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Informationen zum Autor Tiphaine Samoyault is Professor of Comparative Literature at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3. Klappentext Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was a central figure in 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 soon gave him a sense of his own difference. He experienced the great events of contemporary history from a distance. However, his 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of the twentieth century, a century that he helped to make intelligible.This major new biography of Barthes, based on unpublished material never before explored (archives, journals and notebooks), sheds new light on his intellectual positions, his political commitments and his ideas,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 castigated, 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 ? and he is still a compelling author to read in part because 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, perspicacity and an extreme sensitivity to the material from which the world is shaped ? as well as a powerful refusal to accept any authoritarian discourse. By allowing thought to be based on imagination, he 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. Zusammenfassung Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was a central figure in the thought of his time, but he was also something of an outsider. Inhaltsverzeichnis Acknowledgements viii Bibliographical note x Foreword by Jonathan Culler xi Prologue: The death of Roland Barthes 1 Introduction 13 The voice 13 'Life' 15 1 Setting off 24 A father dead at sea 27 The mother as replacement father 35 2 'Gochokissime' 48 From the seaside. . . 48 . . . to the heart of Paris 55 3 His whole life ahead of him 64 The years of apprenticeship 64 Elective affinities 75 4 Barthes and Gide 83 The beginning and the end 84 Music on the large scale and the small 87 Homosexuality 90 Journal 92 5 His whole life behind him 99 From Antiquity to Greece 99 From the Mediterranean to the Atlantic 106 From the Atlantic to behind the lines 110 6 New vistas 121 The body and its illness 121 'At the sanatorium, I was happy' 126 The first texts 133 7 Sorties 143 Far from the sanatorium 143 'Nadeau, to whom I owe that capital thing, a debut . . .' 147 Far from Paris (1). Bucharest 150 Far from Paris (2). Alexandria 159 Modes of writing: the Ministry and 'Degree Zero' 164 8 Barthes and Sartre 177 The argument about responsibilities 178 Childhood and history 184 An invitation to the imaginary 188 9 Scenes 193 Liquidations 194 Theatre 205 The year 1955 216 Theatricality 221 10 Structures 231 The sign 232 The École 237 Structure 248 The house 257 11 Literature 268 Encounters 269 Literary criticism 274 Barthes explains himself 283 The year 1966 291 Thinking the image 300 12 Events 306 Absences 307 The book on May: 'Sade, Fourier, Loyola' 317 Changes 320 Cut-ups 331 1...
