{"title":"Idols of the Fragment: Barthes and Critique","authors":"Simon Reader","doi":"10.1353/nlh.2024.a932368","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>Critics often valorize fragmentary writing as a device for subverting systems and liberating thought. Roland Barthes is an acknowledged aficionado of this style; this essay argues that he is equally one of its astute skeptics. While his early writings announce the need to dismantle bourgeois ideology in scattered strokes, his later works scrutinize the value of the piecemeal writing even as they ramify its aesthetic possibilities. Barthes's ambivalence replays an episode from the eighteenth century, when the Jena Romantics abruptly renounced the fragment on the grounds that its utopian promise easily devolved into parochial uses. Twenty-first century publishers continue to advertise fragmentary books as avant-garde provocations, but we should view this gesture as a conceit with a long history.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":19150,"journal":{"name":"New Literary History","volume":"115 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"New Literary History","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2024.a932368","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:
Critics often valorize fragmentary writing as a device for subverting systems and liberating thought. Roland Barthes is an acknowledged aficionado of this style; this essay argues that he is equally one of its astute skeptics. While his early writings announce the need to dismantle bourgeois ideology in scattered strokes, his later works scrutinize the value of the piecemeal writing even as they ramify its aesthetic possibilities. Barthes's ambivalence replays an episode from the eighteenth century, when the Jena Romantics abruptly renounced the fragment on the grounds that its utopian promise easily devolved into parochial uses. Twenty-first century publishers continue to advertise fragmentary books as avant-garde provocations, but we should view this gesture as a conceit with a long history.
期刊介绍:
New Literary History focuses on questions of theory, method, interpretation, and literary history. Rather than espousing a single ideology or intellectual framework, it canvasses a wide range of scholarly concerns. By examining the bases of criticism, the journal provokes debate on the relations between literary and cultural texts and present needs. A major international forum for scholarly exchange, New Literary History has received six awards from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.