Roland barthes and the rustle of language in the orient

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine an unexplored aspect of the work of the French writer Roland Barthes: His relationship with the Orient, from the point of view of his thoughts about literary language based on his experiences in Maghreb countries, as well as in Japan and China. In order to do so, we will study the notions of incident and empty sign, created, respectively, from his experiences in Morocco and Japan, and then we will focus on Barthes' considerations on China, the country to which he traveled later. From the confrontation between two different concepts of the Orient, one coined from his experiences in Morocco and in Japan, and the other from China, emerges a reflection on the essence of language, in the form of the "rustle of language".