Research Catalog

Title

Writing degree zero / Roland Barthes ; translated from the French by Annette Lavers and Colin Smith.

Author

Barthes, Roland

Publication

New York : Hill and Wang, 2012.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Lavers, Annette.
• Smith, Colin.

Description

xxii, 88 p.; 21 cm.

Summary

"Is there any such thing as revolutionary literature? Can literature, in fact, be political at all? These are the questions Roland Barthes addresses in Writing Degree Zero, his first published book and a landmark in his oeuvre. The debate had engaged the European literary community since the 1930s; with this fierce manifesto, Barthes challenged the notion of literature's obligation to be socially committed. Yes, Barthes allows, the writer has a political and ethical responsibility. But the history of French literature shows that the writer has often failed to meet it--and from Barthes's perspective, literature is committed to little more than the myth of itself. Expert and uncompromising, Writing Degree Zero introduced the themes that would soon establish Barthes as one of the leading voices in literary criticism."--P. [4] of cover.

Uniform Title

Degré zéro de l'écriture. English

Alternative Title

Degré zéro de l'écriture.

Subject

• Literary style
• French literature > History and criticism

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Note

• Originally published in French in 1953 by Éditions du Seuil, France, as Le degré zéro de l'écriture.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages xxi-xxii).

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

What is writing? -- Political modes of writing -- Writing and the novel -- Is there any poetic writing? -- The triumph and break-up of bourgeois writing -- Style as craftmanship -- Writing and revolution -- Writing and silence -- Writing and speech -- The Utopia of language.

ISBN

• 9780374532352 (pbk.)
• 0374532354 (pbk.)

LCCN

^^2011940622

OCLC

• 780302569
• SCSB-10600196

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library