Oct 15 2008
Mimesis powerpoint, poem+footnotes
Part II
He had finished his epic talk,
the dragon understood, he did not mock
the wisdom of Girard and his mimetic ways,
the dragon was surely onto happier days.
Rene then left the dragon’s humble home,
the great big world he would roam,
to find literature, and read it well,
and criticism, he would then tell.
But very soon after his journey began,
he again had to find out the mettle of man.
He searched long and far for his quarry,
sleeping little, he hardly tarried
“I must find the mimesis1! I really must!
The dragon, the villagers, in me they trust!”
So he set his eyes firmly and cast out a glance,
delving into all with his intellectual lance.
At first Girard only saw rolling plains and trees,
but soon the mimesis, it stood forth with ease.
This oak, that stood so mighty and grand,
he recognized as a painting2 once seen in his homeland,
and this birdsong that trilled so sweet and lightly,
was quite like the flute3 he used to serenade with nightly,
and the squirrels, here, that scrabbled for a nut,
were like dramatists4, in a play, a sword in a gut.
Rene stood still as revelation took hold,
“Oh my goodness!” he said,
“The knowledge I’ve been told!
This nature, this life, that exists all around,
in art, imitations of it can be found5!
Mimesis, mimesis, I did not find you fast,
but mimesis, mimesis, I’ve found you at last.”
“You, who allow us all to understand art,
to empathize, to really take part,
in the story, really, mimesis,
you’re the one who lets us get catharsis6.”
And Rene stood and basked in his glee,
his heart was light, he felt quite free,
when all of a sudden the ground, it shook,
And from the heavens fell a big history book.
Impossible, strange, what a weird happening!
The book was opening, and he could hear clapping!
And lo and behold, a figure stepped out,
a figure known for many things, a figure with clout.
Plato7, the philosopher, stood right there,
and on his face was a great big glare,
“You’re not being truthful, young man,
You’re not looking at the truth, you’re ruining my plan!”
Rene looked back, clearly in shock,
a very dead person… he could talk
And it clapped so sarcastically, it wore a terrible grin,
Rene was afraid he would not win.
“What is wrong?” he asked, meek,
“YOU ARE HIDING ABSOLUTE TRUTH!” Plato replied in a shriek.
“This poetry, this painting, it is a mask,
you can’t see the truth, the ultimate task8!
Those perfect forms, they’re so far removed,
From this silly art, you’ve just proved,
that it’s obsessed with how they appear,
not deep truth. For everyone I fear.”
Rene quaked from this violent tongue-lashing,
when another figure from the book came dashing,
It was Aristotle9, another Greek mastermind,
He felt like in front of a firing squad, he was lined.
He needn’t have feared, as Aristotle agreed,
humans are imitative, it is why they lead!
It was important, especially in art,
“Don’t listen to Plato, that old fart.”
“Diegesis10 is important, dealing with history,
but mimesis is needed for any good fiction story,
History can teach through how it really unfurled,
but art can teach through a perfected world.” (show VS tell)
Finished their tete a tete, the two figures left,
listening to their wisdom, Rene felt more deft,
he thought he was finished, but oh was he wrong,
the battle ahead of him was still very long.
The book snapped up once, and then opened again,Rene had to dodge, because out stabbed a pen!
“WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW.” the book bellowed,
“OR TO LEAVE THIS FOREST, YOU’LL NEVER BE ALLOWED.”
“Uh oh,” Rene said, “this is quite the pickle.”
He had to be serious here, not at all fickle.
So he started to pen all that he knew,
And all the time, a storm grew and grew.
High and low mimetic11, he wrote lots about,
he was pelted with rocks, the wind began to shout,
he was being battered and bruised, and knocked all around,
but he started to write about mimetic criticism,
and how in literature real life could be found.
He finally finished, and he was quite spent,
He was bleeding, and his clothes were all rent,
but he had finished, relief came in a wave,
So very tired, he crawled into a cave.
And there he lay, trembling and weak,
So exhausted was his brain, he could not speak.
And we leave our hero here, in the dark and alone,
but not yet is he done.
1- Mimesis is the representation of an object/idea, but not an imitation or mimicry of it. Mimetic criticism compares literature to the real world to find how compatible it is to reality.
2- Mimesis can be represented in the form of paintings and various 2-D art. To analyze mimesis, composition is often taken into account, as well as the features of the character(s) within the painting.
3- Mimesis in music can be readily observed and recognized by an audience through comparison to emotions/moods, sound effects (volume, tempo, overall tone), etc.
4- Mimesis can be found in theatre in its poetic function of pantomime (representation of reality by use of the human body) and play-within-the-play (often an inner conflict that can be observed easily by the audience).
5- Mimesis is best exemplified in the arts, as it is thought by some to be the re-presenting of human emotions in new ways.
6- Catharsis is best defined as the releasing of emotions or relieving of emotional tension especially through certain kinds of art.
7- Plato was a Greek philosopher (427-348 BC) who was taught by Socrates and later taught Aristotle. He was intent on truth and believed any art could be considered mimetic as it was a representation of life. He believed also that anything in our world is a representation of a perfect image, and this representation leads to many imitations of it.
8- Plato disliked the way poetry was most removed from truth and saw poetry (as well as drama and visual art) as false truths that were more concerned with appearance than solid fact.
9- Aristotle agreed with Plato in terms of art being an imitation of life, but he (unlike Plato) believed that mimesis in art enabled audiences to empathize with characters and reach catharsis.
10- Diegesis is a narrative or history; a recital or relation.
11- High and low mimetic are two modes of criticism defined and explored by Herman Northrop Frye in his 1st essay from his Anatomy of Criticism, Historical Criticism: Theory of Modes. His categorization of high and low mimetic were a representation of the characterization and relates to how the protagonist is portrayed in respect to the rest of humanity and the protagonist’s environment. These two modes are divided into 3 different aspects of fiction: tragic, comic, and thematic literature.
(poem written by Ilayda, footnoted by Michaela)
