Album: Unpublished Correspondence and Texts

by Roland Barthes

  42. This book by Georges Perros was published by Gallimard in March 1960 (see also the letter to Michel Butor from April 11, 1960, p. XXX).

  43. In a letter to Michel Butor, Georges Perros wrote to him regarding Papiers collés: “Barthes wrote me that it’s a ‘friendly’ book. I don’t ask for more.” Butor and Perros, Correspondance, 49.

  44. Tania, Perros’s companion, was expecting a child; unfortunately she would have a miscarriage (ibid., 56).

  45. Barthes wrote a very harsh review of the production by Peter Brook at the Théâtre du Gymnase in Théâtre popular in the second quarter of 1960 (OC, vol. 1, 1037–38).

  46. La Mère, a novel by Maxime Gorki adapted for theater by Bertolt Brecht, was performed by the Berliner Ensemble at the Théâtre des Nations. Barthes wrote a review of it for Théâtre populaire in the third quarter of 1960, reprinted in Essais critiques (OC, vol. 2, 400–2).

  47. It’s a question of Souffleur, ou le Théâtre de société, published by Pauvert.

  48. The summer of 1960 saw the appearance of the Manifeste des 121 that Barthes did not sign.

  49. Tania is Georges Perros’s wife, the “little one” is Frédéric, their first child.

  50. That is to say, Barthes would like a tenured position, which he obtained in 1962 (see the letter from June 17, 1962, p. XXX).

  51. A reference to the manuscript of his thesis on Fashion tied to his candidacy for a position as director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études? Barthes published no books in 1962.

  52. The status of director of studies corresponds to that of university professor. Barthes worked in the research laboratory on “Sociology of signs, symbols, and representations” at the École Pratique des Hautes Études.

  53. At that time, the State thesis was routinely accompanied by a secondary thesis, called the “little thesis.” This one involved editing a text by Charles Fourier.

  54. Barthes’s first seminar (1962–63) was titled “Inventory of Contemporary Systems of Signification: System of Objects (Clothing, Food, Lodging).” Among the students taking that seminar were Jean Baudrillard, Luc Boltanski, Olivier Burgelin, Jacques-Alain Miller, Jean-Claude Milner, and Robert David (OC, vol. 2, 253–54).

  55. Barthes writes “raison” for “raisin” here, but surely he meant grape seed.

  56. On this subject, see the correspondence with Maurice Blanchot and the introductory note, p. XXX.

  57. We have not found that note; it must be the one titled “Mémorandum sur le cours de choses,” composed by Maurice Blanchot and presented in “Le Dossier de la ‘Revue internationale,’ ” cited file, p. 185–86.

  58. See the correspondence with Blanchot regarding the meeting in Zurich on January 19–20, 1963, p. XXX.

  59. As we have seen, the “Revue internationale” would never appear.

  60. Essais critiques had just appeared. In a letter to Michel Butor from April 1964, Georges Perros commented on Barthes book in this way: “It’s always very exciting. With something existentially sad about it. It’s really true that we’ve passed from medicine to surgery, and then to, I don’t know, whatever psychoanalysis verges on but ruins most of the time.” Butor and Perros, Correspondance, 166.

  61. See the letter from Michel Butor to Roland Barthes from June 2, 1964, p. XXX.

  62. Roland Barthes was then teaching at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

  63. Système de la mode appeared in 1967, and Barthes did not send it to Perros, as he did his earlier books, no doubt forgetting the promise that appears in his letter from November 19, 1961 (see p. XXX).

  64. In most illustrations, Klossowski’s heroine, Roberte, wears suits.

  65. We don’t know the content of Perros’s letter, but can imagine it concerns S/Z, which had just come out.

  66. In the section “Lectures,” Perros devotes several pages to Barthes under the title “Barthes étoile” where it is a question essentially of L’Empire des signes. Perros writes, “And there is the subject of a world à la Fourier, bathed in his amorous time, writing becoming possible again, desirable beginning from nothing, this nothing so precisely manifest, but inexplicable, in haiku, with its inflexibility, its rigorous idleness that enchanted him.” Papiers collés 2 (1973; Paris: Gallimard, 1998), 293–94.

  67. Perros’s letter must concern Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes.

  68. Georges Perros, a victim of cancer of the larnyx, underwent an operation in early March at the Leannec Hospital in Paris. The operation, which involved the vocal chords, restricted him to silence, and he would relate that experience in L’Ardoise magique (Givre, 1978), published posthumously and reprinted in Papiers collés 3 (Gallimard, 1978).

