Album: Unpublished Correspondence and Texts by Roland Barthes
Esprit, October 2, 1950
Dear Sir,
I would like very much to contact you and, if possible, convince you to contribute to Esprit. Your article last year on degree zero really struck me, and since then I have wanted to meet you.22
Excuse me for not voicing this desire until today, and for making this request.
Albert Béguin
* * *
January 16, 1951
Dear Sir,
I am very late in responding, but I would very much like to see those pages on Michelet that you spoke of. And then I would also like, over the long or short term, to initiate in the review an ongoing discussion on the crisis of language (not only literary but common language as well) and for that I would really need you.
So be sure to come see me, call in advance.
Yours faithfully,
Albert Béguin
* * *
January 31, 1951
Dear Sir,
Your pages on Michelet are simply wonderful, for their thought, vision, and, I must say, for the writing. I will be more than happy, proud, to publish them in Esprit. I hope to have a spot for them in April.23 They will make evident, to the best readers, my desire to raise the review to a new level, which only a very few contributors help me demonstrate. Thus I vow, more strongly than before, to win you as a frequent contributor.
I was counting on seeing you this week. But thrown off by my chief editor, Domenach, taking ill, I will not have a minute before I leave for Italy.24 But, as soon as I return, I hope to see you—that will be about February 15.
Yours faithfully,
Albert Béguin
* * *
[End of 1951]
Dear friend,
Sorry to be so long in writing. I’ve been overwhelmed. But I am anxious to talk with you before leaving for a week (Bayonne, Pau, Dax, etc.) because I think so highly of your essay on Cayrol. From beginning to end these pages are so solid and so deeply analytical without ever seeming anything like the result of a gratuitous intellectual exercise. It’s so rare to see in a commentary on a body of work the kind of seriousness you bring to it! One could not ask for more in the way of insight, accuracy, and also in that tone of authority that only necessary writing possesses. Cayrol was deeply moved and entirely approving. He will tell you himself because I hope all three of us will get together when I return. I plan on publishing your pages in December unless questions of space in that issue make it necessary to wait until January.25
Thanks again, see you soon, and my best wishes,
Albert Béguin
* * *
September 7, 1952
Dear friend,
Jean Cayrol passed along to me your “Catch.” Thank you for giving it to us. It is completely exceptional in quality and this essay is exactly the kind of literary text that I would like to publish in Esprit, that is, pages in which the surest writing expresses reflections on human phenomena extracted from their banality, deepened, located. I admire your method very much; everything you write is impeccable. I would like it very much if you could give me reflections like this regularly, or whatever you wish, as a sort of column without a title that would limit it. Maybe, for example, every two months, you might be tempted to respond to this request?
Domenach read these pages as soon as he returned and shares my opinion.
Just one question: A title for your essay? I propose “Moralité du catch” but it’s your decision.26 And you can just indicate it on the page proofs.
Yours kindly,
Albert Béguin
Jean Cayrol to Roland Barthes
[January 1951]27
Dear Sir,
Allow me to write to you in the name of my friend Albert Béguin to ask if you could possibly lend me for four or five days the articles that you published in Combat and that mean so much to me.
I am doing a lecture tour in England and I would like to talk about language and its power in the world of poetry. I will also be talking about the philosophy of Brice Parain and Queneau’s spoken language.
If it is no inconvenience for you, could you have the printed texts sent to me immediately at Éditions du Seuil?
How are you doing, Roland Barthes, in this night that pretends to be day? Me? I am buried under that card deck that authors are always stacking.
Jean Cayrol
Roland Barthes to Jean Cayrol
February 7, 1951
Dear Sir,
I am happy to send the Combat articles to you. Unfortunately I am sure they will offer you nothing because they are based not on actual inquiry but on a simple feeling. I will get them back from Albert Béguin when you are through with them.
I hope your time in England goes well and send this with my kind regards and admiration.
R. Barthes
3. The Period of Michelet and Mythologies
Readers of Michelet
Jean Genet to Roland Barthes
Isba, Cortina d’Ampezzo,28 [1955]
My dear Barthes,
This is my third draft, but I am more at ease before a face than a blank page. And I had set out to speak with you—through letters—about the fantastical metamorphoses (you see, this is a start!) of historical facts and figures. Your Michelet (which was waiting for me in Cortina for more than a year and I knew nothing about it) interested me immensely. Because of it I went back and reread passages—cast in such a new light that I truly had the impression of swimming upstream in the humors and blood of Michelet but also in the humors and blood of History. At the same time, I received an issue of a review (NRF Lettres nouvelles)29 where you talk about Childhood, the Child, and the toy.30 All that makes me want to have a long talk with you. If it’s not too much trouble, could we have dinner when I return to Paris? I am so slow to respond to your book because I had not returned to Cortina—and frankly I thought you had forgotten our meeting at Margot Mascolo’s.31 In about two weeks I’ll be in Paris. Could you let me know? My address in Paris is: J. G., Hôtel Royal Fromentin, 11, rue Fromentin, Paris, Tri 85.93. That’s it.
