Reverses of Modernity: The Concept of Poetry On Roland Barthes' Work

• Grant number: 13/06225-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2013
• End date: July 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Literature Theory
• Principal Investigator: Marcos Antonio Siscar
• Grantee: Marcio Renato Pinheiro da Silva
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Despite being usually known by his diversity of interests as well as of theoretical knowledges mobilized by his writing, the work of the French essayist Roland Barthes (1915-1980) keeps a constant which, unlike the aforementioned diversity, remains unexplored even today: the extremely tense and problematic relation with poetry. Tense and problematic because rare are the moments in which Barthes comes to poetry; when it does, he is very harsh with it (mainly on "Writing Degree Zero"), or uses it as an instrument (the first part of the seminar "The Preparation of the Novel"). This research aims to study this relation between Barthes and poetry based on the following hypothesis: these critics on poetry are explained and justified by what Barthes means by modernity (more precisely, such as originally conceived in "Writing Degree Zero", resumed in several of his early "Critical Essays" and revised in "The Pleasure of the Text"). Thus, this research aims to give visibility to essayist's reflections on modernity and poetry in his specificity and, from that, to contribute towards a reassessment of Roland Barthes' role in literary studies today.