Demystification

Mystification was a ubiquitous motif in France during the 1 950s. It was common currency in the political polemics of the time, and it also played an important role in the emergence of cultural criticism. In particular, it formed a point of convergence between Roland Barthes and Henri Lefebvre, two of the most influential French writers in this tradition. Both developed a sustained critical reflection on the domain of everyday life, drawing on the resources of literary criticism, philosophy, and social theory. But they are rarely discussed together. By examining their approaches to the question of mystification, and the links between them, it will become clear that the ideas of Barthes and Lefebvre were developed in dialogue and, for a period at least, converged in a common project. The relationship between Barthes and Lefebvre is acknowledged fleetingly in some of the broader surveys of intellectual movements of the period. Mark Poster, in his wide ranging Existential Marxism, notes that, as an early editor of the review Arguments, Barthes had connections with various currents of independent Marxism, and that his use of structuralism to analyze everyday life was akin to that of Lefebvre. He also surmises that Barthes's Mythologies probably influenced Lefebvre.' Kristin Ross, in Fast Cars, Clean Bodies, draws on the contribution of both writers to the analysis of everyday life, but does not explore their intellectual affinities.2 Eve Tavor Bannet, discussing Barthes and other major structuralists, acknowledges that they are in various ways indebted to the work of early left-wing critics of modern

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · French Literature and Critical Theory · French Literature and Criticism · French Literature and Poetry · Philosophy

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