On Racine

This idiosyncratic, personal, and penetrating study of all the major works of the classical French tragedian Jean Racine served as a proving ground for Roland Barthes's revolutionary theories about the nature of authorship and the making of meaning in texts. Combining structural and psychoanalytic criticism with practical notes on the performance of works now distant from contemporary modes of discourse, On Racine shows Barthes mischievously bridging the gap between ancient and modern as only he could.