Metamorphosism

Why everyone loves Roland Barthes

The elegance and originality of Roland Barthes' thought and expression are legendary. It was this very quality that led Raymond Picard to attack him for what he vaguely termed disrespect to the "culture’s literary roots." But Barthes rebutted, in Criticism and Truth (1966), his precise passes split open Picard's defense, his fakes sent critics the wrong way, and he even twice pointed one way as if to indicate the direction of his pass and then turned around sharply in his signature spin move. He denigrated bourgeois criticism as "unconcerned with the finer points of language and capable of selective ignorance towards challenging concepts of theories like Marxism." His quarterfinal showing against Picard is considered by many semioticians one of his best performances and perhaps better than the final eight years previous.

A semiotician of uncommon skill and rare technical poise, Barthes' ability to control almost any text, his elegance, vision and penchant for big-game metaphors has seen him compared with some of the greatest creative talents in the game, like M.M.Bakhtin and Levi-Strauss.

I credit Barthes for, if not getting me interested in semiotics in the first place, at least holding my interest and inspiring me, in an almost heroic manner, if a grown man can be allowed to say such a thing.

Next to Barthes and his seminal works such as his 1968 essay “The Death of the Author”, which made such a lasting contribution to deconstructionist theory and investigated the logical ends of structuralist thought, Umberto Eco can be called a hack, a journeyman at best. Anyone who has seen videos of Eco's lectures cannot deny a distinct talent and charisma, but he does not approach the grace and professionalism of Barthes. Eco's habitual resort to dirty tactics, nasty fouls and violence against his opponents should, in my opinion, result not in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge "bad-boy" image, but indeed in his banishment from semiotics altogether.

No one knows what Eco said to Barthes that day. Barthes had taken a lot. He was exhausted. He had been taking hits all day long, including what looked to me like a shoulder injury intentionally inflicted by the opposing team. Barthes has a long fuse, that is well known. As is what happens when that fuse finally burns down.

We've all seen the instant replays, Eco holding Barthes' shirt, Barthes giving him a cold look and walking away. Then it happened. Eco followed him, still speaking. Maybe we will never know exactly what Eco said to him. Brazilian lip-readers say he called "Camera Lucida" a "shallow work of sentiment and grief." German experts, on the other hand, say Eco accused Barthes of "cribbing everything from Derrida." What happened next we all know - Eco flat on his back from an expert headbutt to the chest. Barthes was ejected from his final conference, entering what many expected would now be an ignominous retirement.

Much to everyone's surprise, Barthes' rash act only endeared him more to fans. A hero with feet of clay. Human, not god. Unforgettable, if not immortal.

tip of the hat to wikipedia, where i cribbed most of this crap