Atonality and Tonality: Musical Analogies in Roland Barthes's Lectures at the Collège de France

Though explicit references to music are infrequent in Barthes's Collège de France lectures, Barthes's use of music in other work from the 1970s makes it clear that music can act as a fruitful analogy in consideration of the text. This article uses the serialist or atonal analogy, as set up by Barthes in ‘From Work to Text’ and elsewhere, to examine the structuring of Comment vivre ensemble and The Neutral. In viewing these courses as serial or open works we can, it is hoped, arrive at a fuller understanding of their methodology and the role they ascribe to the listener or reader. The atonal analogy, however, is left behind in 1978, as Barthes's major projects (La Préparation du roman and Camera Lucida) employ more conventional, developmental structuring. It is here, then, that the analogy with tonality, again suggested by Barthes, can be usefully employed.