Afterword. Translating Roland Barthes: A Fragment

Abstract

In honouring Michael Moriarty's thought on Roland Barthes, a further honouring is offered of Roland Barthes through re-translation of an excerpt of Fragments d'un discours amoureux.

KEYWORDS:

• Barthes
• Racine
• criticism
• translation
• hiding

Notes

1 Michael Moriarty, Roland Barthes (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991).

2 Roland Barthes, Sur Racine (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1963).

3 Raymond Picard, Nouvelle critique ou nouvelle imposture (Paris: J.-J. Pauvert, Collection Libertés (27), 1965).

4 Timothy Mathews, Literature, Art and the Pursuit of Decay in Twentieth-Century France (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000 and 2006).

5 Samuel Beckett, ‘Worstward Ho,’ in Nohow On (London: Calder, 1989 (1983)).

6 Roland Barthes, Fragments d’un discours amoureux (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, collection Tel Quel, 1977).

7 CounterText, volume 9.1, 2023, special issue ed. by Patrick ffrench and Timothy Mathews, Roland Barthes’ Fragments of a Lover’s Discourse: Translating Again, Writing Again.

8 Thanks are due to Andy Auton of Penguin Random House and to Victoria Fox of Farrar, Strass Giroux and for guidance on the following permissions for translation of the excerpt from Barthes' Fragments d'un discours amoureux: For the UK and Commonwealth: Excerpts from A LOVER'S DISCOURSE: FRAGMENTS by Roland Barthes. Copyright © 1977 by Éditions du Seuil. English Translation Copyright © 1979 by Penguin Random House. New English language translation of requested excerpt © 2023 by Timothy Mathews printed by permission of Penguin Random House. For the US: Excerpt from A LOVER'S DISCOURSE: FRAGMENTS by Roland Barthes. Copyright©1977 by Éditions du Seuil. English Translation Copyright © 1979 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. New English language translation of requested excerpt © 2023 by Timothy Mathews printed by permission of Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Timothy Mathews

Timothy Mathews is Emeritus Professor of French and Comparative Criticism at University College London. His most recent monograph is There and Not Here. Chronicles of Art and Loss (London: Ma Bibliothèque, 2022).