A Lover's Discourse Fragments

A Lover's Discourse, at its 1978 publication, was revolutionary: Roland Barthes made unprecedented use of the tools of structuralism to explore the whimsical phenomenon of love. Rich with references ranging from Goethe'sWertherto Winnicott, from Plato to Proust, from Baudelaire to Schubert,A Lover's Discourseartfully draws a portrait in which every reader will find echoes of themselves. Roland Bartheswas born in 1915 and studied French literature and the classics at the University of Paris. After teaching French at universities in Romania and Egypt, he joined the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, where he devoted himself to research in sociology and lexicology. He was a professor at the College de France until his death in 1980. "Barthes's most popular and unusual performance as a writer isA Lover's Discourse,a writing out of the discourse of love. This languageprimarily the complaints and reflections of the lover when alone, not exchanges of a lover with his or her partneris unfashionable. Thought it is spoken by millions of people, diffused in our popular romances and television programs as well as in serious literature, there is no institution that explores, maintains, modifies, judges, repeats, and otherwise assumes responsibility for this discourse . . . Writing out the figures of a neglected discourse, Barthes surprises us inA Lover's Discourseby making love, in its most absurd and sentimental forms, an object of interest."Jonathan Culler

ROLAND BARTHES was born in 1915. A French literary theorist, philosopher, and critic, he influenced the development of schools of theory, including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, and post-structuralism. He died in 1980.

“Barthes’s work, along with that of Wilde and Valéry, gives being an aesthete a good name . . . Defending the senses, he never betrayed the mind.” —SUSAN SONTAG

"Barthes's most popular and unusual performance as a writer is A Lover's Discourse, a writing out of the discourse of love. This language--primarily the complaints and reflections of the lover when alone, not exchanges of a lover with her or her partner--is unfashionable. Thought it is spoken by millions of people, diffused in our popular romances and television programs as well as in serious literature, there is no institution that explores, maintains, modifies, judges, repeats, and otherwise assumes responsibility for this discourse . . . Writing out the figures of a neglected discourse, Barthes surprises us in A Lover's Discourse by making love, in its most absurd and sentimental forms, an object of interest."--Jonathan Culler