  69. Barthes must have reread Papiers collés 2 (Gallimard, 1973).

  70. On this affair, see our note 3 in the letter to Michel Butor from November 21, 1965, p. XXX.

  71. Jean Starobinski is making an allusion to the critics Robert Kemp (1879–1959) and Robert Coiplet (on the latter, see our note 36 in chapter 2 in the letter from Roland Barthes to Jean Lacroix from May 11, 1957, p. XXX). Barthes often treated Robert Kemp harshly in his editorials for Théâtre populaire (see for example OC, vol. 1, 524 or 591).

  72. Jean Starobinski published “Racine et la poétique du regard” in La Nouvelle Revue française in August 1957, reprinted in L’Oeil vivant (Gallimard, 1961). Barthes published Sur Racine in 1963, but the first part appeared originally as the preface to the volumes 11 and 12 of Racine’s play with the Club Français de Livre.

  73. An unfortunate slip by Barthes in the original French here; he writes je ne suis plus que d’accord (I no longer agree with you) rather than je suis plus que d’accord (I more than agree with you).

  74. Jean Starobinski would also publish a preface in Maximes (UGE, 1964).

  75. This must be a reference to the ten days in Cerisy on “The Present Directions of Criticism” (September 2–12, 1966) in which the great names of the “Nouvelle Critique” participated (Gérard Genette, Paul de Man, Jean Ricardou, Serge Doubrovsky), but neither Roland Barthes nor Jean Starobinski.

  76. Starobinski invited Barthes to teach a seminar at the University of Geneva in January-February 1971.

  77. L’Empire des signes had just been published by Skira.

  78. Jean Rousset (1910–2002), eminent critic and professor at the University of Geneva, author especially of Forme et signification (Corti, 1962).

  79. It is in the part titled “Français, encore un effort si vous voulez être républicains” that this treatise appears in de Sade’s work published in 1795.

  80. “Le Coucou” is a piece for harpsichord by François Couperin that Jean Starobinski’s son Georges played, who was then about ten years old.

  81. Albert Skira had proposed to Roland Barthes that he direct a series for his publishing house.

  82. Entretiens et conférences, vol. 2 (Nantes: Joseph K, 2003), 328.

  83. It is probably a matter of texts that Georges Perec wrote between 1959 and 1962, related to the plan for a review titled “La ligne générale” that never materialized, although the texts would appear in the form of articles in 1962–63 in the Partisans review founded by François Maspero in 1961. They were reprinted posthumously in L. G.: Une aventure des années soixante (Seuil, 1999).

  84. Is this the manuscript of “Portulan,” Perec’s attempt to rewrite Joyce’s Ulysses that he was working on in 1962?

  85. The manuscript titled “La Grande aventure” was delivered to Roland Barthes on December 11, 1962, according to Georges Perec’s biographer, David Bellow, and the response from Barthes seems to date from January 1963. This novel was rejected by Gallimard in June 1964, and then accepted conditionally by Maurice Nadeau in his “Les Lettres nouvelles” collection with Julliard. Reworked by Perec, it would become the manuscript for Les Choses, which appeared in 1965. David Bellos, Georges Perec: Une vie dans les mots (Paris: Seuil, 1994), 313–18.

  86. Georges Perec had just won the Prix Renaudot for Les Chos
es, un histoires des années soixante (see preceding note).

  87. “Un Homme qui dort” appeared in the March 1967 issue of Temps modernes; the novel was published the same year with Denoël in the collection edited by Maurice Nadeau.

  88. Le Système de la mode was published in 1967.

  89. An exhibition of paintings and drawings by Pierre Getzler, a great friend of Georges Perec, took place in Perec’s apartment, 92 Rue de Bac, Paris VIIe, in December 1967.

  90. Georges Perec never published this commentary on Système de la mode, which was quite critical apparently from Roland Barthes’s remarks.

  91. It was not in Le Nouvel Observateur but in La Quinzaine littéraire from June 1, 1970, that Barthes published a text on Massin, La Lettre de l’Image, with a preface by Raymond Queneau (Gallimard, 1970).

  92. Roland Barthes was responding no doubt to receiving Oulipo: Créations, re-créations, published in 1972 in Gallimard’s “Idées” collection.

