Roland Barthes
Myth Today (1957)
The Life of Roland Barthes
• Barthes born in Cherbough,Manche on Nov.12,1915
• 1916- After father’s death, Barthes and
mother,Henriette move to Bayonne where he spends
childhood
• 1924- Move to Paris and attends Lycee Montaigne
until 1930.
• 1927- Henriette gives birth to illegitimate child,
Barthe’s half-brother, Michel Salzado and is denied
financial help from her parents. She becomes
bookbinder to support her family.
• Barthes studies at the Sorbonne: classical
literature,Greek tragedy,grammar and philology, and
receives degrees in classical literature (1939) &
grammar and philology (1943)
• 1934- Contracts tuberculosis and spends app. 3 years
in sanatoriums. His illness prevented him from
completing doctoral research so be began to read and
soon began his writing career.
• 1939-52 : Teaches at lycées in Biarritz(1939),Bayonne
(1939-40),Paris (1942-46),French Institute in
Romania (1948-49), University of Alexandria, Egypt
(1949-50), and Direction Generales des Affaires
Culturelles (1950-52)
• 1960-76: Director of studies at Ecole Pratique des
Hautes Etudes
• 1967-68: Taught at Johns Hopkins University
• 1976-80: Chair of literary semiology at College de
France
The Works of Roland Barthes
• Le Degré Zéro De L'Ecriture (Writing Degree Zero- 1953)
published as series of articles in Albert Camus’ journal, Combat.
Establishes Barthe as leading critics of Modernist literature in
France. Introduces concept écriture or scription as
distinguished from style, language, and writing
• Michelet Par Lui-Même (1954), biography of Jules Michelet who
was a 19th century historian and focused on how existential
reality is given to historical moments and related to historian’s
writing
• MYTHOLOGIES (1957) uses semiological concepts in analysis of
myths and signs in contemporary culture. Analyzed newspapers,
films, shows, exhibitions being connected to ideological
abuse.*Myth Today is the last essay from this collection
• SUR RACINE (1963) was most controversial work due to
nonscholarly appreciation of Racine.
• ELÉMENTS DE SÉMIOLOGIE (1964) deals with his views on
the “science of signs” based on Ferdinand de Saussure’s concept
of language and analysis of myth and ritual
• S/Z (1970) applied structural linguistics which analyzed Balzac’s
short story “Sarrasine”
Key Concepts in “Myth Today”
• Myth: a type of speech
- Everything can be a myth if communicated through
discourse
- No such thing as an eternal myth; human history
determines reality through speech and that is
constantly changing
- Myth not defined by its object or material because
meaning is arbitrary
• Myth: Part of Semiology
- Semiology is a science of forms that studies signification separately
from its content
- Tri-dimensional pattern of Myth
-signifier
-signified
-sign
- Myth is a second-order semiological system
- comprised of semiological chain that existed before it
- the sign in the first-order becomes the signifier in the
second
- form (signifier)
- concept (signified)
- signification (relationship between signifier & signified)
- First-order semiological system
- meaning (signifier)
- concept (signified)
- sign
Myth Made Up of Two Semiological
Systems
• Language-object ( linguistic system)
- the language is what myth constructs own system from
• Metalanguage
- Myth is a second language that refers to the first
language