Mimesis by gunter gebauer, christoph wulf paperback. Based on the insights of great novelists and dramatists cervantes, shakespeare, stendhal, proust, and dostoevsky girard realized that human desire is not a linear process, as often thought, whereby a person autonomously desires an inherently desirable. In comparative studies of chinese and western poetics, however, there exists a widely accepted opinion that mimetic theory is a cultural invention unique to the western tradition. Some people seem to think that this is a higher calling and some writers like dickens answer the call with powerful stories that help to change public opinion. It grew out of the idea of mimesis in early greek thought and then became the foundation and mainstream of western literary thought. Mimetic theories constitute a mainstream in western aesthetics. One of the main questions that this collection considers is. Rene girards mimetic theory and its contribution to the study of religion and violence, special issue of the journal of religion and violence, volume 1, issue 2, 20. Xxxiv by dietmar regensburger, university of innsbruck published in. Imitation is constant, scapegoating is an everpresent temptation, and violence is wrong. The aesthetics of mimesis princeton university press. One of the marks of genius is to notice something vitally important and seemingly obvious but which never before had been.
Bibliography of literature on the mimetic theory vol. Mimesis, the notion that art imitates reality, has long been recognized as one of. Art imitates idea and so it is imitation of reality. The whole history of the interpretation of the arts of letters has moved and been transformed within the diverse logical possibilities opened up by the concept of mimesis. An outsider in every field, rene girard has changed scholars thinking in literature, anthropology, and religion. Mimesis is a term used in literary criticism and philosophy that carries a wide range of. The highest capacity for producing similarities, however, is mans. In his theory of mimesis, plato says that all art is mimetic by nature. Clear, comprehensive, analytically acute, this volume shows palaver to be a worthy successor to his austrian colleague, raymund schwager, as girards. In the long run, the pessimism of reactionaries never proves to be justified, but neither does the optimism of revolutionaries. Asked in books and literature what is mimetic theory of literature. Rene girards mimetic theory studies in violence, mimesis.
Mimetic definition of mimetic by the free dictionary. The ancient art of keeping it real books the guardian. Hardins mimetic theory and biblical interpretation is a must read for anyone who claims to follow jesus of nazareth. Project muse mimetic theory in chinese literary thought.
Michael taussig describes the mimetic faculty as the nature that culture uses to create second nature, the faculty to copy, imitate, make models, explore difference, yield into and become other. Platos imitation theory is an important part of his debate in the republic. Plato wrote about mimesis in both ion and the republic books ii, iii, and x. This volume focuses on two major writers of the 1930s and 1940seugene oneill and tennessee.
Spanning over fifty years of critical production, this anthology offers unique insights into the origin, development, and expansion of girards. Mimesis is one of the oldest and most central terms in literary, art and media theory. Platos republic, books iii and x and aristotles poetics. Theory of ayn rand 2000, louis torres and michelle marder kamhi are mainly.
He takes us into the heart of girards anthropology of desire, while also tracing its rich implications for the contemporary study of politics, culture, gender, and religion. He did not like artists and their art making activities too much. The palgrave handbook of mimetic theory and religion draws on the expertise of leading scholars and thinkers to explore the violent origins of culture, the meaning of ritual, and the conjunction of theology and anthropology, as well as secularization, science, and terrorism. Foster is an internationally renowned critic and author of books on postmodernism in art. Mimesis is integral to the relationship between art and nature, and to the relation governing works of art themselves. Mimesis and expression in ayn rands theory of art jstor. Wolfgang palavers exploration of rene girards mimetic theory is comprehensive, thorough, and penetrating. Both plato and aristotle saw in mimesis the representation of nature. If aesthetics is the philosophical inquiry into art and beauty or a. Books applying mimetic theory in theology, religion, scripture. The word has been used to describe the relation between an original object and a representation that attempts to imitate that original. This and similar illustrations or explanations are put forth, not for their own sake, or as an exposition of platos theory of ideas, but with a view of showing that poetry and the mimetic arts are concerned with an inferior part of the soul and a lower kind of knowledge. Both plato and aristotle saw in mimesis the representation of nature, including human nature, as reflected in the dramas of the period.
