Criticism and Truth. This item is unavailable.Criticism and Truth

Structured as a two-part essay. Part one opens with Barthes’s point by point dissection of Sorbonne philologist Raymond Picard’s “old criticism.” Part two is devoted primarily to the author’s own theory of criticism.

Structured as a two-part essay, the book opens with Barthes’s point-by-point dissection of Picard’s “old criticism.” Barthes consturcts his own argument and shows, ultimately, that one can cross the abyss that separates criticism and reading, and, by implication, that which separates both from the work of the writer.

Written in 1966 in response to an attack on Barthes's Sur Racine , this polemic answers many of the charges brought against French New Criticism by conservative, academic, 19th-century-oriented critics: lack of "objectivity," fondness for "jargon," indifference to the author's intention, etc. More positively, Barthes outlines some key concerns: plurality of meanings; analysis, based on linguistics, of the structures of possible meanings; the idea of a science of literature; and the dynamics of reading. Though some of the issues are specific to the French literary-academic situation, the bulk of this brief essay is a lively and accessible statement of an important modern critical position that is worth reading. Richard Kuczkowski, Dir., Continuing Education, Dominican Coll., Blauvelt, N.Y.
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