Il grado zero della scrittura. Seguito da Nuovi saggi critici

by Roland Barthes

In questo libro Barthes intende affermare l'esistenza di una realtà della forma indipendente dalla lingua e dallo stile, cercare di mostrare come questa terza dimensione formale leghi lo scrittore alla sua società e di far risaltare che non vi è letteratura senza morale del linguaggio. Al fine di individuare questi aspetti, egli studia le trasformazioni del linguaggio letterario lungo un percorso che muove dalla scrittura trasparente dei classici, passa per quella sempre piú torbida del XIX secolo sino a giungere alla scrittura d'oggi, priva di qualsiasi segno. Ed è appunto questa scrittura neutra, quella bianca di Camus e di Blanchot o quella parlata di Queneau, a essere definita «grado zero della scrittura».
Completano il volume gli otto Nuovi saggi critici, raccolti da Roland Barthes in volume nel 1972.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, France, Literary Criticism, Essays, Writing

181 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Roland Barthes of France applied semiology, the study of signs and symbols, to literary and social criticism.

Ideas of Roland Gérard Barthes, a theorist, philosopher, and linguist, explored a diverse range of fields. He influenced the development of schools of theory, including design, anthropology, and poststructuralism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_...

Reviews

[Özgür Atmaca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yazım sanatının en doğuş halini anlatmış Barthes.
Kalemin kutsallığının en akademik anlatımı sanırım.
Dil gibi sonsuz bir mecrayı kontrol altına almak, kalemle, ses hücreleriyle düşünce ve yazımla dizginlemenin ne kadar zor ama ne kadar kutsal olduğunu da her sayfada bıkmadan anlatıyor.

Kitabın sanırım yeni basımlarında uzatılmış hali mevcut. Yeni halinde uzun uzun anlatılan dil ve yazım sanatının örnekleri büyük yazarların kitaplarından alıntılarla örneklendirilmiş. (Proust, Pierre Loti gibi..)

[Alberto Villarreal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nunca volveré a sentir lo que sentí cuando lo leí en El discurso amoroso...

[hayatem · Rating 5 out of 5]

يطرح رولان بارت في القسم الأول من هذا الكتاب العديد من الأسئلة حول الكتابة، والكلام، و اللغة( التفرقة بين اللغة والكـلام ) و ما تثيرانه من إشكاليات في ذهن المتلقي ( القارئ). وفي القسم الثاني يقدم قراءة نقدية لعدد من النصوص الأدبية، في محاولة لإعادة تركيب المغامرة السردية، وافتكاك نظام اللغة "ودراسة اللغة تفصل بين مفهومين لإدراكها : المفهــوم التزامنـــي  ( Synchrony ) الذي يصف العلاقات المنطقية والنفسية التي تربط بين العناصر ، والمفهوم التعاقبي ( Diachrony ) الذي يدرس العلاقات التي تربط بين العناصر بشكل متعاقب في صيغ تاريخية بحيث يحلَ كل عنصر محل العنصر الآخر من دون تأليف نظام معين."، واقتناص المعنى( وحسب علم النفس الكلاسيكي لا بد من وجود معنى لكل مغامرة تعيشها الذات، وهذا المعنى هو بشكل عام الطريقة نفسها التي تنتهي بها تلك المغامرة. ص186)
والنصوص المتناولة كانت لكل من :بلزاك، والزمن لمارسيل بروست، والجزيرة الغامضة ل جول فيرن، وفرومنتان ل دومنيك، و لارشفوكو، وآخرون.

رولان بارت يصنف أو ينتمي إلى التيار الفكري المسمى ب ( ما بعد الحداثة.) وهو من رواد الحركة البنيوية وساهم في تطورها وتطور كذلك عدد المدارس المختلفة ك الماركسية وما بعد البنيوية والوجودية، بالإضافة إلى تأثيره في تطور علم الدلالة. والجدير بالذكر أنه انصرف عن المدرسة البنيوية إلى ما بعد البنيوية أسوة بفلاسفة عصره.
و اهتم أو اشتغل في اللسانيات النصية/ السيميائية (الرؤية الألسنية للغة. ) وتحليل الخطاب. كما أنه ناقد أدبي؛ اهتم ب التحليل السوسيولوجي واللغوي -والدلالي/ يحلل، يفكّك، ويبني النص في قوالب، وأطر جديدة؛ استناداً على مرجعيات، أو سياقات مختلفة: نظرية/ اجتماعية/ تاريخية/ثقافية،….. وامتاز بقدرته على حل المشكلات اللغوية في النص، و بنظرة متميزة وخارجة عن السياق المتآلف عليه.