  93. La Boutique obscures: 124 rêves appeared that year with Denoël.

  94. Sur Racine.

  95. La Séparation, as mentioned earlier, is the play for theater that Claude Simon took from L’Herbe. It was presented at the Théatre de Lutèce in a production by Nicole Kessel in 1963.

  96. The preface to Bruce Morissette, Les Romans de Robbe-Grillet (Minuit, 1963), reprinted in Essais critiques (OC, vol. 2, 458–59).

  97. Réa is Claude Simon’s wife.

  98. It is a matter of Essais critiques, which had just been published.

  99. It’s a matter of Critique et vérité.

  100. Séméiotiké, recherches pour un sémanalyse is Julia Kristeva’s first book, published in 1969 by Éditions de Seuil in the “Tel Quel” collection. Barthes devoted an article to it in La Quinzaine littéraire of May 1, 1970 (OC, vol. 3, 477–80).

  101. The article by Julia Kristeva titled “Le Sens et la mode” appeared in the December 1967 issue of the Critique review edited by Jean Piel.

  102. For Johns Hopkins University; see the letter to Jacques Derrida from November 20, 1967, p. XXX.

  103. Allusion to her son David, whom she had with Philippe Sollers, born in 1975.

  104. “Ce qu’il advient au Signifiant” (OC, vol. 3, 609).

  105. The manuscript in question is Éden, Éden, Éden (as mentioned earlier). Barthes wrote this letter after reading the manuscript and before any mention of the plan for a triple preface.

  106. Barthes was in Morocco, teaching at the University of Rabat, when he wrote his preface to Éden, Éden, Éden, which he compares to the letter he wrote previously regarding the book.

  107. Guyotat’s play, Bond en avant, was produced that year at the Recontres Internationales de musique contemporaine de La Rochelle, and again at the Cartoucherie de Vincennes from April 25 to May 20, where Barthes saw it.

  108. The actor François Kuki, who with Alain Olivier performed the play, which previously involved four actors.

  109. “Les morts de Roland Barthes” appeared in Poétique in September 1981, was reprinted in the first volume of Psyché (Galilée, 1987), and then in Chaque fois unique, la fin du monde (Galilée, 2003).

  110. L’Écriture et la Différence appeared with Éditions du Seuil in 1967, in the “Tel Quel” collection, the same year as La Grammatologie (Minuit) and La Vois et le Phénomène (PUF).

  111. René Girard was the head of the Department of Romance Languages at Johns Hopkins University at the time.

  112. La Grammatologie appeared that year from Éditions de Minuit.

  113. In the March 29, 1972, issue of Les Lettres françaises appeared a letter from Roland Barthes to Jean Ristat regarding Jacques Derrida (OC, vol. 4, 125–26).

  114. Published in the issue of Critique devoted to Roland Barthes in 1982.

  115. First published in L’Infini in spring 2004 accompanied by an introductory note, it was reprinted in a posthumous volume, Le Text Japon, introuvables et inédits (Seuil, 2009).

  116. Barthes is alluding to the first trip he has just taken to Japan, from May 2 to June 2, at the invitation of Maurice Pinguet.

  117. In Pesaro, Barthes read a paper titled “Principi e scopi dell’analisi strutturale,” which covers the essence of his “Introduction à l’analyse structurale des récits”; in Turin, he presented the Italian translation of his Essais critiques.

  118. For Romanian, it seems that Barthes speaks of dor, which means “lack,” “languor,” “longing,” and “desire” as well. It is a favorite word of Romanian Romantic poets.

  119. The lira, of course, is the Italian monetary unit now replaced by the euro.

  120. His photo appears at the beginning and end of L’Empire des signes (“of the half-smile”).

  121. Yurakucho is one of Tokyo’s busy shopping districts.

  122. One chapter in L’Empire des signes is titled “Le Visage écrit.”

  123. Yuichi is a masculine Japanese first name; we don’t know precisely who this is.

  124. A reference to François Braunschweig.

  125. Robert Mauzi and Michel Foucault, respectively.

  126. André was Maurice Pinguet’s companion.

  127. Mutual Japanese friends of Pinguet and Barthes.

  128. Mikata in Japanese means “friends,” “those near and dear,” “those on our side.”

  129. No doubt the book by Oreste Vaccari, Pictorial Chinese-Japanese Characters (Trubner, 1950).

  130. To Baltimore, Maryland, for the colloquium at Johns Hopkins University and other lectures.

  131. Barthes would have to wait until spring 1967 for his second trip to Japan (from March 4 to April 5).

  132. This may be Robert Mauzi.

  133. A reference to L’Empire des signes, which had just been published by Skira Editions and was dedicated to Maurice Pinguet.

