Elements of Semiology (Cape Editions) - Softcover

Barthes, Roland

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0224612697 ISBN 13: 9780224612692

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 1967

Synopsis

112p paperback with light blue jacket, first edition, excellent fresh copy, as new

About this title

Review

"Roland Barthes, the West's master critic, has given us fertile rereadings of such classic French authors as Racine and Balzac, brought to attention lesser-known writers like Fourier and Loyola, studied the mythologies and sign systems of modern life and fashion, explored cinema and music, examined culture-as-system in Japan, tried to delineate the erotics of reading and writing, and touched provocatively on numerous other topics. What he shares with the best of his colleagues is the assumption that criticism is an attitude, not an act. He brings his readers questions and speculations that are always engaging and expansive. It is just this temperament that makes him the latest heir of the tradition of French "moralistes"--Montaigne, Diderot, Voltaire, and, in his own day, Gide and Sartre--who used their cultural conscience and experimental brilliance to synthesize intellectual, ethical, and literary concerns."--Jacob Stockinger, "San Francisco Review of Books"
Roland Barthes, the West's master critic, has given us fertile rereadings of such classic French authors as Racine and Balzac, brought to attention lesser-known writers like Fourier and Loyola, studied the mythologies and sign systems of modern life and fashion, explored cinema and music, examined culture-as-system in Japan, tried to delineate the erotics of reading and writing, and touched provocatively on numerous other topics. What he shares with the best of his colleagues is the assumption that criticism is an attitude, not an act. He brings his readers questions and speculations that are always engaging and expansive. It is just this temperament that makes him the latest heir of the tradition of French moralistes--Montaigne, Diderot, Voltaire, and, in his own day, Gide and Sartre--who used their cultural conscience and experimental brilliance to synthesize intellectual, ethical, and literary concerns. Jacob Stockinger, San Francisco Review of Books"

"Roland Barthes, the West's master critic, has given us fertile rereadings of such classic French authors as Racine and Balzac, brought to attention lesser-known writers like Fourier and Loyola, studied the mythologies and sign systems of modern life and fashion, explored cinema and music, examined culture-as-system in Japan, tried to delineate the erotics of reading and writing, and touched provocatively on numerous other topics. What he shares with the best of his colleagues is the assumption that criticism is an attitude, not an act. He brings his readers questions and speculations that are always engaging and expansive. It is just this temperament that makes him the latest heir of the tradition of French moralistes--Montaigne, Diderot, Voltaire, and, in his own day, Gide and Sartre--who used their cultural conscience and experimental brilliance to synthesize intellectual, ethical, and literary concerns." --Jacob Stockinger, San Francisco Review of Books

About the Author

Roland Barthes was born in 1915 and studied French literature and the classics at the University of Paris. After teaching French at universities in Romania and Egypt, he joined the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, where he devoted himself to research in sociology and lexicology. He was a professor at the College de France until his death in 1980.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication date: 1967
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0224612697
• ISBN 13: 9780224612692
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 112