Introduction

• (3) Classical art: a universal spirit, without responsibility
  • the art is determined by social power
  • from 18th century (Romanticism) a critical spirit against the power starts to emerge.
• (5) writing is absence, “zero degree of writing”
  • as something that tries to be independent from ideology, resisting the ideological frame

Part One: What is Writing?

• Theme:
  • about Language, Style, modes of writing AND writers’ choice and responsibility
• language is about habits, pre-exisiting before the process of an author, and all authors are conservative in front of language, because “language is a frontier” (9)
• language as a socially constructed with a History as a Natural Order behind it. (10)
  • thus, for authors, what they create is “a distant setting of familiarity” (writers use the same/familiar language, but they are different from one another, that is why Barthes says “the value … is entirely negative.”)
• Style is embodied by the individual, developed along with the writer’s development of their use of language. That is why Barthes says, style’s “frame of reference is biological, not historical.” “Historical” means a history that is objective and disembodied from the author. (11)
  • Mattes: Style can also be related to genre, such as political style, children literature style. But I don’t agree with it. For Barthes, style is more an individual concept, a biological one.
• “it is in no way the product of a choice” (11)
  • Style is not a choice, but before the formation, language stands before the author, to cultivate them, to make them acquire a style
• speech vs writing (11-12)
  • writing has styles.
  • speech is horizontal: it flows in time, in a one-dimensional linear vector
  • style, vertical dimension: the secret/myth of the style is within the writer
• “virtue of style is not a matter of speed… in a matter of density” (12)
  • a self-explanation for Barthes, why his writing is difficult
• art vs style (12)
  • for Barthes, art is socially recognized, is conservative
  • style is innovative, having the risk not to be recognized.
• (13) In language, one finds a familiar History, in the latter, a familiar personal past.
  • language is socially constructed
  • style is about how one develops
• Writing coordinates both language and style (13)
• “the formal identity of the writer is truly established only outside the permanence of …” (13)
  • language and style are determined, but Barthes says there is a chance to go beyond determinism– writing.
  • Here comes “the choice of a human attitude” (14)
  • the writer can manifest him to “History of the Others.” Now, the writer has a self.
• Writing is a function (14)
  • writing is itself a relation between the Natural language and style AND the writer
• Modern writers are different from older generations in their modes of writing (15)
  • modes of writing (innovation) > the same language
  • writing becomes a moral choice responding to the social reality
• (16) “he voluntarily places the need for a free language at the sources of this language and not in its eventual consumption”
  • a writer tries to be as free as possible within the unfree framework.
  • thus, through writing, the limits are still clear
• (16) “the pressure from a History of Writing”
  • the conservative power of the history of writing
  • duration: a mode of writing becomes visible needs duration, and duration is conservative, meaning doing the same thing over and over. It is a prison.
• (17) new modes of writing, or the choice of writers, question the unity of History