Fiction and Imitation

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4376331
AutoresThomas Pavel (autor correspondente)
Ano2000
Volume21
Fascículo3
Páginas521-541
Data de publicação2000-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPoetics Today (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0333-5372 • E-ISSN: 1527-5507
EditoraDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/03335372-21-3-521
OpenAlexW2139424160
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas18

This article begins with a discussion of the views on mimesis defended in recent works by Lubomír Doležel, Dorrit Cohn, and Jean-Marie Schaeffer. It then argues that literary fiction typically represents human beings in their relationship with norms and values. But since norms and values cannot be uniformly reduced to a set of observable facts, they cannot be copied directly but only highlighted indirectly, through examples of human action. These examples, however, do not necessarily represent the norm or the value they are meant to typify. It follows that representation of norms and values cannot be reduced to imitation and that mere observation of nature cannot suffice for creating and understanding fiction. The poet and the reader must know how to distance themselves from the world of "is," the empirical realm, in order to explore its dependence on the world of"ought," the realm of norms, and the world of"praise," the realm of values

Aesthetics · Art · Epistemology · Imitation · Literature · Physics · Political science · Politics · Praise · Realm · Sociology · Statistics · History · Law · Mathematics · Narrative Theory and Analysis · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology