As a distinguished and widely
influential French intellectual in the
areas of philology, structuralism,
semiology and post-structuralism—
from the early 1950s until the
publication of his last book in 1980—it
is Barthes’s exploration of discourse
(language/text, image, music) in terms
of its function, action and narrative
(in naming, symbols, signs and
signifiers) that ultimately guide his
more comprehensive commentaries
on culture, language, meaning
and belief. And so, given Barthes’s
academic background, it is no surprise
to read the first sentence of his essay
and be confronted with a word like
“onomastics” (of, relating to, or
consisting of a name or names) and the
idea that the very phonemes within the
riders’ names could correspond to the
creation of a certain epic that depicts
the Tour. His view begins on the most
micro level (what he calls “a kind of
phonetic pointillism”), but it is through
this very narrow lens that Barthes
can point out that, “In the cyclist’s
diminutive there is that mixture of
servility, admiration, and prerogative
which posits the people as a voyeur of
its gods.” As always for Barthes, the
diminutive (the rider’s name) provides
the basis for the much greater, all-
inclusive context for the epic, here
viewed as the rider as god.
These “gods” are, of course, placed in
a particular environment that further
defines the epic nature of the Tour.
It is this man-versus-nature struggle
that we all recognize as significant,
however Barthes sees an interesting
complex of transformative forces
within the struggle—all relating to
mortality, perception, personification
and language:
The Tour’s geography, too, is
entirely subject to the epic necessity
