Mythologies

Mythologies is a 1957 book by Roland Barthes. It contains a collection of fifty-three short essays written between 1954 to 1956, most of which were first published in the French literary review Les Lettres nouvelles. In these essays, Barthes examines the tendency of contemporary social value systems to create modern myths. In the book Barthes also analyzes the semiology of the process of myth creation itself, updating Ferdinand de Saussure's system of sign analysis by adding a second level where signs are elevated to the level of myth.