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Romanticism, Realism and the Lines of Mimesis

Romanticism, Realism and the Lines of Mimesis

by Dickson, Polly
No customer reviews yet ISBN 9781399506502 Edinburgh University Press

Since Plato's Republic, mimesis -- the artwork's tacit claim to reflect or imitate real life -- has faced a near-constant stream of assaults, being accused of naturalising a supposedly uncomplicated relationship between world and fiction. Lines of Mimesis offers a revisionary account of mimesis. Specifically, it proposes a rethinking of the representational attitudes of two literary schools usually understood to be at odds with one another -- Romanticism and Realism -- through close readings of writings and drawings made by two figures usually taken to be proponents of those schools respectively: E. T. A. Hoffmann and Honoré de Balzac. Across these readings, Dickson argues that a more capacious understanding of mimesis is achieved when we understand it to pertain not to the reduplication of objects in the world, but to a negotiation of the subject's sensory entwinement with those objects. This new understanding can, in turn, more closely illuminate an artwork's own reflections on its relationship to the world, shedding light on the entanglements and crossovers between Romanticism and Realism.

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BrandEdinburgh University Press
Pub dateJun 30, 2024
ISBN-101399506501
ISBN-139781399506502
LanguageEnglish
Dimensions9.5 × 0.75 × 6.5 in
Weight1 lb
Last updated 2026-09-08 22:39
$137.46
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