What constitutes a model? -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 19:45:46 03/09/08 Sun
Author: Kiernan
Subject: What constitutes a model?

I've been thinking further on my earlier question about lacking models, and in particular contemplating the different forms which a model can take. Drawing from the earliest text we've studied, we know that a mediator/model can be a text, an external mediator. Thus, any story/tale/text can become a model to imitate, and, by extension, most works of art(painting, theatre). These art forms are representations of some human figure doing something which we can imitate.

Most fascinating to consider, however, is that mythology can act as a mediator, and I'm curious as to whether mythology does not remain only an external mediator, aka does not incite acquisitive mimesis. After all, a myth is a story, but it is not an external story - it's a story that is very much about th hearers themselves, in a sense. For example, in the chapter I cited in my post on lacking models, it seems that Apollonius of Tyana may be using a kind of mythology as a model. After all, he attempts to incite the Ephesians to kill the old man by telling them that they are killing "this enemy of the gods." This harkens back to a myth about the death of the gods, which produced the cultural order - an order which the differences, the outsider quality in this man, seems to abridge. Even though it is impossible for the hearers to be in acquisitive mimesis with the mythological texts (absurd thought), it seems that mythology in some ways incites its hearers to acquisitive mimesis in particular - because that is what it directly represents.

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Replies:

Re: Watership Down -- CS Holden, 13:09:16 03/10/08 Mon