عند قراءة نص ما؛ هناك أسئلة تتولد في داخلنا، و تتخطانا، متجاوزةً العقل، أو على الأقل هي موازيةٌ له.
ويذكر: "ليس رهان التحليل البنيوي هو بلوغ حقيقة النص و إنما هو بلوغ تعدده. وبالتالي فلا يمكن للعمل إذاً أن يتمثل في الانطلاق من الأشكال لاستكناه المحتويات وتوضيحها وهيكلتها ( فهذا لن يحتاج البتة إلى منهجية بنيوية)، وإنما هو على العكس من ذلك ، يتمثل في تبديد المحتويات الأولى، والنكوص بها، ومضاعفتها، وإبعادها بفعل علم صوريّ. بهذا سيحصل محلل النص على مراده عبر سبيل هذه الحركة، لأنها تمنحه في الآن نفسه وسيلةً لبدء التحليل انطلاقا من بعض الشفرات المألوفة، وتمنحه كذلك حق ترك تلك الشفرات ( أي تحويلها) وهو يتقدم، لا في النص المحلَّلِ ( الذي هو دوما مزامِن وضخم ومجسَّم)، وإنما في النص الشخصيِّ للمُحلِّلِ."

كتاب رائع وجميل للمهتمين بهاجس الكتابة أو القراءة النقدية، ومسائل علم اللغة.

[Soeine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roland Barthes succinctly expresses his concern about the separation between the (writer’s) individual “style” and the “language” of society. According to him, these two “objects” of convention (“style” and “language”) escape the writer’s control. The writer cannot choose them; they are given to him. Style results from one’s habits formed over the passage of time in his personal and biological conditions, and is alien to language which results from social convention, common to all social members. As a way to bridge these two, Barthes introduces “écriture” (writing), by which the writer commits himself to society. In this operation, écriture works as a “function” which connects style and language through the individual’s intention to carry out his moral responsibility to reach out to society.

[أحمد شاكر · Rating 4 out of 5]

حول الكتابة في درجة الصفر والكتابة والثورة والكتابة والصمت، ينقب رولان بارت في اللغة وفي تاريخ الكتابة معطيا قواعد جديدة انطلقت منها أغلب الكتابات الحديثة.

[Mohammed Yusuf · Rating 4 out of 5]

الكتابة,الأسلوب,اللغة أعمدة أساسية للأدب سواء أكان سياسيا ,روائيا أو غير ذلك
أول قراءاتي للكتب النقدية ولقد واجهت صعوبة في التعامل معه .. تحولت إلى إستمتاع بعد فترة وجيزة .. حيث بدأت أتحرك معه فكريا
بنية الكتاب ورؤيته في إعتقادي تمثل إفتراضات وليست بالقطعيات ولكن تعد نظرة من خبير كما يقال ..
مفهوم الكتابة في درجة الصفر تناقض عندي بين عدة رؤى للكاتب بين التأثير وغيابه في الحالة الصفرية وبين ما حمله للكلمات التي أصبحت إتكاءة على المفهوم لها دور في توضيحه لكن ليست مرتكز فهذه الصورة الغيابية هي حالة صفرية أيضا والتي مثلت دور الحياد في عصر الأدب بلا أدباء
أولى تناقضات الكتاب من وجهة نظري هي في طرح الأسلوب فهو حين نظر إليه أنه عنفوانية ونتاج شخصي بحت عاكس هذه النظرة بإعتباره صورة مزاجية ونظام توريثي .. وبذلك لا يكون خارج نطاق المجتمع
الكتابة عند رولان بارت هي ناقل بين جزئيتي البيئة الداخلية العنفوانية واللغة .. الطور المجتمعي
في ذكر الكتابة تعرض الكاتب للصورة والسياسية والروائية متفرعا في ذلك وبتوضيحات كثيرة
إنتقل بعدها إلى منطقة البيوطيقيا في الصورة الشعرية وصورة النثر وهنا تطرق لحالة عصري الكلاسيكية والحداثة وفي هذه النقطة إختلفت معه في نظرته للكلاسيكية بإعتبارها مقيدة للفكر وتستلزم صياغة وشكلا أكثر من المعنى حيث أنني أعتبر أن العروض وغيره من القواعد الكلاسيكية يعتبر تجربة تحدي للكاتب فالمتنبي لم يوقفه العروض عن الإبداع وليس الإبداع مكتملا في توهان المعنى
ولقد عاد فنظر إلى الصورة التدميرية رغم الديمومة التحديثية في شعر الحداثة .. إلى أنني أعزي هذا المفهوم إلى أنه كان يتحدث عن أساطير في الحداثة كرامبو وهيغو وغيرهم لكن الشعر الحديث في رأيي اليوم أصبح فيه من الهرطقات الكثير حيث أن الكاتب نفسه يغيب المعنى عن نفسه فلا يستطيع الإلمام بحقائق ما كتب
وأظن إعجابه بالحداثة الشعرية هو إنعكاس فترة الحرية في ذلك الوقت
والتجربة عندنا تختلف بالطبع عن التجربة الغربية هذا الشئ جعلني لا أنجذب إلى حديثه الذي عقب هذا الحديث عن البرجوازية رغم أنها لم تنحصر عليهم فإن تعدد المعاني البلاغية في غياب الحدود والقواعد التي مثلت تجربة البرجوازية لها وجودها في الأدب العربي البرجوازية التي صدعت نفسها حين إنتبه الشاعر لإزدواجية الشعور من حيث أنه صوت الشعب ( في القرنين السادس والسابع عشر وأمتدت حتى بعد الثورة )
يصبح الكتاب تاريخيا حين يتحدث عن الفترة التي تلت ذلك حيث تردت النظرة للكتابة فأصبح هم الكاتب جذب الناس إليها وأنشغل كثيرا بدراستها هولاء الكتاب كأندريه جيد وفلوبير وفاليري (فرنسا) ... وجدوا حيث صنع الأدب المأساوي
وفي النقطة التالية ينقد الكاتب وبصورة متشددة كتاب المدرسة الواقعية التي نشأت عن كتابات فلوبير والتي من روادها زولا وموباسان حيث أنهم إهتموا بالشكلية دون الإبداع فكان الأمر عندهم مسألة إنتاج .. والحقيقة من ضمن قراءاتي القادمة كتاب من كتب زولا وسأرى بنفسي هذه الصورة إن شاء الله
يتابع بعدها في نقده لكتاب الشكلية الذين كانت اللغة مبدأهم ومنتهاهم والشكلية إهتمامهم كمالارميه التي مثلت حالة عجز فلو أنهم تركوا الكتابة لكان ذلك أحرى بهم ( مرحلة الصمت ) ويكشف عن جزيئة الكتاب المحايدة (الصفرية ) التي أصبحت الحل كما ظهرت عند ألبير كامو حيث تم تغييب الشكل وحمل الفكر مسؤوليته وحتى هذه الكتاب تتدهور في الحيز الزماني حيث يضيق الشكل الخناق على الفكر ويصبح الكاتب مقلدا لأسطورته البدائية ( كتابته البيضاء – الحيادية )
عموما هذه الفترة أثرت فيها الصورة السياسية أثرا جليا
بعد هذه المرحلة ظهرت تجليات الكتابة في الأخذ من الكلام أو الإطار المجتمعي للغة متمثلا في اللهجات والصور العامية والتي كانت في بدايتها صورة لمواضعة الضحك فأصبحت صورة موضوعية كما هو عند بلزاك وبروست
وفي مراجعة للكتابة الحديثة يوقع رولان بارت الكاتب موضع حيرة بين ما يفعله وبين ما يراه فهو محصور بين التراث الكتابي طريقة التعبير التي ألفها والوقائع الماثلة أمامه ولا يستطيع التعبير عنها .. هي إزدواجية المأساة الأدبية ..
وتنتهي قوامة العصر الحديث خلال هذا العجز والتجربة المأساوية لتنتج عالما مثاليا وهميا هو يوتوبيا اللغة

