The significance of Barthes ‘The demon of analogy’; Saussure’s semiology; Barthes’s ‘signifiance’; Historical specifics—systems of connotation; The productivity of the text; An ‘infinite thematics’?

Analogie, according to the Petit Robert, is the relation established by the imagination between two or several essentially different objects of thought. Analogy is, then, the work of mind. It expresses an ‘imagination’ which establishes a relation between ‘objects of thought’. But this relation is taken to imply ‘an effect of Nature’, says Barthes. It becomes ‘natural’, ‘a source of truth’ which expresses a reality sui generis. So, in a double sense, analogy offers an imaginary relationship. A relationship established by the imagination is none the less postulated as expressing a natural order. And this natural order (which includes ‘imagination’ as a self-evident category) is given voice in speech.