Album
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gThe text is the product of a functioning organism; indisputably, that organism is located in a given society, in which History determines our role (which still happens only very imperfectly). But it also has functions according to its own determinations, and individuation is the determination of the body, that is to say, of the biologically closed and unified being. Thus the text cannot present only a historical problem, in the mental sense of the word. There are also problems of verbal technology and kinematics for each writer, as for each human there are personal biochemical problems.
hSade is chosen here for the remarkable density of his writing. [Félix Gouin (1884–1977), socialist political figure in the Third and Fourth Republic.]
iSome day we must come to consider poetry itself as historical, and except for the myth that focuses only on the poet, we must put an end to the theories of poetry as pure and immediate knowledge, as spiritual exercise, etc. Objectively being nothing other than a certain kind of language, poetry must reenter History, which is to say that at any given moment, language has complex but precise social and historical determinations. The history of poetry would make the relationship between history and literature as language very clear. Modern poetry has lost its apparently formulary (sacerdotal) nature, but through its theoretical clairvoyance and intuitive truth, it has maintained the same purpose and, in fact, the same function. History can make sense of both this transformation and this consistency.
jThough some have found it so, there is nothing surprising about the dormancy of poetry in the eighteenth century when that era was occupied with something else, or about the awakening of that same poetry from 1940 to 1945. It is worth noting that this apparently attentive form of literature actually falls within the framework of a poetics overwhelmed with the supernatural. (Popular expressions like poetic message, testimony, poetry as spiritual exercise, visitation of the poet, etc.) Transposing Marx’s remark (with its context), we could say that poetry (and in a sense all of literature) is the opium of the empowered class, suffering not from the evils that it endures but from those that it sees. (A possible definition for philosophy as well, the esotericism of philosophical language.)
kThe concrete function of literature is finally to manifest (or, in the best-case scenario, to aid) a certain transformation of language. That transformation can be conceived in an anarchic, byzantine form by attaching it to the irrational and uncanny, as the Surrealists do. We can also conceive of it in a more natural form, that is, primarily as the irruption of spoken forms in a language, with conventional automatisms (various examples: Prévert, Queneau, a certain blank style in Camus, The Stranger). That transformation is certainly more revolutionary, because it can end in the death of Belles Lettres. In short, must literature continue? That is a question belonging to ethics, for which the course of events must provide the answer.
lAnd musical creation, for example, where criticism exists at present only in the form of paraphrase. Historical criticism is manifestly powerless with regard to music as long as one is not objectively informed about the mechanisms of aesthetic creation (no doubt analogous to those of thought and language). Here more than elsewhere, the materials provided by present analysis are, in general, essentially scholastic and tendentious; classical analysis of forms (conceptions of theme, phrase, construction, etc.) is based on a purely static and mechanical view of musical discourse (in accordance with the image of a fixed human nature). Musical criticism is essentialist. Half of musicians themselves attribute their operations to the supernatural. (See a recent study by Contrepoints, responses by Fumer, Joliver, Migot, Capdevielle, Messiaen.) The others keep quiet, with good reason. [Contrepoints 1 (January 1946), articles by Dynam-Victor Fumet, André Joliver, Georges Migot, Pierre Capdevielle, and Olivier Messiaen, review edited by Fred Goldbeck of Éditions de Minuit.]
3
The Great Ties
1. Roland Barthes to Maurice Nadeau
Roland Barthes met Maurice Nadeau (1911–2013) in June 1947 through the intermediary of Georges Fournié.1 Fournié was a Trotskyite like Nadeau, whom Barthes met in Leysin, where he was treated for tuberculosis resulting from his deportation to Buchenwald for resisting. Nadeau then edited the literary pages of Combat, where he would soon publish Barthes’s first texts (“Le Degré zéro de l’écriture,” which appeared on August 1, 1947). Nadeau would continue to publish Barthes’s texts and speeches in France Observateur (precursor to Nouvel Observateur) as well as Les Lettres nouvelles (created in 1953) and La Quinzaine littéraire, the first issue of which appeared in 1966.
* * *
Wednesday evening, [1952]
My dear Maurice, I received your book this evening and, since I spent the evening at home, I have already almost finished reading it, because it reads itself, it holds together wonderfully, and I assure you that it has a continuum that will be a revelation for all your readers who are accustomed to reading you week after week.2 For me, this book makes me happy because basically there is not a single point where I don’t agree with you and I feel the same as you do about all these authors. With regard to substance, how easy it would have been to do a weekly! There’s a potential instinctual unity, and your book conveys that to me very well, with great clarity—you know that I don’t use that word lightly—and power that gives me deep pleasure and definite confidence—if that word doesn’t shock you too much coming from me, who has done nothing or almost nothing, and directed toward you, who has already done so much.
It was only after my reading that I saw your group dedication in which I appear: let me tell you I was moved by it and I thought what a great fellow you really are, and that I would love to be able to work for you and with you again.
I’m saying this all badly of course, because it’s coming from emotion and euphoria, but better than in person—which won’t stop me from coming to see you very soon.
I didn’t think this book was due out so soon and really, from every perspective, I was happy and delighted to see it appear.