كتاب مرهق وممتع .. وقراءات أخرى لرولان بارت





إقتباسات:

اللسان إذن ما قبل الأدب والأسلوب هو مابعده تقريبا فالصور والإلقاء تولد من جسم الكاتب وماضيه لتغدو شيئا فشيئا آليات فنه ذاتها



فالشكل يتراءى معلقا أمام الأنظار وكأنه موضوع . وهو مستنكر كيفما كان إن كان فخما بدا زيا قديما وإن كان فوضويا بدا غير إجتماعي ومتميزا بالنسبة إلى العصر أو الناس وعلى أي وجه بدا فهو عزلة

اللسان والأسلوب هما قوة عشواء أما الكتابة فهي فعل تضامن تاريخي

كل كتابة ثقافية هي أولى طفرات الفكر
في الحالة الراهنة للتاريخ لا يمكن لأي كتابة سياسية إلا أن تكون دعما لعالم بوليسي كما أن أي كتابة ثقافية لا يمكنها إلا أن تؤسس عالما يتجاوز الأدب ولا تملك الجرأة على ذكر إسمه

الفن لا شئ سوى الكمال في تقليد ال��اقع

اللغة بطبيعتها تميل إلى تدمير ذاتها

الأدب مثل الفوسفور يكون أكثر لمعانا لحظة موته

الرواية موت , وهي تجعل من الحياة قدرا , ومن الذكرى فعلا مفيدا , ومن الديمومة زمنا موجها له دلالة


اللغة طقس إجتماعي من التعابير, وحيثما وجدت فهي لغة واحدة تعكس مقولات العقل الخالدة





إن مفهوم الواقع في المذهب الطبيعي يقابله إصطناع الكتابة


الفنون الأدبية تهدد كل لغة أسست على غير الكلام الإجتماعي الصرف

الكاتب أمام الورقة البيضاء لحظة إختياره للكلمات هذا الكاتب يكون ممزقا بين ما يفعله وما يراه

[Aslı Can · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yazının söze üstün olduğunu söylüyor Barthes, bu üstünlüğün taşıyıcısı ise ''biçim''. Yani yazının devrimci, harekete geçirici, sarsıcı etkisi ancak biçim aracılığıyla mümkün Barthes'e göre; ki buna sonuna kadar katılıyorum. Biçimden ise ancak dilin imkanları ötesinde kullanılmasıyla, yazarın nesneler-şeyler -anlatı arasındaki üçgende salınabilir halegelmesiyle söz edilebiliyor. Dil, ancak dili kaybetmek uğruna sınırlarının keşfe çıkılmasıyla ve sessizlik belirtebildiğinde, edebi biçimden söz edilebiliyor. Biçim yokluğunda ise yazı tarihsel koşulların ürünü bir metin olmaktan kurtulamıyor Barthes'e göre. Tarihsel koşulların korkunçluğuna karşı duruş, ancak biçime yansıdığında mümkün. Diğer bir deyişle edebi anlatının imkanlarını çıldırtmadığın sürece, ne kadar çılgın olursan ol fark etmez; rüyalarını anlatırken, kendine yeni bir dil keşfetmen lazım.

