Skip to main content

Studies in Literary Theory & Criticism (481-0-20)

Topic

Mimesis and Its Doubles

Instructors

William West

Meeting Info

University Hall 418: Mon 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

Mimesis names a relation of likeness: the way a work of art of literature is like something else—not the only way, but a uniquely central way in theories of representation in the traditions of Europe and the Mediterranean. Since Plato and Aristotle, mimesis has often stood for a kind of natural relation of one thing to another. It thus paradoxically is a relation that often goes without saying: you are supposed to recognize likeness when you see it. This course will explore some of the things that literature is supposed to be like (action? the world? other literature?), but also what it means for one thing to be said to be like another thing at all. We will balance theoretical discussions of mimesis with theatrical and other explorations of its role, as well as strategies for representation besides likeness, representing things that are like nothing, and hierarchies implied or subverted by the concept of mimesis. Readings might include selections from Aristotle, Longinus, Shakespeare, Corneille, Calderon, Cavendish, Freud, Woolf, Warburg, Benjamin, Auerbach, Wittgenstein, Capote, Latour, Bhabha, Ranciere, Viveiros de Castro, or Hartman.