Thanks again for having thought of me in the two dedications and for sending it to me.
Faithfully and affectionately yours,
R. Barthes
* * *
Saturday evening, [1954]
Dear Maurice,
I should have sent this text along to you some time ago, which Robbe-Grillet would very much like to see published in Les Lettres nouvelles.3
Here is Robbe-Grillet’s address:
24, plaine de Kerangoff
Brest, Saint-Pierre
In haste,
Best wishes,
R. Barthes
* * *
Thursday evening, [September 9, 1954]
Dear Maurice,
As you can imagine, Koupernik’s article today in L’Observateur on Le Grand Robert will absolutely prevent me from publishing mine next week.4 First of all, it’s a matter of too obvious and too close a duplication, bothersome because of the particularity of the subject, and then because what I say about theatrical hypnotism is too much at odds with the paper by this psychiatrist. I absolutely do not want to expose myself to “competent” refutations.
So I had to come up with a new paper, which I earnestly beg you to substitute for the first one. Dear Maurice, I am absolutely counting on you to make this substitution despite your likely indulgence for the repeats and my papers. If you have nothing better, I even think that this second paper could go first; it’s a good subject, half-topical, half-general, as I would really like to do more often.
This Koupernik incident confirms for me the need to take precautions to avoid duplications. I’m more determined than ever to stay with you at L’Observateur, and you can count on me; but I think certain tendencies of the journal overall must come to an end. I’ll make specific proposals to you on this subject when I return.
I’m going to try to telephone you this evening, because I’d like to be sure that you can stop my first article and replace it with the second. But, for now, forgive me all the countermands
this fall. I hope I haven’t made your job too complicated.
I’ll revise the first paper and you can run it in Les Lettres nouvelles in October if you like.5 Does that work for you?
In haste (until Tuesday),
Your friend,
Roland
* * *
Valence, August 21, [1955]
My dear Maurice, what a fuss over this article!6 You must have worried yourself sick about it (if you’re in Paris), but let me assure you that I did too! I was all tied up with my courses until Friday, August 12, literally from morning till night, impossible to write a line.7 We left on August 13; I couldn’t make the family wait and, naturally as soon as the trip began, was barraged by major obstacles that kept me from finding the few necessary hours for work each day: upsets, hotels full, noise, etc. We had to land in Valence for me to find the two necessary days. The outcome isn’t very good. It’s a bit heavy and I botched the subject. Well, it’s done. I assure you I was very worried about it. The family can tell you so. I know that I’m holding up the issue. And that was driving me mad. Please don’t hold it against me too much.
Apart from that, a magnificent trip for what I saw of it through the Tour de France! We’re continuing south. I return about the tenth, but I’m going to get to work now on the next mythology.8 Trust me and don’t worry.
If you have time, send me a note, general delivery Madrid, to tell me there are no hard feelings and where you’re spending your vacation.
Faithful affection to you both, your old friend,
Roland
I’m sending the manuscript to Chantenay early tomorrow morning.
* * *
Hendaye, September 22, 1957
My dear Maurice,
Some fellow sent me this text to pass along to you, which I’m doing. It has certain qualities, I think, but is there something hiding behind this good rural realism? I can’t decide.
I’ll be returning to Paris soon; Hendaye has still not succeeded in obliterating the summer I had; that is to say, I’m working very badly, without enthusiasm or ideas. I’m drawing a blank.
Don’t get angry, Maurice, but I’d like for us to talk about my participation on the editorial board.9 Of course, it’s not a burden, given my lamentably lazy way of participating, nor is it a responsibility, since I have absolute confidence in everything you do at the review. Rather it’s a more general question for me. For a long time now I have wanted to withdraw formally from all such commitments that my laziness and my fits of solipsism, in fact, render illusory (Prix de Mai, Arguments, Théâtre populaire).10 And if I do this, it must be for all of them. Tell me what you think. For nothing in the world would I want to upset you or cut myself off from you; you can count on me completely. But, how to say this, I’d like to set up this year for myself as a “sabbatical year,” like American university professors get every seven years, twelve months “without responsibilities.” Maybe leave Paris often, for example (for this reason I’m not going to resume my classes at the Sorbonne).11 Basically, it would almost be easier for me to give you a new text sometimes than to provide a “Parisian” presence. This is probably a bout of subjectivity, not very pretty from an “engaged” perspective; but basically I prefer trying to let it run its course. Well, nothing dramatic or urgent here. Answer me from the general perspective of the review.
In haste, your friend,
Roland
Etchetoa
Hendaye-Plage
* * *
Urt, June 21, 1965
My dear Maurice,
It has been a long time since I’ve seen you—for the stupid reasons you know, being overwhelmed with work, with Parisian dissipation. But I think of you affectionately, faithfully, in solidarity as well now when everything you do, everything you have done is threatened (I know nothing more about it than what Le Monde said, but enough to infuriate and disgust me).12 Please know that, as a friend from the beginning, I’m at your side and if you need me in any way at all, you must let me know. I won’t be in Paris anymore during the summer, except for quickly passing through, but you can write to me. And in the fall we’ll have a long chat.
