PHILOSOPHER

Roland Barthes

1915 - 1980

Photo of Roland Barthes

Icon of person Roland Barthes

Roland Gérard Barthes (; French: [ʁɔlɑ̃ baʁt]; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular culture. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Roland Barthes has received more than 2,235,162 page views. His biography is available in 66 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 63 in 2019). Roland Barthes is the 104th most popular philosopher (down from 99th in 2019), the 208th most popular biography from France (down from 192nd in 2019) and the 10th most popular French Philosopher.

Roland Barthes is most famous for his book "The Death of the Author." In this book, he argues that the author's intention is not the final word on a text. Rather, the text should be interpreted and analyzed from the perspective of the reader.

Memorability Metrics

  • 2.2M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 73.44

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 66

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 11.00

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.07

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Page views of Roland Barthes by language

Over the past year Roland Barthes has had the most page views in the with 237,178 views, followed by French (121,759), and Spanish (59,636). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are Cantonese (126.42%), Ido (89.89%), and Egyptian Arabic (81.90%)

Among PHILOSOPHERS

Among philosophers, Roland Barthes ranks 104 out of 1,267Before him are George Gurdjieff, Roger Bacon, Anaximenes of Miletus, Al-Tabari, Aristippus, and Jacques Derrida. After him are Meister Eckhart, Zhu Xi, Emil Cioran, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Rudolf Christoph Eucken, and Tertullian.

Most Popular Philosophers in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1915, Roland Barthes ranks 7Before him are Édith Piaf, Augusto Pinochet, Anthony Quinn, Moshe Dayan, Frank Sinatra, and Ingrid Bergman. After him are Vasily Zaitsev, Yitzhak Shamir, David Rockefeller, Arthur Miller, Orson Welles, and Eli Wallach. Among people deceased in 1980, Roland Barthes ranks 9Before him are Karl Dönitz, Alfred Hitchcock, John Lennon, Jean Piaget, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and Erich Fromm. After him are Bon Scott, Oskar Kokoschka, Steve McQueen, Jesse Owens, Colonel Sanders, and Joe Dassin.

Others Born in 1915

Go to all Rankings

Others Deceased in 1980

Go to all Rankings

In France

Among people born in France, Roland Barthes ranks 208 out of 6,770Before him are François Truffaut (1932), Alexis de Tocqueville (1805), Letizia Ramolino (1750), Nicolas Sarkozy (1955), Jean Marais (1913), and Jean-Luc Godard (1930). After him are Margaret of Valois (1553), Charles IV of France (1294), François-René de Chateaubriand (1768), Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663), Pope Clement IV (1190), and Pope Urban IV (1185).

Among PHILOSOPHERS In France

Among philosophers born in France, Roland Barthes ranks 10Before him are Michel Foucault (1926), Henri Bergson (1859), Michel de Montaigne (1533), Peter Abelard (1079), Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809), and Jean Bodin (1530). After him are Gilles Deleuze (1925), Henri de Saint-Simon (1760), Simone Weil (1909), Charles Fourier (1772), Jean Buridan (1295), and Jean Baudrillard (1929).