INTRODUCING
Barthes Philip Thody • Piero Edited by Richard Appignanesi
Icon Books UK
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ISBN-10: 1-84046-716-9 ISBN-13: 978-1840467-16-1
Previously published in the UK and Australia in 1999
Text copyright © 1999 Philip Thody Illustrations copyright © 2005 Piero The author and artist have asserted their moral rights. Originating editor: Richard Appignanesi No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Printed and bound in Singapore by Tien Wah Press
"I Have a Question to Ask
"
In 1975, when he was 62, Roland Barthes asked .. ,
Since he was himself a Protestant, a homosexual and had never taken a doctorate, his question was obviously an ironic and personal comment on himself. More importantly, however, it underlined two of the main concerns running through the whole of his work: the need to distinguish between nature and culture; and the care we need to take in the correct use of words.
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Mythologies For Barthes, one of the greatest mistakes modern society makes is to think that its institutions and intellectual habits are good because they are in keeping with what is popularly called "the nature of things". The second mistake is to see language as a natural phenomenon rather than a set of conventional signs. What Barthes wanted to do, as he said when discussing his aims in his best-known book, Mythologies (1957), was to "destroy the idea that signs are natural" (battre en brecne la netursltt« du signe) . FOR iH~Re IGJ AG i~ OEJVIOtJG IRONY OF ~ARl~' alJ~ION ReMIN17G lJGJ NOlHINe NAi~ ~OlJl ON~'G ReL-leIONJ ON~'G MARliAL. GlAilJG OR ON~'G ~Al7ml~~HI~m~NlG.
There is nothing natural about being a married Catholic with a lot of university degrees, and probably a lot of children as well. It is merely a statistical accident, a way of conforming which we owe to our birth and upbringing.
. _.. , .....
ANt:" WOlJW NOT HAVIS ~ISISN APFOIN"fW IN "fHlSFIRG"f PI-AC.e IF HIS HAt7 ~N A ~OMAN CA"fHOI-ICf
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"It's Natural" It is also a mistake, and a very frequent one, to use the word "natural" when we mean either socially acceptable, morally desirable or aesthetically pleasing - or, quite frequently, all three. The French radio station EUROPE 1 did this when it issued motorists with a sticker to put into the back of their car with an advertising slogan on it which read EUROPE 1, c'esi naturel.
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It is no more natural to listen to one radio station rather than another, just as it is no more natural to eat potatoes rather than spaghetti, to speak German rather than Hindi, or to prefer the theatre to the cinema . It may well make life easier for us, if we live in a society like that of middle-class France, if we get married in church and work hard to pass examinations. But there is nothing natural about it.
All-In Wrestling Most of the essays in Mythologies (1957) first appeared in newspaper form, many of them in the wartime Resistance publication Combat, whose first editor had been Albert Camus (1913-60). Although the essay "Le monde ou ron catche" (The world of all-in wrestling) was too long for a newspaper article, it does fit in with this aspect of Barthes' work by talking about a popular, non-intellectual activity.
Barthes' essay is the best introduction to what he also thought went on in the mind of the reader of fiction or the play-goer.
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IN COMMI"~IAL-L-Y ~eANI~ AL-L--IN W~1"L-INe,
_~",,,"""'l IN CON1"RAGI, 1"HI"GI1"UA1"ION IG 1"o-rAL-L-Y I:'IFFI"RI"N1". 11" IG No-r A eE:'NUINI" FleH1", ANI:' 11" IG I"AGY 1"O~WHY.
Whereas professional boxers fight, at the outside , once every three months, all-in wrestlers give several performances a week . They make no attempt to hide this fact, and it is quite easy to follow them round as they go from town to town to give their performance ... 9
Performance And the word "performance" is the only way to describe what they do. FOR IF -r~ we~ ~y !/OINe WHA-r-r~A~ ~ I N e -ro!/OI -r~ WOUW !/O GtJCHPAMAee -ro ONe ANOIHeR -rHA-r -r~ COUW NOI Pl?~I~l-Y!/O 11" NleHl AF-reR NleHl IN PIFFe~N-r
-rOWNG.
Moreover, Barthes argues, and this point is central to his argument, the audience itself knows it is all pretence. Nobody is fooled; just as nobody was but the naive Victorian lady who leapt to her feet and shouted:
... when Othello was being driven into torments of jealousy by lago.
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Introduction to Structural Linguistics In literature, to use the technical terms of the structural linguistics conceived by the Swiss Iinguistician Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), there is no signifie (= signified) to which the signs refer back, no guaranteeing centre of ultimate truth which makes the signs work in the way they do. IN"THIS p~, "fHlSVA/..lJlS Of "fHIS rotJN[7 ~1S~INe WAG elJAFC:AN"f1SW ~y "fHlS IN "fHIS (:JAN!< OF ISNel-ANC7, "fHA"f Of "fHlS rol-l-AI'I: IN "fHlSVAlJl-"fGOf fOl GO
W~ -WRNW ..JA~NIGM •••
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The Motive of Jansenism Why turn to Jansenism? Because, in Goldmann's view, Jansenist theology emphasized the powerlessness of the individual soul in its relationship to God. The relationship to the King of the holder of a legal office in France was remarkably similar.
Structurally, the two situations were the same, and the relationships in Racine's plays mirrored them both. For Goldmann, works of art existed in their own right. But they derived their significance as well as their structure from the way in which they enabled members of a social group to make sense of their experience.
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The influence of Le Dieu Cache on Barthes is obvious. Not only does Barthes follow Goldmann's definition of tragedy as the realization by the individual that true values cannot be achieved in this world. He also accepts the same presupposition as Goldmann that the author is never fully conscious of what he is doing. RACINEO MAY, WI'IH HIG CONGCIOtJG MIN!?, HAVEO '1HO Of "fH"" Re~R. L.1"f""RA"fURe IG "fHl:"PROOf AN[;> "fHl:" ~R"fION Of HUMAN F~M.
Barthes Visits Japan In his Structuralist Poetics (1982), one of Barthes' most influential English-speaking admirers, Jonathan Culler, quotes a remark from Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900): "I fear that we are not getting rid of God, because we still believe in grammar." Barthes adopts exactly this attitude towards language in L'Empire des Signes (1970), his ~ study of Japan, which he visited in the 1960s. .' ..•..: ••.. .
IN MY VIE"W, .JAPANHM AN IMMeNGe ~~IORI1Y ovee WeG1'eR.N 1i
