Roland Barthes

The Song of Roland, the classic story of Charlemagne’s most heroic vassal and warrior, is a tale that perfectly demonstrates the feudal values and military prowess of the people of the day. Feudal society depended on the principles Roland believed in. The warlike spirit was personified through his sword, the Durendal, which holds great significance in Catholicism because it holds relics of saints and other prized artifacts. As it was the ultimate symbol of power and authority, Roland felt grave…

Vera Brittain, in her memoir, Testament of Youth, analyzes and describes her experiences being a young lady during the First World War. Her memoir consists of clips of letters, from her brother (Edward) and her fiancé (Roland), and clips of her journal in order to better understand her thoughts and feelings concerning both the war and her personal life. Brittain’s purpose is to try to unravel all the feelings she has, while trying to understand them, because, at the time, it was difficult for…

Men and beards, two terms that are used synonymously throughout much of history, either through Medieval literature or Contemporary literature. In the epic poem of Old French literature, The Song of Roland, there is much deeper importance behind hairy objects presented in scenes of war with the Saracens, emotional moments of characters, and Thierry’s appraisal in the trial of Ganelon’s fate. The anonymous poet has ascribed various heroic attributes to the men who possess beards: wisdom,…

sending the hero off on a sort of “hero 's journey” where his character will be tested. These three methods employed by Medieval authors on villains can be seen in three different Medieval texts: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Laustic, and The Song of Roland. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the villain- the Green Knight, sends the hero character Sir Gawain on both a physical journey and test, as well as a journey and test of character. The Green Knight enters the court of King Arthur…

Introduction The case of Blagojevich versus the United States involves Blagojevich being accused of a conspiracy to choose Barack Obama’s choice for senate seat in exchange for a job, giving the seat to Jesse Jackson Jr. in exchange for campaign contributions, trying to extort money from campaign contributions from Patrick Magoon who was the President of Children’s Memorial Hospital, and trying to extort money from campaign contributions from John Johnston, who was a horseracing executive.…

phenomenon, while extremely beneficial, introduced the notion of the control of text. The author of the text obviously created and transcribed it, but to what extent does the reader’s usage of the text give him/her more control than the author? Roland Barthes, a French linguist, literary theorist, and philosopher, pondered this idea, and elucidated…

In order to understand why Christopher Nolan as a director is, nowadays, considered as an auteur, it is important to rehash the French film critics’, of Cahiers du cinéma, theory of the auteur. “Astruc argued that cinema was potentially a means of expression as subtle and complex as written language. He argued that cinema too was a language, ‘a form in which and by which an artist can express his thoughts, however abstract they may be, or translate his obsessions exactly as he does in a…

Judith Butler, Allen Ginsberg and Roland Barthes, whose theoretical and critical ideas and concepts she applies to her own experiences and observations. By applying these theories and criticisms…

This paper analyzes the semiology of art and its traces concerned with revealing the issue of art and the influence of art and artist in man’s life in Henrik Ibsen’s (1828-1906) play, when we Dead Awaken (1899) based on Roland Barthes’ (1915-1980) view regarding the concept of semiology. Norwegian Henrik Ibsen who is considered as the father of realism and is one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre in his last and shortest play, When We Dead Awaken (WWDA), “a dramatic epilogue”, that was…

Roland Barthes states that “Photography seems to me closer to the Theater, it is by way of a singular intermediary (and perhaps I am the only one who sees it): by way of Death” (page 31). In Kenneth Graves photograph, “Hotel Pool, Miami Beach, Florida” taken in 1980, you see the bottom half of a man and women. The man is pressed against the back of the women, pinning her against the wall of a pool. He is grabbing her vagina and pulling her body closer. This sexual scene is set between the…