''Tümüyle mekanik titreşimleri sonraki sözcüğe olağandışı birbiçimde çarpan, ama hemen sönüveren patlamaların bütün şiddetiyle donanmış olarak, bu bağlantısız nesne sözükler, bu şiirsel sözcükler insanları dışarıda bırakır; çağdaşlığın şiirsel insancılığı yoktur: bu ayakta söylem yıldırı dolu bir söylemdir, yani insanlarla değil, Doğa'nın en insandışı imgeleriyle bağlantıya sokar; gök, cehennem, kutsallık, çocukluk, delilik, arı, özdek vb.''

Böylece biçim aracılığıyla anlatı düzene içkin olmaktan çıkıp; sabitlenemeyişi, başkaldırıyı ve dönüşümü aktarabilir hale geliyor. Biçime yansımayan ''devrimci tutum'' tanıklıktan öteye geçemiyor Barthes'e göre:

''kendisini denetleyen toplum, onda düşlerini değil yöntemlerini buluyordu'' diyor örneğin Baudelaire için.

Nitelikli kuram ve kendi biçimini oluşturan yazarlar hep birbirlerini daha anlaşılır kılıyorlar. Bu perspektiften düşününce bazı yazarların neden tam olarak zihnimizin bilinmeyen bir yerinde bir delik açtığı ve o deliğin asla kapanmadığı ve neden gün geçtikçe daha fazla büyüdüğü anlaşılır oluyor biraz daha. Didi ve Gogo sonsuza kadar Godot'yu bekleyecekler mesela, bunu hiçbir tarihi koşul değiştiremez. Sanırım Barthes'in bahsettiği tam olarak böyle bir şey.

Benim okuduğum 1989 edisyonda yazar örnekleri Fransız Edebiyatı ile sınırlıydı, Barthes'in evrensel biçim'den bahsederken böyle bir sınırlamaya gitmesi biraz kalbimi kırdı. Goodreads arkadaşım Özgür'den yeni baskısında yazar örneklerinin genişletilmiş olduğunu öğrensem de, dört yıldız vericem kitaba bu yüzden. Bunun dışında yazı'yı anlayabilmek adına beş yıldızlık bir metin. Özellikle bir şeyler yazanların kesinlikle okumasını tavsiye ederim.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Often just as impenetrable and abstruse as you fear - Susan Sontag's introductory essay to the 1968 English translation is enormously helpful in suggesting what to look for and laying out the ground rules of Barthes' thought - also by suggesting which essays to start with (not at the beginning).
Inevitably a reader educated in the Anglo-American tradition, first language English, is going to retain a bit of ethnocentrism, so it is good medicine to read someone for whom "literature" means "French literature" and "language" means French; it does make me want to get a much better grip on things I feel I have only plodded through (Flaubert).
Also interesting, at this remove from when he was criticizing and being criticized - by now any educated American has at least taken a stab at, and possibly even enjoyed (!), Robbe-Grillet, Beckett and Queneau, all of whom were considered examples of Barthes esotericism when he was championing them in the 1950s.

[Hossein M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

خیلی پیچیده بود و کم فهمیدم.

[Débora Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"(...) a Literatura torna-se a utopia da linguagem." Pág.78

[Mojtaba Asghari · Rating 3 out of 5]

درواقع چکیده ای از کتاب "ادبیات چیست" سارتر ولی با تاکید روی عدم تعهد نویسنده

[Peter Landau · Rating 4 out of 5]

WRITING DEGREE ZERO isn’t a poem, though the title is as inscrutable and evocative as one. Roland Barthes’ first book is an essay on literature, that much I got. Even Susan Sontag notes in her revealing preface that it’s not a good place to start in Barthes’ oeuvre. The prose is academic, difficult and assumes that the reader has already done the homework. I didn’t even know there was a test! Like having a dream where I’m in my underwear, totally unprepared, I figured I might as well go with it until I woke up. I don’t have a terrible body, for a man of my age, and I’m not a sound sleeper. While biding my time, trying to unravel reams of knotty ideas about writing and history, I’d be struck by a sentence or two. For example, “Modernism begins with the search for a Literature which is no longer possible.” I don’t know what that means, but I like it. Barthes has you digging through the fruit of his creative prose until you hit your teeth on a stone of truth that stops you. It’s not understanding — for me, at least — but an inarticulate knowledge. I get that I don’t get it. That's a start.

[Mohamedridha Alaskari محمد رضا العسكري · Rating 3 out of 5]

الكاتب يستخدم الاستعارات الرمزية كثيرا محاولة منه لجعل القارئ يشعر بقيمة وغزارة مضمون الكتاب.

يرصد بارت اربع لحضات أساسية في تاريخ الكتابة الادبية الفرنسية خلال المائة سنة الماضية:
١- الكتابة باعتبارها موضوعا لنظرة - عند شاتوبريان
٢- الكتابة باعتبارها موضوعا لصنع - عند فلوبير
٣- الكتابة باعتبارها موضوعا للقتل - ماحبم به الشاعر مالارمية
٤- الكتابة باعتبارها موضوعا للغياب، وهي التي يسميها ايضا الكتابة البيضاء او (الدرجة صفر للكتابة) خاصة عند البير كامو

هذه الانماط للكتابة هي التييركز عليها بارت.