  134. Claire Bretécher had just published “La Vie passionnée de Thérèse d’Avila” in Le Nouvel Observateur.

  135. A crease in the paper, text illegible.

  136. Maurice Pinguet’s letter was written on a preprinted, limited format “aerogram.”

  137. See our note 146 for the letter from February 15, 1975, p. XXX.

  138. OC, vol. 5, 684–87.

  139. OC, vol. 5, 915–28.

  140. The lettter is written on letterhead from the Jolly President Hotel of Milan. An error in the date: it must be Monday, June 3.

  141. Upon returning from China, Roland Barthes published “Alors, la Chine?” in Le Monde, May 24, 1974.

  142. Barthes was attending the first conference of the International Association of Semiotics, which was held in Milan from June 2–6, 1974.

  143. Written on a postcard showing the Glasgow theater’s performance of Cinderella (1880).

  144. Roland Barthes was preparing Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes.

  145. In Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes, it reads, “X. tells me one day he decided ‘to exonerate his life from its unhappy loves,’ and that this phrase seemed so splendid to him that it almost managed to compensate for the failures that had provoked it; he then determined (and determined me) to take more advantage of this reservoir of irony in all (aesthetic) language” (OC, vol. 4, 719). We now know through this letter that “X.” is none other than Barthes himself.

  146. Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes was published in February and Renaud Camus had just published his first book, Passage, with Flammarion. In La Quinzaine littérarire from May 1, 1975, Barthes would publish excerpts from a dialogue with Renaud Camus broadcast on France Culture March 19, 1974.

  147. Daniel Cordier, whom Roland Barthes knew by way of contemporary art. Barthes would write an important text on one of the artists, Bernard Réquichot, who showed in the gallery that Cordier owned: “Réquichot et son corps” (OC, vol. 4, 377–400). In Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes, we find a photo of Barthes working in this villa, Juan-les-Pins (OC, vol. 4, 618).

  148. A reference to Bertrand Visage, who was just twenty-three years old, contributed to the Gulliver review create
d by André Bercoff, and sent Roland Barthes a letter in hopes of an interview when Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes appeared. Barthes answered in a letter from February 23 (private collection): “In a general way, your questions would truly make for an excellent critical work. Do it. That would be much better than if I rehashed one more time my explanations on the subject—and even for the journal, because it has now become novel for a journal to offer a critical article.” In 1973, Barthes had done a very fine interview with Bertrand Visage on Le Plaisir du texte, titled “L’Adjectif est les ‘dire’ du désir” (Gulliver, March 1973; OC, vol. 3, 463–68).

  149. A reference to William Burke, Renaud Camus’s companion at that time.

  150. Barthes is citing fragment 31 from the Greek poet Sappho (630–580 BCE), which usually goes by the title “À une femme aimée” in French, as in the translation by Théodore Reinach: Alcée, Sappho (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1937). For an English translation, see If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, trans. Anne Carson (New York: Random House, 2002), 63. He doesn’t cite the very beautiful last line, which is incomplete, it’s true: “But one must risk everything, since.”

  151. Allusion to the postcard on which Barthes was writing, showing a painting by Canaletto titled The Giants’ Stairway of the Doge’s Palace (Collection of the Duke of Northumberland, Alnwick, 1755–56).

  152. The “figures” of Fragments d’un discours amoureux. In the end, Roland Barthes would only keep twenty-five of these hundred figures for the book.

  153. The opposition between katalepsis and kapaleipsis is at the heart of the first session of the second seminar on amorous discourse (January 8, 1976). Katalepsis, a term from stoicism, designates the comprehension, the grasping of an object, thus mastery and hold, whereas, with kataleipsis, discourse, instead of the object being grasped, something slips, something is left over. See Roland Barthes, Fragments d’un discours amoureux (Seuil, 1977), 327–32.

  154. This question is addressed in the postscript to Fragments d’un discours amoureux, titled “Comment est fait ce livre,” not retained in its long version by Barthes, and replaced by a short version of a few pages, bearing the same title. By “Codes,” Barthes means the sources, the “terroirs” of his own text, from Werther, which is the guardian-text of Fragments, to the citations from which they are woven, to the references present in the margins of the book, to language, to theoretical sources. Ibid., 690–704.