Annette Lavers

Roland Barthes: Structuralism and After.

Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1982. First edition. 0416723802 300 pages.

Volume, measuring approximately 6.5" x 9.5", is bound in green cloth, with stamped silver lettering to spine. Book is like new. Dust jacket displays light shelfwear and is preserved in mylar cover.

"Roland Barthes is one of the most influential and charismatic figures of the intellectual scene in contemporary France, a major structuralist and first modern proponent of semiology, the science of signs and symbols. In this study, the first to deal with the whole of his work, Annette Lavers takes as her guiding principle Barthes's dual aspiration to scientific discovery and to an increasingly sophisticated theory and practice of the text. She relates the many themes and aspects of Barthes's work to similar research in literary theory, and to the vital intellectual developments of the last four decades, from the existentialism and Marxism of the post-war years to structuralism and its recent contestation. With its wide scope and depth of interest, this authoritative book will be indispensable to all those seeking an understanding of Barthes's work and recent intellectual history."