Writing Degree Zero

is a work in which the modern writer is a Sisyphean figure, continually striving to create a free writing, continually experiencing the collapse of that writing into Literature.

The modern writer, for Barthes, is a Sisyphean figure, continually striving to create a free writing, continually experiencing the collapse of that writing into Literature. Barthes’s thesis is pessimistic, but it is also more thoroughly Marxist than Sartre’s in its sense of the relation between writing and society. If the historical situation of human society is alienated, then writing cannot but participate in that alienation. p.20

is the anti-realist anti-literary strategy of writers like Camus to produce a sort of colorless, neutral, degree-zero writing that goes beyond Literature to a sort of basic speech, equally far from living languages and from literary language proper.

This, however, Barthes argues, is a revolutionary writing that can only lead to silence, to a ‘complete abandonment of communication’ (RL: 63). This tendency relates to another strategy, which is the one which gives Barthes’s book its title. Barthes refers to authors who attempt to produce a ‘colourless writing, freed from all bondage to a pre-ordained state of language’. ‘The aim here’, he goes on, ‘is to go beyond Literature by entrusting one’s fate to a sort of basic speech, equally far from living languages and from literary language proper’ (RL: 64). This writing, which achieves an almost ‘ideal absence of style’, is exemplified for Barthes by Camus’s novel L’Étranger (The Outsider/The Stranger), originally published in 1942. Taking a term from linguistics, Barthes describes this kind of writing as ‘neutral’, ‘inert’ or the ‘degree zero’ of writing and states that it ‘remains wholly responsible, without being overlaid by a secondary commitment of form to a History not its own’ (RL: 64). In other words, this kind of zero-degree writing avoids the contamination of Literature.

is a non-ideological way of writing championed by the likes of Camus, but it’s sure to be short lived, for mechanical habits are developed in the very place where freedom existed, and society will demote such writing to a mere manner, and returns it a prisoner to its own formal myths.

By the time Barthes has reached his description of degree-zero writing in Camus, however, he has elaborated a thesis, both theoretical and historical, which cannot allow for such a writing to succeed for more than a moment. If writing cannot be free while society (and history) are ‘in chains’, then the very processes of absorption and assimilation into Literature and thus dominant culture will inevitably occur with regard to this mode of writing as well. Barthes writes: Unfortunately, nothing is more fickle than a colourless writing; mechanical habits are developed in the very place where freedom existed, a network of set forms hem in more and more the pristine freshness of discourse. . . . The writer, taking his place as a ‘classic,’ becomes the slavish imitator of his original creation, society demotes his writing to a mere manner, and returns him a prisoner to his own formal myths. (WDZ: 65) p.22

writing degree zero, n.Definitions

writing degree zero