{"id":306,"date":"2013-03-07T17:43:53","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T17:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/andrewking\/?p=306"},"modified":"2024-09-03T12:01:30","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T11:01:30","slug":"roland-barthes-camera-lucida-a-study-guide-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.gre.ac.uk\/andrewking\/2013\/03\/07\/roland-barthes-camera-lucida-a-study-guide-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: a Study Guide Annotations 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following notes are intended to help the reader understand Barthes’ references, technical terms, themes. The previous post<\/a> provides very briefly the context for this text.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The page numbers below refer to the translation of La chambre claire<\/em> by Richard Howard, Jonathan Cape (now Macmillan), 1982.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

page 4<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Barthes needs a \u201ccorpus\u201d or collection of texts in order to classify them, which is the basis of scientific understanding. NB. Word-play corpus\/ corpse\/ [dead] body<\/em>. The term \u201cbody\u201d and all cognates are one of the main strands that weave in and out of this text.<\/p>\n

Tuch\u00e9<\/em> \u2013 the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan borrows this term from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, for whom it means \u201cchance\u201d or \u201caccident\u201d: the point is that reality is accidental and has no \u201cmeaning\u201d or narrative \u2013 it just \u201cis\u201d. The following references to Buddhism and to the English mystical commentator Alan Watts are all connected to this idea.<\/p>\n

5<\/span><\/p>\n

antiphon \u2013 the first of the many musical references that Barthes uses in this text: look out for others. What may be the function of such references?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

8<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

mathesis \u2013 mental discipline, knowledge or science<\/p>\n

9<\/span><\/p>\n

eidolon \u2013 Greek word for \u201cimage\u201d, \u201clikeness\u201d, but also \u201cspectre\u201d or \u201cghost\u201d. Note the large number of words with the same root eid<\/em>– that appear in this text. \u201cIdol\u201d (which is etymologically connected to eidolon) with its erotic and religious connotations does not appear, but seems to be hovering just out of sight like a ghost\u2026<\/p>\n

terms you need to remember the meanings of in this work:<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the Operator<\/strong>? __________________________________________________<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the Spectator<\/strong>?__________________________________________________<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the Spectrum<\/strong>?__________________________________________________<\/span><\/p>\n

NB the word-play spectacle\/ spectre throughout<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

10<\/span><\/p>\n

camera obscura \u2013 an arrangements of lenses and mirrors in a darkened room or box invented in the sixteenth century. Artists used it to project images onto canvas on which they would base their pictures. Note how Barthes introduces the idea of the camera lucida by means of a kind of a binary opposite, the camera obscura.<\/p>\n

12<\/span><\/p>\n

zero degree \u2013 a reference to Barthes’ own first published volume\u00a0Writing Degree Zero <\/em> (orig. 1953 as Le degr\u00e9 z\u00e9ro de l’\u00e9criture<\/em>) \u2013 \u201cdegree zero\u201d here means \u201cwithout meaning\u201d, \u201cpurely for and in itself\u201d.<\/p>\n

14<\/span><\/p>\n

parenthesis \u2013 see note to page 20 below<\/p>\n

15<\/span><\/p>\n

eidos – According to Plato the \u201ceidos\u201d is the real image of something (usually translated in English as \u201cIdea\u201d). It exists in the realm of the eternal and so is not perceptible by the senses. In Husserl (see note to p. 20) it means the same as \u201cessence\u201d, which can be arrived at by pure consciousness. I\u2019m not sure which sense is uppermost in Camera Lucida<\/em>.<\/p>\n

16<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Rue<\/a><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/span><\/span>Atget, (Jean) Eug<\/strong>\u00e8ne Auguste<\/strong> (1856-1927), French photographer, now recognised as one of the major figures in the history of photography. In about 1898 Atget began his photographic career; within a decade he had produced some of his most impressive documentary series on Parisian life\u2014tradespeople, architecture, shop windows, parks, caf\u00e9s, and markets. He\u2019s most famous for his pictures of empty Paris streets.<\/div>\n

Rue St. Rustique by Atget,\u00a0 March 1922<\/span><\/p>\n

20<\/span><\/p>\n

The task of phenomenology is to study essences, such as the essence of emotions. Although Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, never gave up his early interest in essences, he later held that only the essences of certain special conscious structures should be studied by phenomenology. As formulated by Husserl after 1910, phenomenology is the study of the structures of consciousness that enable consciousness to refer to objects outside itself. This study requires reflection on the contents of the mind to the exclusion of everything else. Because the mind can be directed towards non-existent as well as real objects, Husserl noted that phenomenological reflection does not presuppose that anything exists, but rather amounts to a \u201cbracketing of existence\u201d (compare the \u201cparenthesis\u201d Barthes refers to on page 14), that is, it sets aside the question of the real existence of the contemplated object.<\/p>\n

What Husserl discovered when he contemplated the contents of his mind were such acts as remembering, desiring, and perceiving and the abstract content of these acts, which Husserl called meanings. These meanings, he claimed, enabled an act to be directed towards an object under a certain aspect; and such directedness, called intentionality, he held to be the essence of consciousness. Transcendental phenomenology, according to Husserl, was the study of the basic components of the meanings that make intentionality possible. Later, in Cartesian Meditations<\/em> (1931; trans. 1960), he introduced genetic phenomenology, which he defined as the study of how these meanings are built up in the course of experience.<\/p>\n

NB the author of the book that Camera Lucida<\/em> is in homage to (Sartre) was key in the introduction of phenomenology to France during Barthes\u2019 youth.<\/p>\n

25<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Greuze, Jean-Baptiste<\/strong> (1725-1805), French painter. He studied art in Lyon and in <\/span>Paris, where he became a leading genre painter who concentrated on sentimental moralistic scenes and portraits.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Village Betrothal<\/em> by Greuze<\/p>\n

26 \u2013 7 and many pages following \u00a0concern two of the most cited terms from Camera Lucida<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n