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BOOK REVIEW
Roland Barthes (1977). Image Music Text, translated by Stephen Heath (London:
Fontana Books).
INTRODUCTION
This anthology of essays by the French semiologist Roland Barthes was ‘selected and
translated’ by Stephen Heath in 1977. It brings together Barthes’s musings on the
semiology of the image, the function of music, and the structure of the literary text.1
Heath begins with a brief glossary since the technical terms that he invokes in French
were not well-known to English speaking readers when this book was first
translated. They include analytic distinctions like ‘langue and parole, statement and
utterance, and pleasure and jouissance.’ The term ‘langue’ is used here in the sense of
language considered as a structural whole but the term ‘parole’ refers only to speech.
The term ‘statement’ is akin to a proposition while an ‘utterance’ is a temporal
instantiation of articulation. Pleasure is related to the reduction of homeostatic
tension in the subject though jouissance refers to that which is ‘beyond the pleasure
principle.’2 These analytic distinctions have been thoroughly lexicalized within
French semiology and can be taken for granted by French readers. They however
require formal definitions in translations for readers elsewhere. Barthes’s
preoccupation with the terms ‘image, music, and text’ can do with a preliminary
comment in this review as well. What Barthes means by ‘image’ includes press
photographs and paintings; music, in this instance, mainly refers to the distinction
between ‘what is heard’ and ‘what is played’ by the subject; and the term ‘text’
1 For a quick overview of Roland Barthes, see Andrew Edgar and Peter R. Sedgwick (2002).
‘Barthes’ in Cultural Theory: The Key Thinkers (London: Routledge), pp. 16-18.
2 See Sigmund Freud (1920). ‘Beyond the Pleasure Principle,’ translated by James Strachey,
edited by Angela Richards, On Metapsychology:The Theory of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 11, Penguin
Freud Library (London: Penguin Books, 1991),pp. 269-338. Some of these terms like ‘langue’
and ‘parole’ are also defined in Andrew Edgar and Peter R. Sedgwick (1999, 2008). Cultural
Theory: The Key Concepts (London: Routledge), p. 183 and p. 237.

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involves an attempt to mark the transition from the ‘work to the text.’3 This
transition was to become theoretically significant in the attempt to differentiate
between theories like structuralism, deconstruction, and post-structuralism. Barthes
not only explores the limits of structuralism, but also pre-empts the theories that
came after structuralism in the history of French thought.4
THE SCOPE OF SEMIOLOGY
In other words, Barthes’s theory is an attempt to not only delineate the scope of
semiology, but to also identify its limits as a tool of linguistic analysis. Readers
should also be aware of the analytic distinction between the terms ‘semiotics and
semiology.’ Semiotics is just the American version of semiology. Semiology, as
Barthes uses it, is the term that is used to refer to the work of French theorists who
are thinking through the implications of Ferdinand de Saussure’s work in general
linguistics on the differential model of natural languages and on his insights on the
‘arbitrariness’ of the linguistic sign. There is some give-and-take between these
traditions of analysis in America and France but French semiology is to be found
mainly in departments of English, French, and comparative literature while
American semiotics is more likely to be deployed in departments of philosophy and
linguistics. These analytic distinctions however are not only specific to semiology
and semiotics as forms of linguistics. Linguists in the Chomskyan tradition also use
analogous distinctions like ‘competence and performance.’ The former term refers
to linguistic and cognitive abilities; the latter term to specific acts of speech. Another
important analytic distinction that Barthes invokes is the difference between
denotation and connotation; the former term is mainly used in the singular and the
latter term in the plural. This distinction is useful both in interpreting images and
texts. Denotations relate to the referential or lexical meaning of a term; they refer
either to a literal object in the world or semantic objects in a dictionary.
Connotations, on the other hand, relate to the semantic associations that cluster
around a word. Scientific texts try to be as denotative as possible while literary texts
thrive on the range of connotative meanings that are built into a text. Barthes is also
interested in the rhetorical difference between ‘still images’ and ‘moving images’ in
his studies of the image. These differences constitute the main analytic distinction
3 The Barthesian definition of the image includes both photographs and paintings. For a
semiology of photography, see Roland Barthes (1984). Camera Lucida: Reflections on
Photography, translated by Richard Howard (London: Fontana Books).
4 See, for instance, Jonathan Culler (1975). Structuralist Poetics (London: Routledge) and
Terence Hawkes (1977). Structuralism and Semiotics (London: Methuen). For a genealogy of
linguistic formalism in French thought, see Michel Foucault (1972). The Archaeology of
Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York:
Pantheon).