Best to Marthe and you,
Your friend, Roland
Urt, Basses-Pyrénées
* * *
Urt, April 13, [1966]
Dear Maurice,
I’m sending you my note on Benveniste right away.13 I would have liked it to be much better because the book is important, but it’s very difficult to do. I only saw a way to approach the book once I was completely finished and sadly I’m too swamped with work to start over. At least these few lines, if you approve them, will highlight the book. I won’t read the Revel or the Finas piece on me until I return to Paris next week.14 I’m anxious to work quietly here and I have a good method of doing a whole block of reading from time to time; otherwise I waste time fretting. I’m leaving it to you, Maurice, to decide if there’s some incompatibility between the Revel and my work with La Quinzaine.15 You tell me no, and I trust you, but please, consider the problem one last time.a We can telephone when I return.
Very best,
Roland
* * *
Friday, [April? 1967]
My dear Maurice,
Here’s the short text on Severo Sarduy.16 I’m afraid it may be a bit abstruse and that Erval will be livid.17 But I don’t have time to make it better and I would still like very much to help Sevoro, with your help. I’m leaving tomorrow for a week in Urt. If there’s anything urgent, you could telephone me (47 at Urt, Basses-Pyrénées).
Your faithful friend,
Roland
* * *
January 21, 1969
My dear Maurice, I would really like to see you again soon, but in the meantime, would you agree to letting me talk about Jean-Louis Schefer’s book, Scénographie d’un tableau, in La Quinzaine?18 I’ve known J.-L. Schefer since he was very young; I like him, I admire him, I know he needs money, and I would like to help him, especially because his book, I know, is not easy to read or to critique, although, in my opinion, it is, fundamentally, remarkable. What do you think?
Your friend,
Roland
* * *
February 15, 1969
My dear Maurice,
Here’s my text on Schefer. I realize that it’s very elliptical. This is not, as I see it, a true review but only a sort of alert. I hope that it will do and I thank you for accommodating it. You know, you must be sure, that I would like to write for La Quinzaine, but you must also see that I’m hardly writing any articles anymore; l’École des Hautes Études has become a real job, very burdensome, and I’m endlessly struggling to retain at least the possibility of writing a book from time to time; and even that’s in question. I’d like to talk to you about all this. For Marthe and for you, the affection of your old friend, Roland.
* * *
October 7, 1971
My dear Maurice,
You put me in an awkward position, because I don’t have the heart to refuse you anything no matter what it is (to say nothing of my ongoing attachment to Michelet), but at the same time, those three months of the year are now beginning when I can do nothing but prepare my seminar. I have to provide two hours of new discussion each week, and I don’t manage it very well.
I don’t have a block for continuous work before me. Thus, this Michelet appears at a very bad time.19 So as not to be completely negative, could you combine something I could give you—say two pages, more an account than a critique—with another article? That I could do, if need be, as long as I don’t have to read too much in advance and get weighed down with the Superego of a “review.” What do you think?
Try to call me some morning.
Your friend,
Roland
* * *
March 15, 1973
Dear Maurice,
Thank you again from the bottom of my heart for your article in La Quinzaine.20 It made me so happy to feel all the freshness you bring to your reading,
as you did for me more than twenty years ago.21
Your friend,
Roland
* * *
January 25, 1975
Dear Maurice,
It’s a good idea and I’m going to try it.22 As quickly as possible. Thanks for this proposal.
In haste but yours truly, both of you,
R. Barthes
* * *
October 26, 1975
Dear Maurice,
My deep sympathy, of course. I will give you the “paintings” you want—if that’s not too ridiculous.23 Just tell me when you need them and where to send them. As for the debate, no, I’m sorry; I no longer have any heart for these things. I handle them poorly, as I please, and that, as far as I’m concerned, benefits no one. It’s partly a question of temperament; mine is hardly profitable at this point—and not a bit brilliant!
Your faithful friend,
Roland
* * *
December 23, 1976
Dear Maurice,
Thank you for asking me for this lesson.24 I’m touched and would be touched to have the last “exam” of my life published by you who were my first examiner: confident and efficient. Of course it has already been requested, not only by Seuil, but also by Nora.25 In fact, there’s no decision to make, because the College—this is the rule—first publishes the text in a small volume, and it cannot be published (commercially) until six months after the copyright registration. What I can tell you is that I’m going to try very hard to give it to you—arguing from the emotional and symbolic factor that I mentioned at the start.26
Your friend,
Roland
* * *
February 21, 1977
Dear Maurice,
I do understand your plan, but as far as I’m concerned it won’t be possible. I’m overworked, harried, swamped, and I desire only one thing: to withdraw from all “appearances.” I can hardly bear anything involving public debate and I have decided as I get older not to force myself to do what makes me uncomfortable any more. All these reasons made me turn down Bernard-Henri Lévy despite his insistence in wanting me to participate in a debate with Attali at this same Beaubourg. I can’t accept your request now having just refused that one. Really, it’s not all that serious; I’m not a good debater and the theme of power belongs much more to Foucault and Deleuze than to me.27 Please excuse me, Maurice, good luck, I wish you success.