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Barthes : a biography / Tiphaine Samoyault ; translated by Andrew Brown.
Author
Samoyault, Tiphaine
[Browse]
Uniform title
Roland Barthes Biographie.
English
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Format
Book
Language
English
Εdition
English edition.
Published/Created
Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA, USA : Polity Press, [2017]
©2017
Description
xiv, 586 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Availability
Copies in the Library
Location
Call Number
Status
Location Service
Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks
P85.B33 S3613 2017
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Details
Subject(s)
Linguists
—
France
—
Biography
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Critics
—
France
—
Biography
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Barthes, Roland
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Translator
Brown, Andrew (Literary translator)
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Library of Congress genre(s)
Biographies
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Getty AAT genre
collective biographies
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Summary note
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 This major new biography, based on unpublished material never before explored (archives, journals and notebooks), sheds new light on Barthes's intellectual positions, his political commitments and his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
First published in French as Roland Barthes. Biographie, © Éditions du Seuil, 2015.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references (pages 499-564) and index.
Language note
Translated from the French.
Contents
Setting off
'Gochokissime'
His whole life ahead of him
Barthes and Gide
His whole life behind him
New vistas
Sorties
Barthes and Sartre
Scenes
Structures
Literature
Events
Barthes and Sollers
The body
Legitimacy
Barthes and Foucault
Heartbreak
'Vita Nova'.
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ISBN
9781509505654 ((hardcover ; : alk. paper))
1509505652 ((hardcover ; : alk. paper))
LCCN
2016018321
OCLC
951563188
Other standard number
40026817344
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
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