Divinization of the Model -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 19:19:10 04/05/08 Sat
Author: Kiernan
Subject: Divinization of the Model

I was reading from Chapter II of "Deceit, Desire, and the Novel" (with the great title of "Men Become Gods in the Eyes of Each Other), and I came across this great quote: "The mediator's divinity is central to novelistic genuis....The sacred is not merely another metaphoric domain; it is present whenever the author deals with the relationship between the subject and his mediator" (77). We have discussed at length the apotheosis of the victim in the sacrificial crisis, but it was interesting to me that the same phenomenon applies on a smaller level to acquisitive mimesis. The model is simultaneously the instigator and the obstacle, just as the victim is both the poison and the cure. And, just as we idolize the victim, we also have our own small gods - the models in our lives. In this way, too, and not just in the sacrificial crisis, is the sacred violence.

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