Reading Order
MythologiesMythologies Reading Order
Mythologies (1957) by Roland Barthes is the most widely read work of French structuralism — a collection of fifty-four short essays analyzing the myths of contemporary bourgeois culture (wrestling, steak and chips, the Citroën DS, striptease, the face of Garbo, Einstein's brain) followed by the theoretical essay 'Le Mythe aujourd'hui' that provides the semiological framework for the analyses. Barthes argues that bourgeois culture systematically naturalizes what is historical — presents its contingent values and practices as natural, inevitable, and universal — and that the task of criticism is to unmask this naturalization. The book is simultaneously one of the founding texts of structuralism and semiology, one of the most brilliantly written works of French criticism, and a cultural studies classic that established the study of popular culture as a legitimate intellectual enterprise. Barthes went on to develop the semiological method in S/Z (1970, a sentence-by-sentence analysis of a Balzac novella), Le Plaisir du texte (1973), Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes (1975), and the great late work La Chambre claire (1980), a meditation on photography written after the death of his mother.
Where to start
Read Mythologies first — start with the individual essays (they are each very short, 2–4 pages) and read 'Le Mythe aujourd'hui' last, after you have seen the method in action. Then read Le Plaisir du texte (1973) for the most accessible statement of Barthes's later work; S/Z (1970) for the systematic structuralist analysis of a text; and La Chambre claire (1980) for the late masterpiece on photography and mourning.
Complete Mythologies Book List
- 1Buy
Mythologies
Roland Barthes·1957·Start here — read the individual essays first, 'Le Mythe aujourd'hui' last; the most accessible and witty Barthes; the founding work of French cultural studies - 2Buy
Le Plaisir du texte
Roland Barthes·1973·The Pleasure of the Text — the most accessible statement of the later Barthes; the distinction between plaisir (comfort) and jouissance (bliss/disruption); read after Mythologies - 3Buy
S/Z
Roland Barthes·1970·The systematic structuralist analysis of Balzac's Sarrasine — sentence by sentence, code by code; the most rigorous Barthes; read after Mythologies and Le Plaisir du texte - 4Buy
La Chambre claire
Roland Barthes·1980·Camera Lucida — the late masterpiece on photography and mourning; the studium/punctum distinction; written after the death of his mother; the most personal Barthes - 5Buy
Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes·1975·Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes — the autobiography in alphabetical fragments; the most playful late Barthes; read after S/Z and La Chambre claire
Mythologies — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Barthes's theory of myth?
Barthes's theory of myth in Mythologies is semiological: a myth is a second-order sign system, a 'metalanguage,' in which a sign that already has a meaning becomes the signifier for a new meaning. The example he gives is the photograph of a Black French soldier saluting the tricolor on the cover of Paris Match: the sign (soldier saluting flag) becomes the signifier for a new myth (France is a great empire in which all her sons, regardless of race, serve loyally). The myth 'naturalizes' this meaning — it presents what is a historical, political, and contingent image (a colonial soldier) as the natural expression of an eternal truth (the greatness of France). Barthes's task in each essay is to identify the first-order sign that is being mythologized and to show what ideological work the myth is doing.
Why is the essay on wrestling the most famous in Mythologies?
The essay 'Le monde où l'on catche' (The World of Wrestling) is the most celebrated in Mythologies because it takes the apparently most despicable cultural form (the staged wrestling match) and treats it with the same seriological seriousness as any other cultural text. Barthes argues that wrestling is not a sport but a spectacle — it does not pretend to be real but openly enacts the myth of justice, of suffering, and of the defeat of evil. The wrestler who is booed is not being cheated — he is performing the social role of the villain, which everyone in the audience knows is a performance. The essay established the principle that popular culture could be analyzed with the same critical tools as high culture, and that analyzing it was more revealing of the society's mythologies.
What is the studium/punctum distinction in La Chambre claire?
La Chambre claire (Camera Lucida, 1980) is organized around a distinction between two kinds of interest a photograph can arouse: the studium (from the Latin, 'study') is the cultural, linguistic, political interest — the element of the photograph that is coded, that belongs to the photographer's intention and the viewer's cultural knowledge; and the punctum (from the Latin, 'point,' 'sting') is the accidental, wounding detail that 'pricks' the viewer — the element that the photographer did not intend and that arrests the viewer's gaze against their will. The studium is shared, general, cultural; the punctum is personal, involuntary, and wounding. The distinction is also autobiographical: Barthes wrote the book after his mother's death, and the punctum is associated with the traumatic reality that a photograph records a moment that has already passed.
What is Barthes's significance in French intellectual history?
Roland Barthes (1915–1980) occupies a central position in French intellectual life from the 1950s to his death: he was a leading figure of structuralism (Mythologies, Le Degré zéro de l'écriture, 1953), then of post-structuralism (S/Z, Le Plaisir du texte), and finally of a more personal, autobiographical mode that anticipated autofiction (Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes, La Chambre claire). He was Professor of Literary Semiology at the Collège de France from 1977 until his death in a road accident in 1980. His work established the study of cultural signs (semiology) as a central intellectual discipline in France and had an enormous influence on cultural studies, literary theory, and media studies internationally.
What is the Citroën DS essay about?
The essay 'La Nouvelle Citroën' is one of the most celebrated individual pieces in Mythologies: Barthes analyzes the design of the new Citroën DS (Déesse — both the model designation and the French word for 'goddess') as a mythological object. He argues that the DS is not a utilitarian vehicle but an object of total design — its every surface speaks of perfection, of materiality become spiritual, of the human desire to transform the mechanical into the magical. The essay demonstrates Barthes's method at its most brilliant: by treating a consumer object with the same attention that critics give to art, he reveals the ideology of perfection and seamlessness that the consumer society is selling alongside the car.
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