La grande famille des hommes
Citation
Barthes, Roland. “La grande famille des hommes.” In Mythologies. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, Collection Pierres Vives, 1957. 267 pp. ISBN 978-2-02-000585-2 (original paperback edition). Essay ‘La grande famille des hommes’ is the French-language primary text of what was translated as ‘The Great Family of Man’ in the English Mythologies (Annette Lavers, trans., 1972).
Tier justification
Tier 2: first edition of the primary critical text in its original language, published by Éditions du Seuil (Paris), a major French academic and literary press. The essay ‘La grande famille des hommes’ was Barthes’ response to the Paris showing of The Family of Man at the Musée National d’Art Moderne (1956); the Mythologies collection was published the following year. This is the French-language original of the same essay that appears in English translation in src-barthes-1957. Creating a separate entry for the French original is appropriate under CREDIBILITY.md (§ Language coverage: ‘The workflow accepts sources in en, fr, de, lb’), and it documents the source as it was used in its original context — a French intellectual’s response to a show at a Paris museum, published in Paris, in French.
Relevance
The original French-language publication of Barthes’ defining critique. ‘La grande famille des hommes’ was written in direct response to the Paris stop of the exhibition (Musée National d’Art Moderne, 1956) and published in the year following that showing. The essay’s title names the French exhibition title (‘La Grande Famille des hommes’), which differs slightly from the American title and which Barthes explicitly analyses in the essay’s opening: ‘The French have translated it as: The Great Family of Man.’ The French original is the primary text for any analysis of how Barthes’ critique was received in France and in the francophone scholarly tradition; the Lavers English translation (src-barthes-1957) is the version that circulated in Anglo-American art history and photography studies.
Key excerpts / pages
- Publication details confirmed in multiple search results (2026-04-30): Paris: Éditions du Seuil, Collection Pierres Vives, 1957.
- ISBN 978-2-02-000585-2 confirmed from biblio.com listing (search result, 2026-04-30).
- The essay ‘La grande famille des hommes’ is one of approximately 50 short essays in the collection; its page range in the 1957 original is NOT confirmed this round (no direct fetch of the French text).
Notes
- Full text NOT consulted in this round. The Seuil catalog URL (https://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/mythologies-roland-barthes/9782021034479) was returned in search results (2026-04-30) — this is a later Seuil reprint URL, not the original 1957 edition. The Monoskop PDF (https://monoskop.org/File:Barthes_Roland_Mythologies_1957.pdf) was also returned in search results but not fetched. Verified: false.
- This entry documents the French-language original. The English translation entry at
src-barthes-1957documents the Lavers translation and contains the quotations verified in the English text. Claims about the French-language version should cite this entry; claims about the English text should citesrc-barthes-1957. - The relationship between the Paris 1956 exhibition showing and Barthes’ 1957 essay is the core link between France’s reception of the exhibition and the critical theory that shaped subsequent scholarly engagement with it globally. This link is documented across multiple sources in this session but the primary-archival confirmation (Paris exhibition records, press reviews from L’Humanité and Les Lettres françaises) has not been fetched in any session.
- A future pass should: fetch the Monoskop PDF to confirm the page range of ‘La grande famille des hommes’ in the 1957 original; note that the essay is typically pp. 175–177 in the original (cited in secondary literature — NOT confirmed from a direct fetch this round).
- Perspective: critical / theoretical, French original. Companion entry to
src-barthes-1957(English translation).