Roland Barthes

Barthes can be understood as having established the foundations of modern cultural and literary theory. Similar to Foucault, Barthes is a troublemaker since he questions and critiques what is taken to be commonsensical. Unsetting everything appeared to be his theoretical project, thwarting the stability in meanings.

Avant-garde, owes its etymological genesis to the words advanced guard which is symptomatic of something that is advanced and radical. The avant-garde then refers to the newer forms of art in the early 20th century that had revolutionary potential like Dadaism, cubism and even nouveau roman.

Sartre was doubtful of the French Communist Part which was modelled on the Russian Communist party in the post-war cold-war political climate. According to him, the modern writer does not have really a choice and is in a desert. In fact, Sartre’s “What is Literature?” is his reaffirmation of existentialism. But more importantly the aforesaid text lays the groundwork for and forms the context for “Writing Degree Zero” by Roland Barthes.

All authors create works out of the existing established language of literature. The emphasis is here on the word “language” since a particular author cannot have much leeway with the language system he is a part of in a specific temporality. According to Barthes, style can be distinguished from language which is much less generic and comes from the specificity of his body’s work which derives from his experiences. For Barthes, any form of “writing”, a third topic he discusses, vacillates between ‘freedom and remembrance’. But more the most part, writing speaks for the author’s specificity and pigeonholes the author.

Literature, like every other institution is influenced and owned by the bourgeoisie. Writing degree zero excludes the contamination of the established codes and conventions, it tries to escape the literature and tends to non-communication itself.Barthes account of writing is dialectical because he places freedom in the context of conflict with conventions and traditions.