[Javier Egea]

he leído solo el grado 0 de la escritura
makinote

[Mohammad Sadegh Rasooli · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://delsharm.blog.ir/1397/08/29/de...
این کتاب مجموعه مقالات پیوستهٔ رولان بارت (۱۹۱۵-۱۹۸۰) منتقد ادبی قرن بیستم فرانسه است. به نظر می‌رسد حرف‌های این کتاب رنگ کهنگی به خودش گرفته باشد، مانند فرق ادبیات بورژوا و کمونیستی، و آیا ادبیات باید سیاسی باشد یا خیر. ظاهراً حرف بارت آن است که به خاطر تأثیر جامعه بر روی نویسنده، سیاست و جامعه تبدیل به بُعد سوم نوشتن می‌شود. از نظر بارت، ادبیات فرانسه از فلوبر به بعد از حالت رئالیسم توصیفی به فرمی تبدیل شده است که اقناع‌کننده و زیباشناسانه است. بارت آرمان‌شهر زبان را در ادبیات می‌بیند.

صادقانه بگویم، بخش‌های بسیاری از این کتاب هشتاد و هشت صفحه‌ای را نفهمیدم. یک جنبه‌اش قدیمی بودن کتاب و جنبهٔ دیگرش وجههٔ نظری و تخصصی آن است.

[Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barthes' primary allegiance is to the impulse that leads an artist to write. The language the writer uses, his style, is an organic response to what he feels needs to be said. It all seems so simple. And what I'm especially interested in is his statement describing accessibility in literature. It is merely a decision, for the writer, to participate in the dominant (for Barthes, this reads "bourgeoisie) rhetoric of that time. The writer is the one in control, then. There is no one language system the writer is beholden to. They are his to manipulate, or his to use.

[Ligia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barthes es que es maravilloso y lo explica todo genial.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of all the French theorists of the 20th century, Barthes has to be one of the more accessible ones. That being said, this already-short book contained a fair amount of fluff, and could have easily been half its length. I unfortunately wasn't able to appreciate the shorter, second section which expanded on examples from French literature. The only authors I had read included Camus, Hugo, and Maupassant, as well as fragments from Flaubert and Baudelaire. Really, the only thing I got from the second section of this book was how hopelessly bourgeois the French are, that despite repeated attempts to rid themselves of the rich, they keep creating a rich, pretentious upper class. Curious.

The first section of the book was sometimes less interesting in Barthes original (?) ideas than it was in elucidating implicit tactics that leftists today use with language. This centers around pages 23-4, where he talks about Marxism and Stalinism's relationship to language. He explains that:

For instance, the word 'imply', frequently encountered in Marxist writing, does not there have its neutral dictionary meaning; it always refers to a precise historical process, and is like an algebraical sign representing a whole bracketed set of previous postulates.

By this, Barthes is explaining why leftists today use clickbait-flavored, inaccurate, gimmicky slogans, then get confused at your alarm. For example, when leftists say that "math is racist," this is obviously, on the face of it, a stupid statement. Numbers are genderless, colorless, simple things, and it's self-evident that there is nothing racist about math per se. But what a leftist means by "math is racist" is a whole litany of presumptions, assumptions, leaps of logic, and more, including "POC are under-represented in mathematics" and other non-sequiturs. The same thing happened in 2020 when people chanted "defund the police." When I asked leftoids what they meant by this, they said "we don't REALLY mean defund the police, at least not entirely... just take some of that money and put it into community projects." Two things to note from all this balderdash: 1) This is unforgivably sloppy usage of language, and 2) the onus was/is always implicitly on you and me for not understanding, rather than on them for not explaining. But this shouldn't surprise us, especially if you've ever read any Derrida or other extremely dense literary criticism, because they don't explain any of the terms they use, and if they do they're the most oblique, opaque, unclear definitions you've read. But, remember, it's your fault! I wonder why the lower class is largely conservative... It's almost like leftist academics are hopelessly divorced from the common working person and are quite literally incapable of distilling their ideas down into a simpler format...

Anywho, on the next page of Barthes, he brought up Stalinism and how it [always, already] attaches value judgements to all language; in a radical reversal of Friedrich Nietzsche, who sought to move "beyond good and evil," Stalinists (and by extension many Marxists) moralize all language. This is why you'll read about some of the more clear-sighted authors of the 20th century remarking on Christianity and communism both being religions with their own systems of morality, heresy, dogma, etc. What was especially helpful on this page of Barthes, however, was his remark that "tautology [was] a device constantly used in Stalinist writing." So, for example, instead of needing to state that a white person is racist, "whiteness" merely gets imbued with racism implicitly and inherently. This shortcut short-circuits a whole series of "logic" which preceded it, and serves both as a shorthand for the believers and a quick harrowing tool with which to sift out the heretics and burn them with the rest of the chaff. Once again, this tautological approach to language does incredible violence and damage not only to the language itself, but the people who use it in such a sloppy way. I shudder to think of how these people's children would use language, that is, if they actually had any.

