What is sport

Abstract

In 1961, the French philosopher Roland Barthes published the text "What is sport?" an order from the Canadian Hubert Aquin, who was producing the documentary "The sport and the men". The article, perhaps by its fortuitous character, was not included in the complete works of Barthes published by Seuil Editions. However, here we have a unique and poetic portrait of the sport through the structuralism eyes of French intellectual. The text is a semiotic analysis on bullfighting in Spain (which Barthes himself does not know whether to include in the category of sports), ice hockey in Canada, cycling in Europe (especially the Tour de France), the U.S. motorsport and football in England. Away from the technical terms of sports science and academic canonical language, the word "fiftieth" Barthes analyzes the meanings and significance that sport has taken in the mass society of the twentieth century, seeking interpretations and correlations between sports practice and the needs vital in the contemporary man. The work proposed here seeks to do a literature review on definitions of sport, in light of the contributions of Roland Barthes and his little-known text.