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Loading... Elements of Semiology (original 1964; edition 1977)by Roland Barthes (Author), Annette Lavers (Translator), Colin Smith (Translator)
Work InformationElements of Semiology by Roland Barthes (1964)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. A key text in structuralism. From the Introduction by Barthes: "In his Course in General Linguistics, first published in 1916, Saussure postulated the existence of a general science of signs, or Semiology, of which linguistics would form only one part. Semiology, therefore aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification . . . The Elements here presented have as their sole aim the extraction from linguistics of analytical concepts which we think a priori to be sufficiently general to start semiological research on its way." no reviews | add a review
"Roland Barthes, the West's master critic, has given us fertile rereading of such classic French authors as Racine and Balzac, brought to attention lesser-known writers like Fourier and Loyola, studied the mythologies and sign systems of modern life and fashion, explored cinema and music, examined culture-as-system in Japan, tried to delineate the erotics of reading and writing, and touched provocatively on numerous other topics. What he shares with the best of his colleagues is the assumption that criticism is an attitude, not an act. He brings his readers questions and speculations that are always engaging and expansive. It is just this temperament that makes him the latest heir of the tradition of French moralistes--Montaigne, Diderot, Voltaire, and, in his own day, Gide and Sartre--who used their cultural conscience and experimental brilliance to synthesize intellectual, ethical, and literary concerns."--Jacob Stockinger, San Francisco Review of Books. No library descriptions found. |
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