The Preparation of the Novel: Lecture Courses and Seminars at the Collge de France (1978-1979 and 1979-1980) (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought & Cultural Criticism (Paperback))

About this book

Completed just weeks before his death the lectures in this volume mark a critical juncture in the career of Roland Barthes in which he declared the intention deeply felt to write a novel. Unfolding over the course of two years Barthes engaged in a unique pedagogical experiment: he combined teaching and writing to "simulate" the trial of novel-writing exploring every step of the creative process along the way. Barthess lectures move from the desire to write to the actual decision making planning and material act of producing a novel. He meets the difficulty of transitioning from short concise notations (exemplified by his favorite literary form haiku) to longer uninterrupted flows of narrative and he encounters a number of setbacks. Barthes takes solace in a diverse group of writers including Dante whose La Vita Nuova was similarly inspired by the death of a loved one and he turns to classical philosophy Taoism and the works of Franois-Ren Chateaubriand Gustave Flaubert Franz Kafka and Marcel Proust. This book uniquely includes eight elliptical plans for Barthess unwritten novel which he titled Vita Nova and lecture notes that sketch the critics views on photography. Following on The Neutral: Lecture Course at the Collge de France (1977-1978) and a third forthcoming collection of Barthes lectures this volume provides an intensely personal account of the labor and love of writing.