There are two other possible meanings for the title of this lecture : the end of writers and the end of novels. In the first sense, it's a small end for literature, which dies a little when a writer passes away. Barthes is particularly moved by the works of dead authors. The " intense life " of the text contrasts with the " sadness of knowing that [the artist] has died ". And Barthes concludes that " le deuil est vivant " ( mourning is alive ), he who decreed the death of the author. As for the end of novels, this is evoked by Proust in " Sur la lecture ". A melancholy overcomes the reader as the end of a book approaches. And the epilogue is " cruel ", just like writers who finish books. Perhaps the writer feels this death, which would explain the eternal recommencement of writing.
Whether or not writers decide to stop, there is always a final, ultimate work ; and it is read differently from the others. This subject has received little attention. In art and music, greater importance is attached to the body, which is said to age more than the mind. German critics have addressed this issue. Only one French author, Simone de Beauvoir, has pondered it, in La Vieillesse. The pantheon of late artists includes Michelangelo, Titian, Rembrandt, Vinci, Greco ; in music, Beethoven ; and in France, Degas, Monet, Matisse.
The Germans speak ofAlterswerk, or Old Age Art in English. It's an individual notion. Spätstil is rather a generic late style, not an individual one : what common features can we find in the various late works ? What correlation - if not causation - exists between age and style ? Do new forms appear with age ? Should these studies involve other disciplines, such as psychology, physiology or pathology, as in the work on Monet's cataracts or Poussin's syphilis ?
