''Incidents'' is a 1987 collection of four essays by Roland Barthes. It was published posthumously by François Wahl, Barthes' literary executor.

Summary

In the first essay, ''La Lumiere du Sud-Ouest'', first published in '' L'Humanité'' 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, 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 studies, English at the University of California, Berkeley. Educa ...

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