la Bre