Reading through Photography: Roland Barthes's Last Seminar "Proust et la photographie"

Kathrin Yacavone

doi:10.1353/frf.0.0064

Abstract

Focused on Roland Barthes’s notes for the last seminar of his College de France lecture series, entitled “Proust et la photographie,” this article considers the later Barthes’s conceptions of reading and writing, arguing that they are closely intertwined with his reflections on photography. Marcel Proust is cast as the paradigmatic author in Barthes’s post-1968 critical writing, in which he serves as both an exemplar for the complex process of transforming life into literature and as a figure of profound identification for Barthes the would-be novelist. A la recherche du temps perdu is a clear case of a literary work informed by its author’s life that at the same time denies or problematises straightforward autobiography. For Barthes the experience and study of Proust’s masterpiece entails a play with autobiographical ‘clefs’ that can be considered an activity on the part of Barthes’s pleasure-seeking reader, one that has significant theoretical implications regarding the apprehension of any literary text. As analysis of “Proust et la photographie” and La Chambre claire reveals, the photograph for Barthes signifies the oscillation between the imaginary and the real, fiction and (auto)biography, that characterises both literary authorship and readership.

Highlights

Focused on Roland Barthes’s notes for the last seminar of his Collège de France lecture series, entitled “Proust et la photographie,” this article considers the later Barthes’s conceptions of reading and writing, arguing that they are closely intertwined with his reflections on photography
À la recherche du temps perdu is a clear case of a literary work informed by its author’s life that at the same time denies or problematises straightforward autobiography
There is an introduction, in which Barthes lays out the concepts that he wishes to address during the course of the seminar, followed by a large collection of photographic material – primarily late nineteenth-century portraits of Proust’s family, friends, and acquaintances taken by Paul Nadar, the son of the famous Felix Nadar – accompanied by short biographical notes on each person represented and his or her connection to Proust and his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu

Summary

Introduction

Focused on Roland Barthes’s notes for the last seminar of his Collège de France lecture series, entitled “Proust et la photographie,” this article considers the later Barthes’s conceptions of reading and writing, arguing that they are closely intertwined with his reflections on photography.

Results

Conclusion