“If I Want to Imagine a Fictive Nation…”: The Balzacian Model of the Opening Passage in Roland Barthes’ Writing

Abstract

This paper explores Roland Barthes’s use of Balzac’s narrative techniques in the openings of L’Empire des signes and Système de la mode. While drawing on the arguments presented by Andrea Del Lungo in his analysis of the poetics of Balzac’s incipit published in 2003, I try to demonstrate how Barthes follows a similar approach to the one represented by Balzac. When it comes to the L’Empire des signes, I seek to prove that Barthes constructs a fictional version of Japan, not by mimicking the real country, but by isolating specific elements and organizing them into a cohesive whole. This method mirrors Balzac’s strategy of creating self-contained worlds within books that form the overall universe of La Comédie humaine. Barthes’s integration of photography into his book further reflects the tension between the real and the imagined, echoing Balzac’s symbolic use of objects transcribed into language. This phenomenon can also be observed in Barthes’ analysis of clothing from Système de la Mode. However, I believe that Barthes departs from Balzac’s totalizing vision, opting instead for a fragmented approach that signals a shift in literary techniques from the 19th to the 20th century. While Balzac sought to form a unified world, Barthes emphasizes the selective, arbitrary nature of modern literary creation and, thus, the constructed character of knowledge.