''[ Mythologies ] illustrates the beautiful generosity of Barthes's progressive interest in the meaning (his word is signification) of practically everything around him, not only the books and paintings of high art, but also the slogans, trivia, toys, food, and popular rituals (cruises, striptease, eating, wrestling matches) of contemporary life . . . For Barthes, words and objects have in common the organized capacity to say something; at the same time, since they are signs, words and objects have the bad faith always to appear natural to their consumer, as if what they say is eternal, true, necessary, instead of arbitrary, made, contingent. Mythologies finds Barthes revealing the fashioned systems of ideas that make it possible, for example, for 'Einstein's brain' to stand for, be the myth of, 'a genius so lacking in magic that one speaks about his thought as a functional labor analogous to the mechanical making of sausages.' Each of the little essays in this book wrenches a definition out of a common but constructed object, making the object speak its hidden, but ever-so-present, reservoir of manufactured sense.''--Edward W. Said

''[神话]说明了巴特对他周围几乎所有事物的意义（他的词是符号化）的美丽慷慨，不仅是高级艺术的书籍和绘画，还有当代生活的口号、琐事、玩具、食物和流行仪式（游船、脱衣舞、饮食、摔跤比赛）. 对巴特来说，文字和物品都有一个共同点，那就是有组织的能力，可以说些什么；同时，由于它们是符号，文字和物品都有一个坏习惯，那就是在消费者看来是自然的，好像它们所说的是永恒的、真实的、必要的，而不是任意的、制造的、偶然的。神话 "发现巴特揭示了时尚的思想体系，使得 "爱因斯坦的大脑 "有可能代表，成为 "一个缺乏魔力的天才，人们把他的思想说成是一种类似于机械制作香肠的功能性劳动 "的神话。这本书中的每一篇小文章都从一个普通的但被构建的对象中挖掘出了一个定义，使这个对象说出了它隐藏的、但永远存在的、制造出来的意义的库房。