Barthes

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) was a French literary theorist, semiotician, and cultural critic whose work helped shape structuralism and post-structuralism. Writing across literature, philosophy, and media studies, he analyzed how language and culture convey meaning through systems of signs. Barthes taught and wrote in Paris, including a long association with the Collège de France, and his essays remain central to contemporary literary and cultural theory.

Among Barthes's major works are Writing Degree Zero (1953), Mythologies (1957), and S/Z (1970). He introduced the idea that texts encode social norms and myths through signs, and he argued that readers actively construct meaning rather than passively receiving it from an author. In Mythologies, he examined popular culture and everyday phenomena as sign systems. In S/Z, he analyzed a short story to demonstrate different codes shaping interpretation.

Barthes is famous for the Death of the Author (1967), which contends that a text's meaning derives from the reader and cultural context rather than the author’s intent. He later developed concepts such as the writerly versus the readerly text, and he explored the relationships among image, music, and text. His later reflections on photography, notably in Camera Lucida (1980), frame photography as a site where meaning is produced by spectatorship and memory.

Barthes's influence extends across literary theory, film studies, media studies, and cultural criticism. While celebrated for his stylistic clarity and innovative approach, he has also faced criticism for obscurity and the perceived relativism of meaning. His work continues to inform analyses of language, culture, and media in the humanities.