''A Lover's Discourse: Fragments'' () is a 1977 book by
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 25 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 popu ...
. It contains a list of "fragments", some of which come from literature and some from his own philosophical thought, of a lover's point of view. Barthes calls them "figures"—gestures of the lover at work.
Film adaptation
The book was adapted into a
Hong Kong
Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...
movie in
Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
by directors Derek Tsang and Jimmy Wan called ''
Lover's Discourse'' (戀人絮語, 2010). The film consisted of four interconnected stories about love and lovers. The ensemble cast of the film includes
Eason Chan
Eason Chan Yick-shun ( zh, s=陈奕迅, t=陳奕迅, first=t, p=Chén Yìxùn; born 27 July 1974) is a Hong Kong singer and actor. He is one of the most popular and influential singers in both Cantopop and Mandopop. Besides holding the record ...
,
Karena Lam,
Kay Tse,
Mavis Fan,
Eddie Peng,
Jacky Heung and
Kit Chen.
French director
Claire Denis
Claire Denis (; ; born 21 April 1946) is a French film director and screenwriter. Her feature film '' Beau Travail'' (1999) has been called one of the greatest films of the 1990s and of all time. Her work has dealt with themes of colonial and p ...
later adapted the book into the film ''
Let the Sunshine In''.
Cultural references
*The lyrical themes on the British duo
The Lover Speaks' 1986 eponymous
debut album were based on ideas from ''A Lover's Discourse'', with singer
David Freeman describing the album as an attempt to produce a "musical cartoon of
arthes'book".
*''A Lover's Discourse'' is mentioned in, and central to, the plot of
Jeffrey Eugenides' novel ''
The Marriage Plot'' (2011).
*Artist
Tessa Boffin quoted sections of Barthes' text in a photo-essay titled ''A Lover's Distance''.
*
Claire Denis's 2017 film,
''Let the Sunshine In'', is based on ''A Lover's Discourse''.
*Blythe Roberson's 2019 essay collection ''
How to Date Men When You Hate Men'' was inspired by and is a "modern response to ''A Lover's Discourse''."
Editions
* ''A Lover's Discourse: Fragments'', translated from the French by
Richard Howard,
Hill and Wang, (1979),
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lovers Discourse
1977 non-fiction books
Books about the philosophy of love
Books by Roland Barthes
Lover's Discourse