Mimesis : culture, art, society / Gunter Gebauer, Christoph Wulf ; translated by Don Reneau.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 369-389) and index.

Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Point of Departure -- Pt. I. Mimesis as Imitation, the Production of Appearances, and Fiction -- 2. On the Origins of the Concept -- 3. Imitation, Illusion, Image (Plato) -- 4. The Break in the History of Mimesis: The Use of Writing -- 5. Poetic Mimesis (Aristotle) -- Pt. II. Mimesis as Imitatio, the Expression of Power, and Literate Subjectivity -- 6. Mimesis as Imitatio -- 7. Poetics and Power in the Renaissance -- 8. Intertextuality, Fragmentation, Desire: Erasmus, Montaigne, Shakespeare -- Pt. III. Mimesis as Enactment of the State -- 9. The Conflict Over History: The Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes -- 10. Mimesis as the Self-Representation of Political Power -- 11. Against Mimesis as Self-Representation -- Pt. IV. From Imitation to the Constitution of the Creative Subject -- 12. Problems in the Imitation of Nature in the Eighteenth Century -- 13. Mimesis in the Theater of the Enlightenment -- 14. Diderot's Paradox of Acting -- 15. The Transformation of Mimesis in Lessing -- 16. Self-Mimesis (Rousseau) -- Pt. V. Mimesis as the Principle of Worldmaking in the Novel and Society -- 17. The Mimetic Constitution of Social Reality -- 18. "Mimetic Desire" in the Work of Girard -- 19. Violence in Antiromantic Literature -- 20. The Mimesis of Violence (Girard) -- Pt. VI. Mimesis as Entree to the World, Language, and Writing -- 21. Nonsensuous Similarity: On the Linguistic Anthropology of Benjamin -- 22. Vital Experience (Adorno) -- 23. The Between-Character of Mimesis (Derrida) -- Results -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

"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. Less well documented is the great importance of mimetic theories of literature, theater, and the visual arts during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In this book, the most comprehensive overview of the theory of mimesis since Auerbach's monumental study, Gunter Gebauer and Christoph Wulf provide a thorough introduction to the complex and shifting meanings of the term. Beginning with the Platonic doctrine of imitation, they chart the concept's appropriation and significance in the aesthetic theories of Aristotle, Moliere, Shakespeare, Racine, Diderot, Lessing, and Rousseau. They examine the status of mimesis in the nineteenth-century novel and its reworking by such modern thinkers as Benjamin, Adorno, and Derrida. Widening the traditional understanding of mimesis to encompass the body and cultural practices of everyday life, their work suggests the continuing value of mimetic theory and will prove essential reading for scholars and students of literature, theater, and the visual arts."--Publisher description.

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