There is an uncanny and even fascinating relationship between mimetic theory and the topic of cannibalism. From that base comes the pragmatic and expressive theory. Rene girards mimetic theory began with an understanding about desire and blossomed into a grand theory of human relations. Mimesis and theory brings together twenty of rene girards uncollected essays on literature and literary theory, which, along with his classic, deceit, desire, and the novel, have left an indelible mark on the field of literary and cultural studies. Rene girards mimetic theory by wolfgang palaver, paperback. Platos aesthetics stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Mimetic disillusion reevaluates the history of modern u. In practice, mimetic critical theory often asks how well the literary work conveys universal truths and teaches the reader positive. Assessing this theory against the background of earlier greek views on poetry and art, particularly plato. Mimetic theory is an attempt to explain humanitys tendency toward violence and the social mechanisms we use to preserve society. The mimetic theory of literary criticism places primary importance on how well a literary work imitates life. Mimetic theory and biblical interpretation 9781532601125 by michael hardin. In this book, the most comprehensive overview of the theory of.
For this reason platos readers will not find a single aesthetic theory in the dialogues. Grant kaplan brings mimetic theory into conversation with theology both to elucidate the relevance of mimetic theory for the discipline of fundamental theology and to understand the work of rene girard within a theological framework. Jacques derrida1 mimesis is one of the oldest and most central terms in literary, art and media theory. Because the poet is subject to this divine madness, it is not hisher function to convey the truth. Mimesis is integral to the relationship between art and nature, and to the relation. The palgrave handbook of mimetic theory and religion the palgrave handbook of mimetic theory and religion draws on the expertise of leading scholars and thinkers to explore the violent origins of culture, the meaning of ritual, and the conjunction of theology and anthropology, as well as secularization, science, and terrorism. Rene girards mimetic theory is based on the principle that human beings are mimetic creatures. Jun, 2017 mimetic theory comes from the greek word mimesis, which means imitation and representation, and it states that people are influenced by each other and the world around them, when creating, in many different ways. The event was sponsored by the school of criticism and theory.
Skip art school, this is essential reading about art aesthetics and critique. It doesnt seem to me that we have to accept sukenicks preference for fiction that shuns verisimilitude in order to see that his distinction between mimetic and nonmimetic fiction is a useful one, which is the second reason i find it persuasive it describes in a more coherent and less problematic way than other terms i can think of what. Insightful, critical, and wideranging, this is the book we have been waiting for on girard and world religions. Interpreting the new testament text introduction to the art and science of exegesis. Reclaiming the good news of the gospel cascade companions michael hardin on. Authors assess the contributions of rene girards mimetic theory to our understanding of sacrifice. But you dont have to be a scholar or an insider of mimetic theory to understand it. In ion, he states that poetry is the art of divine madness, or inspiration. Aristotle defined mimesis as imitation, but imitation with sufficient.
Mimesis, or imitation, as he referred to it, was a crucial concept for samuel taylor coleridges theory of the imagination. In this book, the most comprehensive overview of the theory of mimesis since auerbachs monumental study, gunter gebauer and christoph wulf provide a. In comparative studies of chinese and western poetics, however, there exists a widely accepted opinion that mimetic theory is. Arguably the oldest and most widely held view on the nature of art. It is fiction that tries to imitate reality in prose.
Less well documented is the great importance of mimetic theories of literature, theater, and the visual arts during the renaissance and the enlightenment. The more we imitate each other, the more alike we become. Coleridge begins his thoughts on imitation and poetry from plato, aristotle, and philip sidney, adopting their concept of imitation of nature instead of other writers. We have a sense of solidarity with our own time, and of psychic energies shared and redoubled, which is just about the most satisfying thing that life has to offer. But beyond mining the mimetic theory and comparing religious traditions in its light, these essays also illuminate philosophy, theology, and the secular. Mimesis, the notion that art imitates reality, has long been recognized as one of the central ideas of western aesthetics and has been most frequently associated with aristotle. Jul 25, 20 mimetic fiction is fiction set in the present day. This book offers a new, searching treatment of its long history at the center of theories of representational art. Mimetic theory of literary criticism pen and the pad. In book x of the republic, plato concludes that in fact mimetic art does not serve some useful purpose. Take a casual sweep of the news over a given year and you will turn up any number of stories about stolen masterpieces, disputed provenances, and multimilliondollar blackmarket auctions. In addition, mimetic theory and film is a response to the widespread objection that there is no viable girardian aesthetics. As i have written in my previous post, plato asserted that making art is the equivalent of imitating. Since plato applied the mimetic theory on literature and separated it from narrative, mimesis has been.
