Les entretiens « romanesques » de Roland Barthes à la radio (1976-1979)

Based on an investigation of radio interviews at the Ina archives, the article outlines two forms in Roland Barthes: the notional interview (books and intellectual topics) and the personal conversation (which concerns his authorial ethos). The classification makes it possible to trace the evolution of the literary posture of Barthes, which develops in 1970-1974 into a “romanesque” (fictional) elaboration, namely a discursive mode of the imaginary prone to represent itself both in writing and orally. This second form reveals his ambivalent practice of the radio interview. Finally, the analysis focuses on the radio self-portrait in 1976, when the posture “romanesque” presents an oral speech that is both autobiographical and fictional. The amateur posture in the interviews on music and Proust at France Culture in 1978 is only a repetition of this kind of posture.