As for Barthes' actual ideas, they're not as interesting as most other works of lit crit that I've read, and his multiple attempts to namedrop the title of the book prove a bit underwhelming. In the beginning, I saw quite a few parallels with Derrida's remarks on literature, especially about it being an institution, its culmination as an absence, that writing is not an instrument for communication, etc. The main chronology that Barthes interacts with is contrasting the "Classical" age of literature (by which he doesn't mean the Greeks, but the 1600s to the mid 1800s) with the modern era, which looked at art and literature in a strange new way. Classical art and literature was "transparent" (3) in that it was frank about its artificiality; it was self-evident in a way which "realism" attempted to escape from, but ultimately failed at, bringing only more attention to the artifice of art ("realism is far from being neutral, it is on the contrary loaded with the most spectacular signs of fabrication," p. 68). This culminated in much modern art being unable to do anything else, i.e. only being a self-referential statement about "point[ing] to its own mask" (35). This of course becomes tedious quickly, as the dead-end experienced in the plastic arts via "minimalism." The realization that this has led to a dead end has spawned a new movement, one relishing in derangement.

I think it's accurate to point to realism as the culprit and starting point of where it went wrong. Barthes talks about the "ambiguity of a double object, at once believable and false" (33); I think that the word "believable" is extremely important here. Traditional art never sought literal truth, but rather believably, recognizability. Mimesis was never an imitation in every facet, but only extended so far. Premodern art was never confused for the real thing; even a lifelike sculpture wrought by the old masters was a piercing, cold marble color. It's almost as if the early moderns, upon their "rediscovery" of Plato (was he ever really lost? the Church always had him, but held him at arm's length, as he should be!) was disastrous insofar as the rediscovery caricatured him and his teachings. It attempted to divorce certain utilitarian aspects of him from his deeply premodern, enchanted worldview.

Perhaps the best chapter of the book asked "Is There Any Poetic Writing?" Barthes explains what he means by defining Classical poetry as that which "is made more socially acceptable by virtue of the very conspicuousness of its conventions" (42), whereas modern poetry is comparatively unmoored, an attempt to escape the tradition and bring to mind all connotations of each word simultaneously, rather than just the poetic connotations. He calls such poetry "encyclopedic" on p. 48 because each word gets "reduced to a sort of zero degree, pregnant with all past and future specifications." Such rupture produces extremely generative gaps, whereby poetry has the potential to flourish, but it just as easily has the potential to stagnate in chaotic solipsism. As Barthes notes on p. 45, Classical poetry emphasizes "expression, not invention;" I expanded this to other examples, such as "conformity, not originality" and "tradition, not innovation." Thus, classical poetry is much more "relational;" it's in conversation with the poetry which came before, as well as each word being in direct relation to a set of rules, to the word that came before, and to the word which follows (44). Thus, there is a high emphasis placed on transitions, on continuity, on unity, whereas modern poetry and art atomizes, objectifies, isolates, diverges (50). I was pleasantly surprised at this realization, since I also favor transitions highly, and now I perhaps understand a bit better why.

[Alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read only the title essay. Barthes is concerned about the relationship writing has to power. He argues that writing is always a question of power not only in the content it communicates but even and especially in its style. The utopian ideal is a neutral blank writing style, but that’s unattainable.

[andreea.]

.

[Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only is it a fascinating insight into the germs of thought which would develop into his theory of mythology, but it's also an incredible little text in its own right. It totally dismantles and dissects the myth of literature, with the immaculate grace I've come to expect of Barthes.

[timantiheld · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Die [Literaturgeschichte] ist hier nichts anderes als die Aufeinanderfolge einzelner Männer."

Es ist immer wieder erstaunlich, wie fortschrittlich Barthes gedacht hat und wie viel Gegenwind er bekommen hat für Sachen, die in der Literaturwissenschaft heute als Standart gelten. Die sassyness, der Humor, die präzisen Gedanken machen die Texte auch knapp 60 Jahre nach dem Erscheinen immernoch lesenswert.

[Nikola Tasev · Rating 1 out of 5]

Written in a style heavy with complex, unneeded, heavy expressions and clumsy similes. Using words outside their normal definitions without providing his own definition. Using different meanings of a word without clarifying which one he means (Language, History - personal and societal). Talking about Literature and meaning just French literature. A whole lot of fluff you need to go through before you can see what he means. The author never states clearly something he can dance about - "let me tell you about Language and Style, Language springs from the body and past of the writer, while Style is of biological origin and its secret is locked in the recollection of the writer". Almost a quote.
And when you do, you can find it it full of unbacked and untrue assertions (every Form is a Value), and drawing illogical and false conclusions from them. I am left with the impression that noone wanted to point out that the emperor had (almost) no clothes, fearing they would seem too stupid to understand the profound truths (intentionally vague and ambiguous deepities, mostly).
There is a point and meaning behind all this, but it is not given easily, or willingly. You have to dig through a lot of sand to get your small gold reward... not worth it in my opinion. I have no desire to read an author that does not wish to be understood, I don't want to pry truth from someone who does not wish to share it freely.

