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Toys

Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) was born in Cherbourg, France on 12 November 1915. His father was a naval lieutenant and died in sea battle one year after Barthes was born. In 1924, the family moved to Paris, where Barthes received most of his education. An outstanding modern French intellectual, Barthes had a great influence in the fields of literature and culture studies. He is the author of Writing Degree Zero (1953), Mythologies (1957), Elements of Sociology, S/Z (1970), The Empire of Signs and The Pleasure of the Text. He also wrote on himself for a series on great writers, Roland Barthes on Roland Barthes (1975). A famous essay is ‘The Death of the Author.’

‘Toys’ is one of the essays comprising Mythologies, regarding ...

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