In the Search of a Lost Photography: Appearances, Repressions and Censures of Henriette Barthes’ Picture in La Chambre claire

  • Guido Mattia Gallerani ITEM (Institut des textes et manuscrits modernes), ENS/CNRS
Keywords: Roland Barthes, Censorship, Self-censorship, Counter-censorship, Photography, Essay

Abstract

This paper aims at considering the most relevant photography removed from the Camera Lucida (1980) by Roland Barthes as the object of a form of self-censorship that reveals itself to be particularly significant in order to shape the book. The thesis is that the fact that Barthes does not show the mother’s photography carries out a main textual consequence such as the narrative hybridization within an essay.

First, the approach of the genesis of the book shows that the Photography of the Winter Garder was the real source of the Barthes’ essay. Then, some textual analysis retrace the appearances of the missing image of the mother. Finally, the explanation of a complex photographic apparatus governing the photo's disappearance relocates the photo as part of the unconscious reading, even though the relative image can appear shattered both discursively and visually.

Thus, grounding on Freud’s theories about psychic censorship and the opposite Sartre’s critical conclusions three different modes of self-censorships will be found within Barthes’ discourse and disposed by a hierarchical succession. The media self-censorship focuses on the perservation of this image from the commercialization of the image as a product at the age of media. The romantic self-censorship bases on a metaphysical and mystical concept of the photographical portait. The Counter-censorship, as Barthes claims, creates a paradoxical discours that avoids his own self-censorship through the active contribution of the imagination of the reader.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Guido Mattia Gallerani, ITEM (Institut des textes et manuscrits modernes), ENS/CNRS

Lauréat de la Ville de Paris 2015

Post-doc fellow of the City of Paris

References

Id., Journal de deuil, 26 octobre 1977 - 15 septembre 1979, Ed. Nathalie Léger, Paris, Seuil/Imec, 2009.

Bibbò, Antonio, ‘‘Il traduttore e il suo lettore: alcune riflessioni sul rapporto tra contrainte e censura’’, inTRAlinea. Online Traslation Journal, 16 (2014): http://www.intralinea.org/archive/article/1908, online (ultimo accesso: 15/01/2015).

Chantal, Thomas, “La photo du Jardin d’Hiver”, Critique, 423-424 (1982): 797-804.

Grésillon, Almuth, ‘‘Rature, silence, censure’’, Le sens et ses hétérogénéités, Ed. Herman Parret, Paris, CNRS, 1991: 191-202.

Grojnowski, Daniel, ‘‘Le mystère de La Chambre claire’’, Textuel 34/35, 15 (1984): 91-96.

Harrison, Nicholas, Circles of Censorship: Censorship and its Metaphors in French History, Literature, and Theory, Oxford, Clarendon, 1995.

Knight, Diana, Barthes and Utopia: Space, Travel, Writing, Oxford, Clarendon, 1997.

Lebrave, Jean-Louis, ‘‘La genèse de La Chambre claire’’, Genesis. Revue internationale de critique génétique, «Roland Barthes», 19 (2002): 79-107; http://www.item.ens.fr/index.php?id=76061, online (ultimo accesso: 15/01/2015).

Létourneau, Sophie, ‘‘Roland Barthes enquête: La chambre claire ou la mélancolie policière’’, Études littéraires, 42.2 (2011): 69-79: http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1011521ar, online (ultimo accesso: 15/01/2015).

Marty, Éric, ‘‘Marcel Proust dans La chambre claire’’, L’Esprit Créateur, «Proust en devenir», 46.4 (2006): 125-133.

Id., Roland Barthes, la littérature et le droit à la mort, Paris, Seuil, 2010.

Sartre, Jean-Paul, L’imaginaire. Psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination (1940), Paris, Gallimard, 1986.

Id., L’être et le néant. Essai d’ontologie phénoménologique (1943), Paris, Gallimard, 1970.

Viollet, Catherine - Bustarret, Claire, ‘‘Effets de censure: la littérature à ses limites’’, Genèse, censure, autocensure, Ed. Catherine Viollet e Claire Bustarret, Paris, CNRS, 2005: 7-15.

Yacavone, Kathrin, ‘‘Barthes et Proust: La Recherche comme aventure photographique’’, Fabula-LhT, «L'écrivain préféré», 4 (2008), www.fabula.org//lht/4/Yacavone.html, online (ultimo accesso: 15/01/2015).

Sitografia

“Littérature, censure et autocensure”, séminaires ITEM, CRRLPM et ANR Pouvoir des arts, http://www.item.ens.fr, web (ultimo accesso 15/01/2015)

www.roland-barthes.org, web (ultimo accesso 15/01/2015)

How to Cite
Gallerani, G. M. (1). In the Search of a Lost Photography: Appearances, Repressions and Censures of Henriette Barthes’ Picture in <i>La Chambre claire</i&gt;. Between, 5(9). https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/1579
Section
Walls, Screens, Photographs - Planes of Censorship