Abstract
What is Roland Barthes really talking about, when he's unfolding the imagery (and the imaginary) of the Eiffel Tower? Not the structure itself, that is for sure. Roland Barthes writes the Eiffel Tower as a specific case of ekphrasis, but this literary image proves to be phantasmatic after all, with consequences that prove to be fatal for placing this monument "back" into a city.
Barthes dislocates the monument and doubles the city continuum into a dreamy space of waiting, missing and isolation; he constructs the Eiffel Tower as a specific axiom of the city, remarkably bearing cartesian characteristics, but at the same time (or, precisely in this way) makes this monument a centre, which has no proper place in the city, except contemplated one. Barthes is wittingly acknowledging "here and now" of the essay after all, taking place in a non-place of his workroom; cartesian qualities of the tower finally turning into the confirmation of the cartesian argument of the dream, without the possibility of waking up, confirmation or denial.