Best wishes,
Jean Genet
As for your dedication, it makes me very proud. It’s the first time a writer has written me anything like that.
Jacques Audiberti to Roland Barthes
[1954]
Dear Sir,
A huge, huge bravo for your book. It’s first-rate. It’s very, very good, and I’m grateful to you for having drawn so well this extraordinary portrait of lyric humanism, so inspired and so blind a figure, so cut off from everything and starved for any response despite his genius.
Let me express my great admiration for this fine book on Michelet.
Jacques Audiberti
Gaston Bachelard to Roland Barthes
April 8, 1954
Dear Sir,
Your book astonishes me and fills me with wonder. I am only on page 82, but already I know that after having read it, I will read it again. But I cannot wait to tell you what passion it inspires in me. With you, Detail becomes Depth. Your technique of illuminating through beams of light penetrates into the depth of being. You need no story line to maintain the continuity of being. The themes are so well chosen that the contours reveal the underlying pressures. You have just quietly made a great work. I am telling you this myself, just as quietly.
I am so looking forward to reading Michelet’s journal. I hope that nothing will be omitted from it, that we will be given all his “humors.” Then we will have to leave you, your tables, your snapshots, your nourishment, to read fruitfully the confidences of a great Living Being.
I was very moved to find a reference to my obscure work on the elements. I thank you for that.
Accept, dear sir, my very warm wishes.
Bachelard
Jean Guéhenno to Roland Barthes
Paris, April 19, 1954
Dear Sir,
Thank you for having thought to send me your book. I read it with lively interest. It represents an admirable effort to a
I am thinking of rewriting my little book.32 I now see all its shortcomings. I only traced a single line in considering Michelet. I am sure that your book will be very useful to me.
Please find here, with my thanks, the expression of my warm regards.
Guéhenno
* * *
Readers of Mythologies
Roland Barthes to André Frénaud (BLJD)
Monday, [May 1957?]33
My dear Frénaud,
I am very touched by your letter; it is important to me. Don’t consider these empty words; someday I’ll be able to tell you in person the precise reasons why, for me, your reaction goes beyond the question of personal value; I mean that my final text is, for me, important—morally, if you will—and acknowledging this text is, to my mind, an act on the part of a friend that affects my life at the deepest level.34 On the content, we can talk more later, when I will have read yours—which I’m starting—finally!
Be in touch soon, dear Frénaud, for a drink. Yours in gratitude and friendship.
R. Barthes
Roland Barthes to Jean Lacroix (Bibliothèque de l’Université Catholique de Lyon)
[Paris,] May 11, 195735
Dear Jean Lacroix,
A big, big thank you from the bottom of my heart for your article in Le Monde on my Mythologies. What a wonderful introduction, fluent, sure, coherent, too fine for this book that has many rough spots, much dross. You have wonderfully Hegelized me, much more than I deserve. It is a very beautiful review, in a class by itself, to which we’re no longer accustomed. Everyone has said this to me, admiring that unique sense of the other, which is not, for you, mere assertion but truly penetrates the very fiber of intellectuality, its very life. I envy your students, I would like to be one of them, I have such a hunger for doing philosophy seriously.
I will add that on a practical level (one also writes for others), your article will do me immense good. Coiplet is happily demolished.36
I send you all my gratitude and admiration.
Roland Barthes
Dedication of Mythologies to Jean Paulhan, 1957
Dear Jean Paulhan, we have had enough heated arguments over these Mythologies37 so that today I can express to you my feelings of deep respect and affection.38 R. Barthes
Other Letters
Roland Barthes to Robert Pinget (BLJD)
December 9, 1953
Dear Sir,
I found your note when I returned from England. I am very touched that you thought of sending me your book and I thank you in advance.39 Please do send it to me, you will make me very happy. I plan to see Alain Robbe-Grillet one of these days, and I intend to arrange with him a way for all three of us to meet.
Thank you again and please accept my warm regards.
R. Barthes
1, place du Panthéon, Paris Ve40
Odéon 44–24
Albert Camus to Roland Barthes Regarding La Peste
Paris, January 13, 195541
Dear Sir,
I told M. Carlier that I do not agree with your thesis on La Peste even as I appreciate the way in which you defend it, and he suggested that I publish my point of view in conjunction with yours.42 I told him I could not do that without being sure it would not displease you. He informed me of your consent and I want to thank you for your fair-mindedness, a trait I know, by experience, is hard to find.
That said, I do not want to let M. Carlier publish my response without knowing if you have any objections to it. I am enclosing it here; please send it back to me with your approval or your comments.
Please accept, dear sir, my very warm regards.
Albert Camus
Roland Barthes to Jean-Paul Sartre
December 7, 1955
Dear Sir,
Last summer you suggested that I write a regular column for Les Temps modernes. Unfortunately, I have since been named attaché to the CNRS (at least for this year) and that precludes me, both administratively and practically, from taking on any new tasks besides Research. I am just barely continuing my column for Nadeau’s review, which I cannot let go, but I do not dare take on anything else.43
I would like to express to you my deep regrets, and my deep gratitude as well for your confidence, which is very important to me. Moreover I told Péju that occasionally, on specific topics related to my research, I will try to give Les Temps modernes some texts.44 In this way I would like to assure you of my total solidarity with your review.