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between photography and the cinema. But, within the cinema itself, Barthes points
out that such studies can be done by differentiating between cinematic stills and the
cinematic film in its entirety. Barthes illustrates these formal differences with an
analysis of the cinematic stills of Sergei Eisenstein that he modestly describes as
‘notes.’
BARTHESIAN SEMIOLOGY & BRECHTIAN THEATRE
Barthes is interested in Brechtian theatre; he also differentiates between Brechtian
and the traditional forms of mimetic theatre.5 The preoccupation with cinematic stills
and specific scenes in Brechtian theatre is to examine the non-mimetic dimensions of
theatrical representation since Brecht argued that the audience must not identify
with what is happening on stage. Instead the audience must retain its critical
awareness of what is being represented on the stage by the actors and not get swept
away. Brechtian theatre, to put it simply, has a greater degree of self-reflexivity and
irony than conventional forms of theatrical representation do.
Barthes’s interest in Brecht is also related to the fact that semiologists are less
interested in what is happening in the mind of the author or the reader and prefer to
focus on the structure of the text itself. The most important essay in this book is on
‘the structural analysis of narratives.’ The specific example of such an analysis that
Barthes invokes is from Genesis 32 (where Jacob struggles with the angel). Barthes’s
analysis of narrative structure begins with the contention that narratives can be
found in all literate cultures. So, in that sense, it seems like a fact of life itself even
though texts are cultural and not natural in origins; as Barthes puts it, ‘narrative is
international, transhistorical, transcultural.’ What Barthesian narrative analysis does
5 For a theory of mimesis, see Meyer H. Abrams (1953). ‘Mimetic Theories,’ The Mirror and
the Lamp: Romantic Theory and theCritical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 8-
14. For a background to Greek tragedy and its implications for a theory of theatre, see
Friedrich Nietzsche (1872,1993). The Birth of Tragedy, translated by Michael Tanner (London:
Penguin Books). For a percolation of these themes in the history of literature, see Keith M.
May (1990). Nietzsche and the Spirit of Tragedy (New York: St. Martin’s Press) and George
Steiner (1961). The Death of Tragedy (London: Faber and Faber).

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is to take even further Vladimir Propp’s breakthrough analysis of ‘the morphology
of the folktale.’ This approach is based on the assumption that all narratives share
some structural features in common and that the tools of linguistic analysis will help
us to ascertain what these are. So, for instance, it is common to invoke the structural
analysis of sentences as the paradigmatic instance of narrative analysis. Narrative
discourse is akin to a ‘long sentence’ and the sentence is like a ‘short discourse.’
Those who analyse sentences and those who analyse narratives therefore have a lot
to learn from each other in terms of method.6 It is for this reason that the analytic
categories of linguistics become important in areas like narrative analysis,
semiology, and literary theory. The levels of semantic analysis in which a narrative is
analysed is also modelled on the levels of sentential analysis in linguistics. Or, to put
it simply, theories focused on the interface of syntax and semantics in linguistic
theory can be applied to analyse narrative structures. Attempts to do this are known
as discourse analysis; the term ‘discourse’ brings together narratives of both the
literary and non-literary varieties to explore what underlying structures they have in
common. In these analyses, the focus is less on literature as such and more on the
conditions of possibility of narrative structures. Semiological analyses are also influenced
by the formalist distinction between literature and literariness; this distinction is
important because we encounter ‘literariness’ in not only traditional literary texts,
but also in genres that are not usually considered to be literature.7
THE UNITS OF ANALYSIS
Barthes emphasizes the importance of identifying the basic units of analysis in terms
of the narrative functions that they constitute in constructing a text. The purpose of
every narrative unit, to put it simply, is to take the narrative forward in time. The
purpose of descriptions is to orient the narrative in space and time and ensure that
the causal dimensions of the narrative trajectory are not lost track of by the readers.
Every narrative must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Even when narratives
begin in medias res, they make sense only by reference to what is missing in terms of
the complete narrative structure. It is even possible to write a history of literature by
examining the significant departures in narrative trajectories that constitute any
given author or period. So, for instance, literary critics are interested in finding out
whether a given writer is aware of what his departures are from the narrative norm
and whether his text is ‘self-reflexive’ and takes account of its own narrative status.
These forms of narrative self-consciousness then determine what constitutes the form or
6 See also Stanley Fish (2011). How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One (New York:
Harper).
7 Most of these technical terms and their definitions can also be found in Meyer H. Abrams
and Geoffrey G. Harpham (2009). A Handbook of Literary Terms (New Delhi: Cengage
Learning).

