Calvino’s Labyrinths: Constraint as the Postmodern Degree Zero

Abstract

This paper argues that the Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle), through the late works of Italo Calvino, fundamentally redefined Roland Barthes's modernist concept of a "Writing Degree Zero." Where Barthes proposed a neutral, transparent style—an aesthetic of absence exemplified by the prose of Camus—as an escape from ornamented literary history, the Oulipo identified a new, more radical foundation for literature. For them, neutrality was no longer a stylistic effect but a structural premise located in the self-imposed, generative constraint. By analyzing Calvino's Invisible Cities and If on a winter's night a traveler, this paper demonstrates how Oulipian constraints function as a liberating paradox, shifting the author's role from romantic expresser to structural engineer and prioritizing combinatorial play over autobiographical inspiration. Engaging with critical debates surrounding authorship, postmodernity, and the nature of literary potential, this paper posits that constraint, as a pre-literary rule, becomes the new postmodern degree zero: an honest, objective system that acknowledges its own constructedness and offers a limitless potential for narrative innovation, moving beyond Barthes's paradigm to establish a new groundwork for literary creation.