Please accept, dear sir, my feelings of deep friendship and admiration.
[Roland Barthes]
Roland Barthes to Marcel Arland (BLJD)
March 28, 1957
Dear Sir,
I am writing to you for the following reason: L’École de Préparation des Professeurs de Français à l’Étranger, where I sometimes teach, organizes meetings between students and a French writer two or three times a year. I am acting on behalf of my colleagues and my students—and myself, if I may say so—in relaying to you how happy we would be if you would agree to be one of our writers this year. I am told that some years ago you spoke of giving a lecture at the school, but this time, it involves nothing of the kind and the protocol is very simple. We all gather on a Friday evening (probably in May) about six o’clock; you do not have to prepare anything; the students ask you questions about your work and French literature; you answer as you please. It is a matter of a perfectly informal conversation. If I cannot vouch for the students’ knowledge and insight, at least I can assure you of their absolute goodwill and sincere curiosity. Will you let yourself be persuaded?45 We are very excited about having you visit. I would like to add that I personally would be very happy to welcome you to our school. Through a few remarks in a simple conversation, you can give our students a luminous and just image of our literature, which they greatly need, and I sincerely believe that you alone can offer them that particular quality of tone today.
If, in principle, you accept this invitation—which on the most basic practical level is, sadly, purely Platonic!—I will call you to discuss the question of the date.
Please accept, dear sir, my warm regards.
R. Barthes
11, rue Servandoni, Paris VIe
Roland Barthes to Michel Leiris (BLJD)
April 5, 1957
Dear Sir,
I hardly dare bother you again by phone, but I would like to give you one or two details on the conference on the ethnography of the spectacle, which we would so much like you to participate in. Of course this is an event that, given its audience, exceeds the size of a simple seminar (especially if word spreads that you will be speaking). So I believe, in terms of numbers, we must not delude ourselves and we should plan for about two hundred people. But in terms of quality, it is not a matter of the general public; essentially it will be researchers from CNRS, students in sociology and ethnology. Moreover, if the discussion aspect of the meeting bothers you, why not limit yourself to your statement and ask Claude Lévi-Strauss, for example, to direct the rest of the debate?
Please consider my insistence only a sign of my desire to have you join us; we really need you. But if, despite everything, I have not been able to persuade you, I only have to put myself in your place to be able to tell you that I perfectly understand.
Please accept this expression of my deep admiration and respect.
R. Barthes
11, rue Servandoni, Paris VIe
Dan. 95–85
Roland Barthes to Nathalie Sarraute (BNF)
June 12, [1959?]
Dear friend,
I’m leaving for Hendaye and will read your book there.46 Thank you for sending it to me, that makes me happy—and gives me the opportunity to tell you how much I already like the few pages I could not resist sampling in haste—because there is no true reading for me except in Hendaye.
&nbs
R. Barthes
4. Two Letters to Charles Panzéra
We know how important the singer Charles Panzéra (1896–1976) was to Roland Barthes. In an interview with Claude Maupomé, Barthes said the classes he took with Panzéra in the company of his friend Michel Delacroix happened before the war. Here, in the first of two letters from 1956, he says they took place in 1941, just before the relapse of his tuberculosis. That date is undoubtedly more reliable. Along with Pierre Bernac (1889–1979), with whom Barthes had been tempted to take classes, Charles Panzéra served as model for what French singing could be (Fauré, Duparc, Debussy, Ravel …), although he also sang the great Romantic German lieder. Barthes devoted many texts to the art of Panzéra’s singing, which he established as one of the paradigms for his vision of written and spoken language.47
* * *
[Paris,] January 10, 1956
Dear Sir,
I do not know if you still remember that you had agreed to give me lessons in 1941, along with my friend Michel Delacroix. Perhaps you recall that I had to interrupt them because I fell ill and then left to spend many years in a sanatorium.
I have been completely well now for more than ten years and I have the greatest desire to start singing again—just for myself, of course. I am afraid that my age (I am almost forty) may be an obstacle. So I would like to ask your advice: Do you think that I can hope to work in an interesting way—naturally, you cannot judge the condition of my voice, given my disease and my impaired breathing—and, in the case where you would have no initial objections in principle, would you agree to giving me regular lessons again? You know what great memories your teaching left with me and what steadfast admiration I have for your art.
In any case, dear Master, please accept my deep and faithful admiration.
R. Barthes
11, rue Servandoni, Paris VIe
Danton 95–85
* * *
[Paris,] Saturday, April 21, 1956
Dear Sir,
I have thought about it, and I believe I must give up the singing lesson that I began a few months ago. It was an experiment; we knew that from the start. I think I see clearly that the results are insufficient. I accept this without bitterness, in the same objective spirit that I undertook it. Moreover, I still have music, most of all singing, which I think I understand all the more deeply because of what I have gained from your lessons, if not empirically, at least spiritually. Please believe in my most sincere gratitude; even without immediate results, these lessons have meant so much to me, as you know.