The Barthes Effect
The Essay as Reflective Text

Réda Bensmaïa

Translated by Pat Fedkiew
Foreword by Michèle Richman

Acknowledges the essay as an eccentric phenomenon in literary history, one that has long resisted entry into the taxonomy of genres, as it concentrates on four works by Roland Barthes: The Pleasure of the Text, A Lover's Discourse, Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, and Camera Lucida. Maintains that with Barthes the essay achieves a status of its own, as reflective text.

"A study rigorously conscious of the critical maneuvers it executes and, more importantly, questions as critical practice Bensmaïa's strategy produces a successful investigation of the interstices and slippages of meaning which Barthes addressed in his work." —SubStance

OUT OF PRINT
153 pages | 1987

Theory and History of Literature Series, volume 54