Writing Degree Zero
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ISBN10: 0374532354
ISBN13: 9780374532352
Trade Paperback
112 Pages
$16.00
CA$22.00
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.
Reviews
Praise for Writing Degree Zero
"You need to read this book, this strange book: Writing Degree Zero. You need to be defeated by it. And then you need (like Barthes) to begin a revolution."—Adam Thirlwell, from his foreword
"Barthes's career was an exemplary search for understanding how man creates meaning, a lifelong exploration of man's definition as Homo significans, the maker of meaning in signs. In anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, and the discourse upon literature, this has been a characteristic preoccupation of our age, and no one addressed himself to it so persistently, so multifariously, so ingeniously, as Barthes."—Peter Brooks, The New Republic
"A sweeping account of French literature."—Kenneth R. Weinstein, The Washington Times
"Barthes's myths about literature are extremely talented, even masterful . . . They acknowledge basic antinomies that even the most gifted minds addressing the same subject, such as Sartre, have glossed over."—Susan Sontag
