Because of the liveliness of his prose, and the sophistication of his textual interpretations, Barthes has probably done more than any other single theoretician to introduce recent semiotics to American readers.

Barthes has repeatedly returned to the issue of connotation. It constitutes a central theme in such diverse works as Elements of Semiology, Writing Degree Zero, "The Rhetoric of the Image," "The Photographic Image," S/Z, and perhaps most importantly Mythologies, a collection of essays devoted to aspects of French popular culture. The topic re-emerges with such insistence because Barthes invariably directs his attention to what are known as "second-order" signifying systems—systems which build on already existing ones. Literature is a prime example of a second-order signifying system since it builds upon language. Barthes describes these systems as "connotative," and in Mythologies he sharply distinguishes them from "denotative" or "first-order" signifying systems.

Barthes was not the first...