CRITICISM

Brown, Andrew. Roland Barthes: The Figures of Writing. Oxford, United Kingdom: Clarendon Press, 1992, 303 p.

Discusses the structure of Barthes's discourse, treating him as both a writer and a theorist.

Calvino, Italo. “In Memory of Roland Barthes.” In The Uses of Literature, translated by Patrick Creagh, pp. 300-06. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986.

Eulogizes Barthes on the occasion of his recent death, suggesting that his legacy is a scientific critical approach that emphasizes the uniqueness of every object studied.

Goldberg, Jonathan. “On the One Hand. …” In The Ends of Rhetoric: History, Theory, Practice, edited by John Bender and David E. Wellbery, pp. 77-99. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990.

Explores Barthes's tendency toward logocentrism—assigning a supremacy to writing—that “betrays his bourgeois individualism.”

Gratton, Johnnie. Expressivism: The Vicissitudes of a Theory in the Writing of Proust and Barthes. University of Oxford: European Humanities Research Center, 2000, 150 p.

Discusses Barthes's variable concern for and disregard of expressivism in various stages of his work.

Henry, Patrick. “Contre Barthes.” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, no. 249 (1987): 19-36.

Disputes the image of Voltaire that Barthes presents in his criticism and argues that his primarily Marxist perspective may be to blame.

Klinkowitz, Jerome. Rosenberg, Barthes, Hassan. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988, 138 p.

In-depth analysis of Barthes's theoretical stance on language, writing, meaning, and their relationship to power in society and politics.

Leak, Andrew. Barthes: “Mythologies.” London: Grant & Cutler Ltd, 1994, 82 p.

Discussion of Barthes that stresses the construction of mythologies and meaning.

Lombardo, Patrizia. The Three Paradoxes of Roland Barthes. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989, 165 p.

Focuses on paradoxical ideas in Barthes's works and argues that it is a characteristic oscillation between modernism and reactionism.

Moriarty, Michael. “Myths.” In Roland Barthes, pp. 19-30. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press, 1991.

Examines Barthes's essays in Mythologies in terms of his theory that the messages of popular culture and advertising build up a political mythology that supports a bourgeois worldview.

Oboussier, Claire. “Barthes and Femininity: A Synaesthetic Writing.” Nottingham French Studies 33, no. 2 (fall 1994): 78-93.

Compares the writings of Barthes and French feminist writer Hélène Cixous, noting that both reach toward a kind of fragmented identity in their works.

Rylance, Rick. Roland Barthes. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994, 161 p.

Presents an overview of Barthes's theory and works, and also provides historical and cultural context for his career.

Shaw, Mary Lewis. “The Discourse of Fashion: Mallarmé, Barthes, and Literary Criticism.” Substance 21, no. 2 (68) (1992): 46-60.

Compares Barthes's Système de la Mode with Stéphane Mallarmé's Dernièrre Mode in terms of their treatment of women and their portrayal of the practice of criticism.

Shawcross, Nancy M. Roland Barthes on Photography: The Critical Tradition in Perspective. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997, 130 p.

Discusses Barthes's last work, Camera Lucida, noting that “through the perspective of Barthes's views on photography, the historical debate on the medium is refocused.”

Smyth, John Vignaux. “Roland Barthes.” In A Question of Eros: Irony in Sterne, Kierkegaard, and Barthes, pp. 263-302. Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1986.

Explores the particular kind of irony practiced by Barthes, discussing it in relation to the irony used by Kierkegaard, and pointing out that Barthes increasingly emphasized the fictiveness of this works.

Sontag, Susan. “Writing Itself: On Roland Barthes.” In Where the Stress Falls, pp. 63-88. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001.

Surveys Barthes's writings as a whole, praising the eloquence and depth of his style and noting a tendency to write in a progressively more personal manner.

Wiseman, Mary Bittner. The Ecstasies of Roland Barthes. London: Routledge, 1989, 204 p.

Group of essays that treat Barthes's ideas regarding literature, self-identity, and photography.

Additional coverage of Barthes's life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: Contemporary Authors, Vols. 97-100, 130; Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vol. 66; Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vols. 24, 83; European Writers, Vol. 13; Guide to French Literature, 1789 to the Present; Literature Resource Center; Major 20th-Century Writers, Eds. 1, 2; and Twayne's World Authors.