Their goal is to host an annual theological conference grounded in the thought of rene girard. Mimetic theory has been developed in a remarkable series of books, articles and interviews by rene girard and his colleagues over the past forty years. Clear, comprehensive, analytically acute, this volume shows palaver to be a worthy successor to his austrian colleague, raymund schwager, as girards interpreter and collaborator. M i m e art is essentially an mimicry of nature paintings are supposed to look just like the real thing etc. In fact, our desires are not actually our own, but desires we have copied from others. The idea of chair first came in the mind of carpenter. Increasingly, we vie for the same desires and we become rivals. The palgrave handbook of mimetic theory and religion by. A highly accessible book, this text is complemented by bibliographical references to girards widespread work and secondary literature on mimetic theory and its applications, comprising a valuable bibliographical archive that provides the reader with an overview of the development and discussion of mimetic theory until the present day. Essential reading list to learn art aesthetics and. The expansion of human potential that the latter expect from the final, complete liberation of desire never turns out to be the triumph that they expect. In their groundbreaking book on rands aesthetics, what art is. Because the poet is subject to this divine madness, instead of possessing art. Incorporating rene girards mimetic theory and decades of research, hardin masterfully shows how the intelligence of the victim, as a hermeneutic, sheds a spot light on our dark, violent, and deathfilled ideologies, interpretations of scripture, and very core of our being.
Proponents describe memetics as an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. Mimetic theory and fundamental theology, grant kaplan brings mimetic theory into conversation with theology both to elucidate the relevance of mimetic. When it comes to progressive, outside the box art theory, verso books knows who you should be reading. Introduction the mimetic theories judge a literary work of art in terms of imitation. In this, the fullest, sustained interpretation of aristotles poetics available in english, stephen halliwell demonstrates that the poetics, despite its laconic brevity, is a coherent statement of a challenging theory of poetic art, and it hints towards a theory of mimetic art in general. Mimetic theory and film violence, desire, and the sacred. Mimesis is one of the most fundamental ideas in western poetics. The text of this post is a contribution of joseph carter, adapted from an excellent paper he delivered at the international plato society at emory university in march. First published in german in 2003, wolfgang palavers rene girards mimetic theory is a crucially important addition to the growing body of englishlanguage studies of girards work. Memetics is the study of information and culture based on an analogy with darwinian evolution. This is the earliest way of judging any work of art in relation to reality whether the representation is accurate verisimilitude or not. Mimetic project gutenberg selfpublishing ebooks read. His gift of seeing resemblances is nothing other than a rudiment of the powerful compulsion in former times to become and behave like something else. Memetics describes how an idea can propagate successfully, but doesnt necessarily imply a concept is factual.
The word mimetic comes from the greek word mimesis, the act of imitation. Aesthetic theory emphasized the relationship of mimesis to artistic expression and began. For close to two thousand years, christian theology has been captivated by a sacrificial rendering of the gospel that renders god as retributive. The breakthroughs in mimetic theory series features short monographs breaking new ground, initiating new connections among mimetic theory, models of human behavior, and other disciplines. The definition of imitation in book 3 entails no general ideas of. The origins of this theory of literature go back much further than freud.
In this groundbreaking lecture, hal foster seeks to define and highlight a different sort of avantgarde, one that is driven neither by the transgression of a given order as with surrealism or. What art feuds reveal about human desire the art world has a fetish for conspiracy. Known as mimetic anthropology or mimetic theory, girards work enables a revolutionary understanding of human violence and argues the critical role of the bible in distilling this understanding in contemporary culture. This is the 7th of a series of posts and discussions of platos dialogue charmides. Mimetic theory and cannibalism literature, the humanities. Through an analysis of ion and books ii, iii, and x of the republic, this essay explores the. Mimetic theory is a view that conceptualizes literature and art as essentially an imitation of aspects of the universe. Their list of essential books for artists is the perfect antidote for creatives who arent interested in reading picassos biography or getting tips on new painting techniques. Mimetic theory originated with rene girard, a french polymath whose seminal insights into the nature of human desire bridges diverse fields such as anthropology, literary criticism, religious studies, psychology, ethnology, sociology, philosophy, and others.
In this book, the most comprehensive overview of the theory of mimesis since. Mimesis by gunter gebauer, christoph wulf paperback university. All literature stems from the mimetic theory developed during the golden age of greece by plato and aristotle. If aesthetics is the philosophical inquiry into art and beauty or a contemporary surrogate for beauty, e. Critics contend the theory is untested, unsupported or incorrect. He further believed that not only did art have no positive. Mimetic theory was developed by rene girard through his studies in multiple disciplines, including mythology, anthropology, and history.
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