Mythologies"[Mythologies] illustrates the beautiful generosity of Barthes's progressive interest in the meaning (his word is signification) of practically everything around him, not only the books and paintings of high art, but also the slogans, trivia, toys, food, and popular rituals (cruises, striptease, eating, wrestling matches) of contemporary life ... For Barthes, words and objects have in common the organized capacity to say something; at the same time, since they are signs, words and objects have the bad faith always to appear natural to their consumer, as if what they say is eternal, true, necessary, instead of arbitrary, made, contingent. Mythologies finds Barthes revealing the fashioned systems of ideas that make it possible, for example, for 'Einstein's brain' to stand for, be the myth of, 'a genius so lacking in magic that one speaks about his thought as a functional labor analogous to the mechanical making of sausages.' Each of the little essays in this book wrenches a definition out of a common but constructed object, making the object speak its hidden, but ever-so-present, reservoir of manufactured sense."--Edward W. SaidThe distinguished literary critic and leading exponent of semiology, the science of signs and symbols, seeks to create a mythology of daily life. |
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Page 113
... signifier , the signified and the sign , which is the associative total of the first two terms . Take a bunch of roses : I use it to signify my passion . Do we have here , then , only a signifier and a signified , the roses and my ...
... signifier , the signified and the sign , which is the associative total of the first two terms . Take a bunch of roses : I use it to signify my passion . Do we have here , then , only a signifier and a signified , the roses and my ...
Page 116
... signifier , but this signifier is itself formed by a sum of signs , it is in itself a first semiological system ( my name is lion ) . Thereafter , the formal pattern is correctly unfolded : there is a signified ( I am a gram- matical ...
... signifier , but this signifier is itself formed by a sum of signs , it is in itself a first semiological system ( my name is lion ) . Thereafter , the formal pattern is correctly unfolded : there is a signified ( I am a gram- matical ...
Page 120
... signifier . In language , this ratio is proportionate , it hardly exceeds the word , or at least the concrete unit . In myth , on the contrary , the concept can spread over a very large expanse of signifier . For instance , a whole book ...
... signifier . In language , this ratio is proportionate , it hardly exceeds the word , or at least the concrete unit . In myth , on the contrary , the concept can spread over a very large expanse of signifier . For instance , a whole book ...
Contents
TRANSLATORS NOTE 794 | 7 |
The Romans in Films | 26 |
The Poor and the Proletariat | 39 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
Abbé Pierre alibi ambiguity appears Basque become behaviour Blue Guide bourgeois ideology bourgeois myth bourgeoisie Bouvard and Pécuchet character Citroën concept constituted contradiction contrary criticism culture defined depoliticized discourse Dominici Einstein essence essential eternal everything example existence exorcize face fact film formal French imperiality function gestures gives glacé fruit human idea inasmuch innocent instance intellectual intention jet-man judo Jules Verne kind L'Express language language-object Le Figaro linguistic Literature longer magical margarine Marguerite matter meaning metalanguage Minou Drouet Molière morality motivation mythical speech mythologist mythology name is lion nature Negro Neither-Nor never object obvious once one's Paris-Match passion petit-bourgeois photograph plastic political postulates precisely produce proletarian pure reality reblochon representation Roland Barthes salute semiological system signifier social society speak spectacle Stalin steak striptease style substance Tautology term theatre things tion toys transform true understand Verne whole wine woman word wrestler wrestling writer