Early life
Roland Barthes was born on 12 November 1915 in the town of Cherbourg in Normandy. His father, naval officer Louis Barthes, was killed … See more

Early thought
Barthes's earliest ideas reacted to the trend of existentialist philosophy that was prominent in France during the 1940s, specifically to … See more

Roland Barthes's criticism contributed to the development of theoretical schools such as structuralism, semiotics, and post-structuralism. While his influence is mainly found in these theoretical fields with which his work brought him into contact, it is also felt in every field … See more

Readerly and writerly are terms Barthes employs both to delineate one type of literature from another and to implicitly interrogate ways of reading, like positive or negative habits the … See more

In 1964, Barthes wrote "The Last Happy Writer" ("Le dernier des écrivains heureux" in Essais critiques), the title of which refers to Voltaire. In the essay he commented on the problems of the … See more

Barthes's A Lover's Discourse: Fragments was the inspiration for the name of 1980s new wave duo The Lover Speaks.
Jeffrey Eugenides See more

Works
• (1953) Le degré zéro de l'écriture
• (1954) Michelet par lui-même
• (1957) Mythologies, … See more