{"product_id":"barthes-a-biography-hardback-9781509505654","title":"Barthes; A Biography (Hardback) 9781509505654","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eBarthes\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eA Biography\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eTiphaine Samoyault (Author), Jonathan Culler (Foreword by), Andrew Brown (Translated by)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781509505654, Polity Press\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 18 November 2016\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e584 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.6 x 15.8 x 5.1 cm, 1.043 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"Barthes, like no other modern writer, invented a critical form that was “live” in every sense, where the labor of writing criticism acquired animate breath and pulse as it entered Barthes’ chronicle of aesthetic preparation for a Vita Nova, a new life, a novel, a reading of ideologies, images, voices, cultural myths and above all literary texts. Such a self-writing subject poses a daunting challenge to the biographer. But Tiphaine Samoyault has risen to it, with a magisterial life of Roland Barthes, enriched by new archival material and her own peerless talents as both writer and literary critic.\" - \u003cb\u003eEmily Apter, New York University\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \"Tiphaine Samoyault’s outstanding biography of Roland Barthes allows us to meet him in person, as it were, as a lively, seductive French intellectual. At the same time, Samoyault offers us a splendid introduction to Barthes’ ground-breaking writings in so many fields, from literary theory to meditations about the meaning of human existence.\" - \u003cb\u003eThomas Pavel, The University of Chicago\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e ‘While offering the most detailed and elegantly written interpretation to date of the life and works of its remarkable subject, this book is much more than a traditional intellectual biography. Typhaine Samoyault’s masterful, multilayered and, at times, lyrical narrative captures Roland Barthes the person and writer, essayist and scholar, and depicts him in his time and with his contemporaries, family and friends, colleagues and lovers, to be sure. Her phenomenal study tracks the doing and undoing of a great writer and thinker, a witness of what is still, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, very much our own time and cultural, indeed, political predicament. In so doing, she offers a valuable testimony of a person facing opportunities and challenges whose enduring lesson and bitter sweetness we have all learned to appreciate and savour.’ - \u003cb\u003eHent de Vries, The Humanities Center, Johns Hopkins University\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e‘superb’\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eRoland 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.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis 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 Ð and he is still a compelling author to read in part because his path-breaking explorations uncovered themes that continue to preoccupy us today.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBarthes’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 Ð 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eAcknowledgements viii \u003cp\u003eBibliographical note x\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eForeword by Jonathan Culler xi\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePrologue: The death of Roland Barthes 1\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIntroduction 13\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe voice 13\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘Life’ 15\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1 Setting off 24\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA father dead at sea 27\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe mother as replacement father 35\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e2 ‘Gochokissime’ 48\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFrom the seaside. . . 48\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e. . . to the heart of Paris 55\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e3 His whole life ahead of him 64\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe years of apprenticeship 64\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eElective affinities 75\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e4 Barthes and Gide 83\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe beginning and the end 84\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eMusic on the large scale and the small 87\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHomosexuality 90\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eJournal 92\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e5 His whole life behind him 99\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFrom Antiquity to Greece 99\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFrom the Mediterranean to the Atlantic 106\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFrom the Atlantic to behind the lines 110\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e6 New vistas 121\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe body and its illness 121\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘At the sanatorium, I was happy’ 126\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe first texts 133\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e7 Sorties 143\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFar from the sanatorium 143\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e‘Nadeau, to whom I owe that capital thing, a debut . . .’ 147\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFar from Paris (1). Bucharest 150\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFar from Paris (2). Alexandria 159\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eModes of writing: the Ministry and ‘Degree Zero’ 164\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e8 Barthes and Sartre 177\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe argument about responsibilities 178\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eChildhood and history 184\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAn invitation to the imaginary 188\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e9 Scenes 193\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLiquidations 194\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTheatre 205\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe year 1955 216\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTheatricality 221\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e10 Structures 231\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe sign 232\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe École 237\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eStructure 248\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe house 257\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e11 Literature 268\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEncounters 269\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLiterary criticism 274\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBarthes explains himself 283\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe year 1966 291\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThinking the image 300\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e12 Events 306\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAbsences 307\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe book on May: ‘Sade, Fourier, Loyola’ 317\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eChanges 320\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCut-ups 331\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e13 Barthes and Sollers 343\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFriendship 346\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEveryone’s off to China 354\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e14 The body 367\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe eye and the hand 371\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTaste 379\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHearing and vision 384\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLoving loving 391\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e15 Legitimacy 401\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe professor 401\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Collège de France 409\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eRoland Barthes by Roland Barthes 413\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe colloque de Cerisy 425\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e16 Barthes and Foucault 430\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eParallel lives 431\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAn accompaniment 435\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTwo styles 437\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e17 Heartbreak 445\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e1977 445\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLove 447\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDeath 458\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Mourning Diary 460\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e18 ‘Vita Nova’ 470\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e15 April 1978 470\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNew life? 479\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eClarity 484\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe end 489\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNotes 499\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eImage credits 565\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIndex 567\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eSubject Areas: Language: reference \u0026amp; general [\u003ca title=\"See our other books on Language: reference \u0026amp; general\" href=\"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/search?q=%22Language:%20reference%20\u0026amp;%20general%20%5BCB%5D%22\"\u003eCB\u003c\/a\u003e]\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Polity","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52462924759320,"sku":"9781509505654","price":14.89,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0730\/2037\/5320\/files\/9781509505654.jpg?v=1785542482","url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/barthes-a-biography-hardback-9781509505654","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}