A Lover's Discourse - Fragments

Összefoglaló

The language we use when we are in love is not a language we speak, for it is addressed to ourselves and to our imaginary beloved. It is, for that very reason, a language of solitude. It is a language of mythology, of what Barthes calls 'an image-repertoire'. There is a kind of logical necessity in a book by Roland Barthes studying 'the lover's discourse', for such discourse is the most individual and yet the most common of our languages. This book revives — beyond the psychological or clinical enterprises which have characterized such researches in our culture — the notion of the amorous subject. It will be enjoyed and understood by two groups of readers : those who have been in love (or think they have, which is the same thing), who will discover the truth it tells about their lives and languages ; and those who have never been in love (or think they have not, which is the same thing), who will discover the truth about everyone else. This book might be considered, in its restless search for authorities and examples, which range from Nietzsche to Zen, from Ruysbroek to Debussy, an encyclopaedia of that affirmative discourse which is the lover's.