[ناديا · Rating 2 out of 5]

عندما يكون الكتاب ماقل ودل ، ينال مني نجمة كاملة فورية دون تردد :)
تعثرت بالكتاب لاأذكر كيف، هو تخصصي بحت يتحدث عن الكتابة كلغة وأساليبها .. ويميل برأيه إلى الكتابة الواقعية الحرة الغير منمقة بكل انواعها حتى السياسية منها ..
رغم قصر الكتاب إلا أن اسهابا دون داع افقدني متعة المعلومة ..
أنصح بقراءته للمهتمين بالكتابة فقط ..

# إن الكتابات الممكنة لكاتب ما لاتتأسس إلا تحت ثقل التاريخ والأعراف لأن لدينا تاريخا للكتابة ، لكنه تاريخ مزدوج ففي الوقت الذي يعرض التاريخ إشكالية جديدة للغة الأدبية فإن الكتابة ماتزال حافلة بذكريات استخداماتها السابقة
# للكلمات ذاكرةأخرى تغوص في عمق الدلالات الجديدة بطريقة عجيبة . والكتابة تحديدا هي تلك المصالحة بين الحرية والذكرى
# كل نظام سياسي يملك كتابة لم يوضع تاريخها بعد
# الرواية موت وهي تجعل من الحياة قدرا ومن الذكرى فعلا مفيدا ومن الديمومة زمنا موجها له دلالة
#الكلمة هي التي تغذي وتفيض كأنها التجلي المباغت للحقيقة
# كل امرئ سجين لغته، وعندما يكون بعيدا عن طبقته فإن أول كلمة ينطق بها تشير إليه وتحدد موقعه تماما وتعلن عنه وعن ماضيه كله ..

[Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب تقدي هام لكن اعتقد انه يخص اللغة الفرنسية و الثقافة الفرانكوفونية بشكل اساسي ، فصعب بل من شبه المستحيل فهم الكتاب كاملا اذا لم نكن نملك حد ادنى من الفهم للغة و الثقافة و التاريخ الفرنسي ، فهو يتحدث مثلا عن الماضي البسيط في الفرنسية و هو صيغة زمن له خصوصية في الفرنسية و لا يمكن ادراك تطور اللغة و الاسلوب دون فهم هذه الصيغة ، ايضا معظم استشهاداته بل اعتقد ان كلها مستمدة من الادب الفرنسي و مرتبطة بالتاريخ الفرنسي....... لذلك لا اعتقد انه كتاب مهم بالنسبة للأشخاص غير المهتمين بالفرنسية ، بالرغم من أهميته و اهمية الافكار التي يطرحها

[Golfa · Rating 4 out of 5]

«نوشتار ادبی، که همیشه خود را به دلیل تنهایی خویش گناهکار می‌داند، دست‌کم خیالی نیست که مشتاقانه خواستار نیک‌فرجامیِ واژه‌ها باشد، بلکه به سوی زبانی رویایی شتابان است؛ زبانی که شادابی آن، به کمک گونه‌ای پیش‌بینی آرمانی، کمالِ باغ عدن نوینی را تصویر می‌کند؛ دنیایی که در آن زبان دیگر از خودبیگانه نباشد. چندگونه‌شدن اسلوب‌های نوشتار، ادبیات نوینی را پی‌ریزی می‌کند؛ به گونه‌ای که این ادبیات، جز برای فراشد به یک طرح، زبان خود را اختراع نکند: ادبیات به آرمانشهر زبان بدل می‌گردد.»

[Pooya Kiani · Rating 4 out of 5]

مشخصا شروع کار رولان بارته، اون ابهت فکر و کلام همیشگی رو نداره، اما خیلی قابل اعتناست؛ و مهم‌ برای هر نویسنده.

[Stefan Szczelkun · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1953 I was five and the coronation of Queen Elisabeth II of England was the main event. There was a surge in TV buying as the ceremony was relayed live and someone on our street got one and soon after we got our own black and white set and I was watching Bill & Ben the Flowerpot Men and Andy Pandy and Hopalong Cassidy.

Meanwhile over in Paris the renegade critic Roland Barthes had his first book of essays printed - Writing Degree Zero. These essays contained startling and brilliant insight into the nature of Western European writing and language. I only recently read this book and it made me think a lot about my patchy experience of literature - my affinity with science fiction and then experimental writing from William Burroughs and Brion Gysin's cut-ups to Bob Cobbing's sound poetry. From Joyce and Beckett to the Fluxus instructions.

He starts by impressing on us the depth at which writing springs "from the body and the past of the writer". Words themselves "have a second-order memory which mysteriously persists in the midst of new meanings". "Under each word in modern poetry there lies a sort of existential geology, in which is gathered the total content of the Name… Pregnant with all past and future specifications." p.48. "Every man is a prisoner of his language…. is put on show and delivered up by his language, betrayed by a formal reality which is beyond the reach of his lies, whether they are inspired by self-interest or generosity". p.81.

Throughout the book Barthes refers to 'classical writing'. Classical writing is defined as the writing that appears as the national languages are standardised and codified by way of dictionaries and grammars under the economic focus of the expanding book market (around 1700). It is Literature that is at the core of the new Bourgeois culture and self-identity. Its exemplary form is the novel. The mythic unity of this language is an article of classical dogma. This singular language claims to externalise everything that is important about the human mind. In the end it claims its achievement as universal.

