ABSTRACT
This article examines the relation of Roland Barthes's diary-writing to the historical development of the journal intime. For Barthes, the journal intime was particularly associated with André Gide, but Barthes's own diary-writing was largely determined by his aims for a ‘Vita Nova’ (involving a new form of life and writing) and by his state of mourning following the death of his mother. Barthes's experimentation with the literary possibilities of diary-writing can be followed through his writing of the Mourning Diary, the article ‘Deliberation’, and Soirées de Paris. The Mourning Diary and Soirées de Paris each carry the diary to one of its logical extremes, and these two texts were assigned a place in Barthes's plans for a novel, before this project was interrupted by his death in 1980.
