S/Z is the linguistic distillation of Barthes’s system of semiology, a science of signs and symbols, in which a Balzac novella, Sarrasine, is dissected semantically in order to uncover layers of unsuspected meanings and connotations. In the process, Barthes reveals the immeasurably fecund nature of language. His interpretation of language and meaning within the structuralist mode is a classic work of semiotic theory, profoundly influential on a generation of Anglo-American theorists. It stands, in twentieth-century thought, alongside Levi-Strauss’s work in anthropology.