Mimologics
Gérard Genette author Thais E Morgan translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Nebraska Press
Published:1st Jun '95
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Do words--their sounds and shapes, their lengths and patterns--imitate the world
Bridges mainstream literary history and Gérard Genette’s expertise in critical method by undertaking an intensive study of the most vexed of literary problems: language as a representation of reality. Deeply learned, the book draws upon the traditions - both sane and eccentric - of philosophy, linguistics, poetics, and comparative literature.Do words—their sounds and shapes, their lengths and patterns—imitate the world? Mimology says they do. First argued in Plato’s Cratylus more than two thousand years ago, mimology has left an important mark in virtually every major art and artistic theory thereafter. Fascinating and many-faceted, mimology is the basis of language sciences and incites occasional hilarity. Its complicated traditions require a sure grip but a light touch. One of the few scholars capable of giving mimology such genial attention is Gérard Genette. Genette treats matters as basic and staid as the alphabet and as reverberating as the letter R in ur-linguistics. Genette has emerged as one of the two or three chief literary critics of modern France. He is the major practitioner of narratological criticism, a pioneer in structuralism, and a much admired literary historian. His single most important book, Mimologics bridges mainstream literary history and Genette’s expertise in critical method by undertaking an intensive study of the most vexed of literary problems: language as a representation of reality. Deeply learned, the book draws upon the traditions—both sane and eccentric—of philosophy, linguistics, poetics, and comparative literature.
"Monumental... In [Mimologics], the influential structuralist/narratologist Genette traces a tradition of philosophical and linguistic arguments for the intrinsic connections between words and things... Morgan expertly renders into English the multitudinous examples of onomatopoeia, puns, double meanings, and other plays on the sounds and meanings of words. Morgan's theoretical introduction usefully locates the book's 18 chapters in the tradition of mimologics, and a brief but helpful foreword-written with characteristic crystalline wit by Gerald Prince-places this work in the context of Genette's career.d"-R. R. Warhol, Choice Choice "This book will ... enable Genette's work in its multifaceted richness to be better understood, as it is one of his most erudite and possibly the most provocative. Thais E. Morgan's translation is sensitive to the linguistic play of the original, given the fiercely mimetic nature of the subject; and when it does jar, which is seldom, one can only admire the sustained concentration of the work."-Forum of Modern Language Studies Forum of Modern Language Studies "Morgan has produced a fine translation of an extremely important book. It deserves to be wisely read."-David Galbraith, Literary Research/ Recherche Litteraire Literary Research/Recherche Litteraire "Mimologics (now very well and carefully translated) ... gives a masterly account of Cratylism, and of the various ways in which its basic notions have been reformulated, stretched, narrowed or modernized by the succeeding waves of those anxious in one degree or another to re-aasert the claims of natural 'motivation' in language over those of a conventionalism damnable for being the mark of our cosmic alienation."-London Review of Books London Review of Books
ISBN: 9780803270442
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 752g
446 pages