Barthes
Subtitle: a biography
By: Tiphaine Samoyault ; translated by Andrew Brown
Contributors: Brown, Andrew, 1946- translator
Edition: English edition.
Publisher: Wiley-Interscience; Polity
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 586
ISBN-13: 9781509505654
Subjects: Critics; Linguists; Biography
Work titles: Roland Barthes Biographie
Description: Roland Barthes (1915-80) was a central contributor to the thought of his time, but he was also something of an outsider. His father died in the First World War, he enjoyed his mother's unfailing love, he spent long years in the sanatorium, and he was aware of his homosexuality from an early age: all this quickly gave him a sense of his own difference. He experienced the great events of contemporary history from a distance. Nevertheless, Barthes's life was caught up in the violent intense sweep of the twentieth century, a century that he helped to make intelligible. This major new biography, based on unpublished material never before explored (archives, journals and notebooks), sheds new light on Barthes's intellectual positions, his political commitments and his ideas, beliefs and desires. It details the many themes he discussed, the authors he defended, the myths he analysed, the polemics that made him famous and his acute ear for the languages of his day. It also underscores his remarkable ability to see which way the wind was blowing. He is still a compelling author to read, as his path-breaking explorations uncovered themes that continue to preoccupy us today. Barthes's life story gives substance and cohesion to his career, which was guided by desire, intelligence and an extreme sensitivity to the material from which the world is shaped--as well as a powerful refusal to accept any authoritarian discourse. His creative and imaginative use of ideas turned thinking into both an art and an adventure. This remarkable biography enables the reader to enter into Barthes's life and grasp the shape of his existence, and thus understand the kind of writer he became and how he turned literature into life itself. -- Publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 499-564) and index.

Translated from the French.
Table of contents: title: Setting off; title: 'Gochokissime'; title: His whole life ahead of him; title: Barthes and Gide; title: His whole life behind him; title: New vistas; title: Sorties; title: Barthes and Sartre; title: Scenes; title: Structures; title: Literature; title: Events; title: Barthes and Sollers; title: The body; title: Legitimacy; title: Barthes and Foucault; title: Heartbreak; title: 'Vita Nova'.