''Incidents'' is a 1987 collection of four essays by

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...

. It was published posthumously by

François Wahl François Wahl (13 May 1925 - 15 September 2014) was a French editor and structuralist. Biography François Wahl was editor at the Éditions du Seuil, a publishing company in Paris.Bill Marshall, ''France and the Americas: Culture, Politics, an ...

, Barthes' literary executor.

Summary

In the first essay, ''La Lumiere du Sud-Ouest'', first published in ''

L'Humanité ''L'Humanité'' (; ), is a French daily newspaper. It was previously an organ of the French Communist Party, and maintains links to the party. Its slogan is "In an ideal world, ''L'Humanité'' would not exist." History and profile Pre-World Wa ...

'' in 1977, Roland Barthes reflects on the South West of France, the

Adour The Adour (; eu, Aturri; oc, Ador) is a river in southwestern France. It rises in High-Bigorre (Pyrenees), in the commune of Aspin-Aure, and flows into the Atlantic Ocean (Bay of Biscay) near Bayonne. It is long, of which the uppermost ca. i ...

and

Bayonne Bayonne (; eu, Baiona ; oc, label= Gascon, Baiona ; es, Bayona) is a city in Southwestern France near the Spanish border. It is a commune and one of two subprefectures in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine re ...

. The second essay, ''Incidents'', written in 1969, details Barthes's holiday in Morocco, where he pays men and boys for sex. In ''Au Palace Ce Soir'', the third essay, first published in issue 10 of '' Vogue-Hommes'' in May 1978, Barthes describes

Le Palace Le Palace is a Paris theatre located at 8, rue du Faubourg-Montmartre in the 9th arrondissement. It is best known for its years as a nightclub. Created by impresario Fabrice Emaer in 1978, intellectuals, actors, designers, and American and Europ ...

, a fashionable theatre-house in Paris. The fourth essay, ''Soirées de Paris'', is a diary from August to September 1979, where Roland Barthes admits to using male escorts as all his relationships have been disappointing to him.

Literary significance and criticism

Although critics have questioned whether Roland Barthes intended to publish ''Incidents'' and ''Soirées de Paris'', it has been argued that they have informed our reading of Barthes's oeuvre because of their explicit revelations of his homosexuality. Drawing upon these essays,

D.A. Miller D. A. Miller (born 1948) is an American literary critic and film scholar. He is John F. Hotchkis Professor Emeritus and Professor of the Graduate School in the Department of English at the University of California, Berkeley. Education and teaching ...

, in ''Bringing Out Roland Barthes'', re-reads Barthes's oeuvre through a gay lens. The essay ''Incidents'' has been compared to

André Gide André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the Symbolism (arts), symbolist movement, to the advent o ...

's '' Amyntas'' with its pastoral theme, although Gide writes about Tunisia and Algeria rather than Morocco. It has also been compared to

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...

's '' Confessions''.Dennis Porter, ''Rousseau's Legacy: Emergence and Eclipse of the Writer in France'', OUP USA, 1995, p. 19

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References

External links

Barthes, Roland. Incidents. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Free Online - UC Press E-Books Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Incidents 1980s LGBT literature 1987 non-fiction books Books about Morocco Books by Roland Barthes Éditions du Seuil books LGBT literature in France Gay non-fiction books French essay collections