Roland Barthes: Rhetorique de l'etymologie

Roland Barthes (1914--1980) is a French contemporary author whose status among 20th Century intellectuals and writers is uncertain. Critic, linguist, essayist, journalist, his works, composed between 1943 and 1980, have been influenced and shaped by various theoretical movements, and have shown different rhetorical styles. Therefore, his writings defy simplistic classifications and cannot be placed in any particular movement or genre. The ambiguities of his texts reflect the difficulties of modern French criticism, which, since the early sixties, has put in question its own possibilities and means.;This dissertation analyzes the writing process and ideology of Barthes through a recurrent characteristic of his texts: his use of etymologies. Our starting hypothesis is to put in question his constant references to Latin and Greek roots, asking whether there is a conflict between these etymologies and the general Barthesian interpretation of signs and significations viewed as plural and indefinitely open.;After the first part, which retraces the history and diverse practices of etymologies through the ages, we classify, in the second part, the different types of etymologies encountered in Barthes' works and their evolution. We conclude that two main types of etymologies exist in his texts: 'erudite' (or limited) and 'imaginary' (or metaphorical) etymologies. The third part examines the erudite etymologies through the ambivalent attitude of Barthes toward the lexicon. It shows how Barthes, in his last works, tried to insert these questionable etymologies into a more modern conception of signs. In the final and fourth part, we focus on the imaginary etymologies and demonstrate how, in the end, Barthes employs and creates imaginary etymologies and plays on words as a new, subversive critical tool reflecting the absence of any references, reality or truth external to words.