Analyzing Narrative: Roland Barthes’ Forgotten Interview

Abstract

This commentary reflects upon an interview with Roland Barthes from 1965 in which he discusses the structural analysis of narrative. The presentation prefigures the publication of Barthes’ well-known essay, ‘Introduction à l’analyse structurale des récits’, which appeared shortly after in Communications, No. 8, in 1966. A close reading of both interview and essay shows that the interview differs from the published essay, notably in following more explicitly the steps of Saussure’s attempts to work out the units of the linguistic system, using a criterion called commutation. Consideration is also given to the next phase of Barthes’ work on narrative in S/Z (published in 1970), raising the question of what might have transpired had Barthes chosen to remain with an exploration of the actantial and narrational levels identified in his early interview.