Mythologies - Softcover

Roland Barthes

 
9780586081648: Mythologies

Synopsis

As the launcher of the whole science of "semiotics" - the study of the meanings latent in the signs and objects we come across daily in the modern media-saturated world - this book attempts to demystify the roles and values inherent in such diverse commonplace items as wrestling, Citroen DS, steak and chips, Greta Garbo's face and household detergents via a series of essays. The essays themselves became cultural icons, and the book became a cult object. It is now studied on many courses in higher education as an emblematic text of post-war French culture, and as the precursor of the late-20th-century preoccupation with the language of signs and gestures in mass culture.

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Review

"Barthes is an intellectual star, one of the very small group of maîtres à penser, such as Sartre, Levi-Strauss and Foucault... I readily proclaim that Mythologies is a kind of masterpiece, a fascinating book, the meaning of which sticks in the mind and can lend itself to all sorts of applications" (Observer)

"Essays on the codings that command our daily life (from hair-styles in the film of Julius Caesar through glossy photos of gourmet cooking, to the cult of foam in detergents)...Mythologies has penetrating gusto" (Christopher Ricks Sunday Times)

"Semiology is the study of the signs and signals, the symbols, gestures and messages through which western society sustains, sells, identifies and yet obscures itself by painting or powdering over its raddled, whore-like visage... Barthes' purpose is to tear away masks and demystify the signs, signals and symbols of the language of mass culture" (Dennis Potter The Times)

"All about the most ordinary things. He knew how to connect Racine and beach holidays, Freud and the anticipation of a lover's phone call. Like so many modern artists, he saw the deeper themes running through supposedly banal things." (Alain de Botton Daily Express)

Book Description

Beautiful reissue of this unique classic collection, featuring a newly translated essay not included in previous collections

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