Mimesis and Its Romantic Reflections by Frederick Burwick (Repost)

In Romantic theories of art and literature, the notion of mimesis—defined as art’s reflection of the external world—became introspective and self-reflexive as poets and artists sought to represent the act of creativity itself. Frederick Burwick seeks to elucidate this Romantic aesthetic, first by offering an understanding of key Romantic mimetic concepts and then by analyzing manifestations of the mimetic process in literary works of the period.

Burwick explores the mimetic concepts of "art for art's sake," "Idem et Alter," and "palingenesis of mind as art" by drawing on the theories of Philo of Alexandria, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, Friederich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, Thomas De Quincey, and Germaine de Staël. Having established the philosophical bases of these key mimetic concepts, Burwick analyzes manifestations of mimesis in the literature of the period, including ekphrasis in the work of Thomas De Quincey, mirrored images in the poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, and the twice-told tale in the novels of Charles Brockden Brown, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and James Hogg. Although artists of this period have traditionally been dismissed in discussions of mimesis, Burwick demonstrates that mimetic concepts comprised a major component of the Romantic aesthetic.

Reviews:

Competing or mirrored narratives are shown to call into question the nature of storytelling itself, but Burwick's discussion of this relatively familiar narratological point in these works is original and concise. His book mirrors and renews a strain of analysis in Romantic literature, giving one might as well say much food for reflection. –David E. Latané, Jr., South Atlantic Review

One walks away from this book with a strong sense of gratitude for a scholar and critic whose command of traditional texts and current literary theory is strong enough to persuade us that the highest literary scholarship and theoretical dexterity can work the same street. –Peter Brier, European Romantic Review

One walks away from this book with a strong sense of gratitude for a scholar and critic whose command of traditional texts and current literary theory is strong enough to persuade us that the highest literary scholarship and theoretical dexterity can work the same street. –Peter Brier, European Romantic Review