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theory of the aesthetic at stake in any given text. Semiologists have also developed
an elaborate syntax of narrative grammar to identify, classify, and deconstruct the
functional units that constitute the structure of a given narrative. Another important
dimension of narrative analysis relates to the relationship between plot, structure,
and character in order to ascertain which of these is the most explanatory. These
dimensions of structural analysis did not begin with the semiologists but have been
the mainstay of literary analysis since Aristotle.8 The main difference though is that
the semiologists do not define a narrative as the expression of a particular subject in
the locus of the author, but as forms of ‘narrative grammar’ that transcend both the
authorial function and the cultural differences that texts embody. In Chomskyan
terms, they are more focused on ‘competence’ than ‘performance.’ Any literary
performance then is only a point of entry for the semiologists to delineate the
underlying structure of the mind that enables literary competence.9 That is also the
main difference between traditional forms of literary criticism (which focus on
specific texts) and semiological analysis (which is more interested in a theory of
textuality). While there is not enough space here to explore all the dimensions of
narrative analysis in this review, the reader should get a feel for what is at stake in
semiology from this brief exposition.
CONCLUSION
The success of semiological analysis depends on moving away (as the new critics
also did) from the author and the reader as the main determinants of meaning in any
act of literary interpretation. The new critics bracketed off the literary text by
invoking the intentional and affective fallacies in terms of methodology; those
strictures are required in the semiology of narrative analysis as well. That is why
Barthes is willing to displace the author who is the locus of humanist criticism with
the impersonal authorial function. The implications of doing so are however less in
literary criticism than in areas outside literature. The transition from work to text as
the object of semiological analysis is only possible if the text becomes the main locus
of meaning. This necessarily means that semiology is a theory of writing. What should
writing aim at? For Barthes, the main preoccupation of writing should be with its
own literary status as writing and not try to be referential like science. In any case
8 For Aristotle’s take on literary theory, tragic drama, plot structure, character, the function
of catharsis, and rhetoric, see Aristotle’s Poetics, translated by Malcolm Heath (1996) from
(London: Penguin Books); and Aristotle’s The Art of Rhetoric, translated by H.C. Lawson-
Tancred (2004) from (London: Penguin Books).
9 For an exposition of the linguistic basis of semiotics, structuralism, and semiology as forms
of analysis see Roy Boyne (1996). ‘Structuralism,’ The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory,
edited by Bryan S. Turner (Oxford: Blackwell), pp. 194-220.

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the science ‘of’ writing is not be conflated with writing ‘about’ science by men of
letters.10 Barthes concludes with an attempt to explain to fellow ‘writers, intellectuals
and teachers’ the implications of taking his approach to semiology seriously. What
that means is that they have to think through systematically the difference between a
theory of speech and a theory of writing. I think Barthes’s own attempt to do so
becomes important in the context of the Derridean theory of ‘arche-writing.’11
Furthermore, Barthes explores the difference between the pedagogical functions
served by speech and writing in terms of its spatial, temporal, and retractable
functions.
In addition to the legal element, speech has pedagogical dimensions; it is intrinsic to
teaching like writing is intrinsic to research. The difference between speech and
writing is also important to make sense of a theory of the subject, the function of the
unconscious, the structure of discourse, and the definition of value. Jacques Lacan,
for instance, was given to differentiating between ‘empty speech’ and ‘full speech’ in
his theory of the subject and the analytic process.12 This anthology of essays will be
an invaluable addition to students of semiology, semiotics, literary theory, and
psychoanalysis.
SHIVA KUMAR SRINIVASAN
10 See Italo Calvino (1989). ‘Two Interviews on Science andLiterature,’ The LiteratureMachine
(London: Pan Books), pp. 28-38. See also Jorge Luis Borges (1999). Selected Non-Fictions,
translated by Esther Allen et al, edited by Eliot Weinberger (New York: Penguin Books) for
indications of how self-reflexivity in writing can serve as the basis for a theory of literary
ontology.
11 For a deconstructive theory of writing, see Jacques Derrida (1972, 1986). Margins of
Philosophy, translated by Alan Bass (Brighton: The Harvester Press).
12 See Jacques Lacan (1968). The Language of the Self: The Function of Language in Psychoanalysis,
translated by (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press).