Roland Barthes᾿s Scientific and Methodological Contribution to the Study of World Literature

Abstract

Roland Barthes, a French philosopher and linguist, influenced the entire world philology. The basis of all his scientific works is the development of a methodology for studying a literary work, an important task of which is to establish the structure of the work. Barthes’s complements the formulated theoretical propositions with examples of the analysis of specific works, which are examples of structural analysis for literary researchers. Bartes’s scientific and methodological heritage is defined by three main concepts: structuralism, semiotics and linguistic symbolism, which are consubstantial concepts, closely related to each other. According to Barthes, structuralism, generated by the language model, appears as a type of creative practice consisting of the dismemberment of reality, and then of its reconstruction based on the analogy of the functions of the detectable units. Bulgakov᾿s work “The Master and Margarita” has never been subjected to structural analysis following the example of Bartes able to reveal its semiotic and symbolic meaning. The article is devoted to the structural consecration of the genre belonging of the work as a personal “diary” of the writer and the intentional interaction of two large narrative units that make up the intertext. Barthes’s semiotic structuralism helps to see the writer’s unique innovation in the narrative structure of the work, deep symbolism generated by biographical and historical sociology.