Barthes calls the use of the preterite, past tense or simple past, which is rarely used in oral speech, the 'cornerstone' of classical Literary narration. The preterite is used to "reduce the exploded reality to a slim and pure logos, without density, without volume, without spread, and whose sole function is to unite as rapidly as possible a cause and an end." "He who tells the story has the power to do away with with the opacity and the solitude of the existences which made it up..." p.31.

In C16th and beginning of C17th there was a profusion of literary languages. The written form has not yet come to a standardised dominant grammar and form. This is what he calls the pre-classical period. As written language comes to have national norms it become invisible as nothing else is allowed. All dialect variants are judged as incorrect usage. Within this dominating language varying rhythms and styles are possible of course but form is supposed to be at the service of content. "The only thing in question was rhetoric".

"This classical writing is, needless to say, a class writing." p.57. Forged by those close to power, shaped by dogma, it had separated from speech by getting rid of 'colloquialism' and was drilled by definition for clarity and to be the unquestionably superior language of the elite. The national language of France remained intact through the revolution of the late 1700s and stayed all-powerful until 1848. It was promoted as universal but really was the cultural movement of an period of bourgeois dominance.

The Realism of writers like Emile Zola (1840 - 1902) that was a part of this attempted break, used a combination of the formal signs of Literature (The past tense, indirect speech, written rhythms) with a smattering of colloquialisms, shock words and working class speech. It becomes a convention of 'the real', a spectacular fabrication.

In the mid C19th national writing was so established that most writers were unaware that there were many ways of speaking French. What was most often quoted from these other 'inferior' forms, were humorous of picturesque phrases. "There began to find their way into literary language proper a few extraneous scraps lifted from inferior forms of language, provided they were suitably eccentric (otherwise they would have been a source of danger)." p.79. It is only Marcel Proust who uses language's breadth to "fully account for the whole content of society." p.80. With Proust literature becomes a useful qualitative information on the human world, it no longer exists to imply 'pride or escape'. Barthes claims that the use of a real language by a writer is the most human act they can make. However languages are surrounded by conventional usages that are most often strictly policed.

Marxist writing broke with the moral justifications and grandiloquence of the French Revolutionaries, it was univocal, lexical, understated and above all maintained a cohesion of knowledge and the certainty of science. Naming and judging are simultaneously carried out by a strict terminology. "Between a proletariat excluded from all culture, and an intelligensia which has already begun to question literature itself, the average public produced by primary and secondary schools, namely lower middle class, roughly speaking, will therefor find in the artistic-realist mode of writing - which is that of a good proportion of commercial novels - the image par excellence of a Literature which has all the striking and intelligible signs of its identity." p.70. This invisible 'universal' form was assumed by many communist writers. There is an almost mechanised use of metaphors, like 'crystal clear'. Liberal use of metaphor give the stamp of 'good' writing. "Perhaps there is, in this well-behaved writing of revolutionaries, a feeling of powerlessness to create forthwith a free writing." p.73

If only I could have had this read to me when I was five, or at least given it to read when I was moved to Sunbury Grammar School at age 11. It would have saved me a lot of bloody head scratching.

This has been remixed from my blog: http://stefan-szczelkun.blogspot.co.u...

[David Murra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roland Barthes met en scène une tentative de retrouver ce qu'il appelle le degré zéro de l'écriture, concept qu'il définit d'une manière légèrement différente à chaque fois qu'il le mentionne-soit qu'il parle du style dans un niveau individuel ou bien, avec un sens historique et sociale. Ce degré zéro serait une sorte de table rase à partir de laquelle l'écriture contemporaine essayerait de rompre avec le "style" littéraire de la langue française, chargé de toute sorte de clichés, préjugés et conventions historiques de la langue qui empêchent un véritable engagement avec la societé actuelle.

J'ai décidé de considérer le contenu de cet essai comme une "mise en scène" car je ne crois pas qu'il y ait vraiment un degré zéro de l'écriture ou que nous devrions aspirer à l'atteindre. Quoique j'apprécie beaucoup le style de Roland Barthes et sa manière recherchée d'argumenter, le poids de la pensée structuraliste est trop présent dans cet oeuvre pleine des idées mi-dévéloppées et des notions historiques qui manquent la rigueur académique nécéssaire pour être prises au sérieux.

Néanmoins, quelques idées proposées m'ont vraiment inspiré à réfléchir davantage sur le sujet du style et l'historicité des études littéraires.

[Javi Santos]

Es todo lo francés que puedas imaginar y más, pero aun así lo que he podido rescatar es súper interesante

Creo que me han faltado muchas lecturas y es casi imprescindible conocer la historia de la literatura francesa desde Flaubert
Además, aunque aquí el passé simple sea el pretérito perfecto simple, sus contextos son demasiado diferentes como para traducirlo sin ninguna aclaración (al menos en mi edición) sabiendo que se dedica incluso un capítulo a estos temas, o yo al menos creo que son tiempos verbales muy alejados

IGUALMENTE: chulo chulo y como revisión histórica de la literatura es súper curioso (esto no habiéndome enterado de muchas cosas)