“Scheherazade, c'est moi”

Since his retirement in the early nineteen nineties as a professor of creative writing from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, John Barth has published three new works: Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera (1994) ‐ which he calls a “semi‐novel semi‐reminiscence”; Further Fridays: Essays, Lectures, and Other Nonfiction (1995) ‐a collection of essays; and On With the Story: Stories (1996) ‐ a collection of short stories. The title and contents of this latest work confirm my earlier hypothesis that Barth's entire later work is governed by the principle of what I have come to call “narrativist mimesis”; the ultimate form of poststructuralist mimesis. His fictions have over the years developed an ongoing critique of forms of mimesis, moving from realist and mythemic to poststructuralist and narrativist mimesis.1 Concurrently we also see in Barth's later fiction that not only the genesis, but also the viability and survival of fiction as such, are other major concerns. Part of his programme forthe replenishment of literature is a return to “the story‐teller's art”, in the form of narrativist mimesis, a return with a difference to “the springs of narrative”. This article investigates how his later fiction, that is, from his seventh novel, LETTERS (1979), onwards, is fed by contemporary literary‐aesthetic theory and guided by the principle of narrativist mimesis. Sedert sy aftrede in die vroefi jare neëntig as professor in Kreatiewe Skryfkuns aan die Johns Hopkins Universiteit in Baltimore, het John Barth drie nuwe werke gepubliseer: Once Upon a Time: A Floating Opera (1994) ‐ wat hy ‘n semi‐roman/semi‐herinnering noem; Further Fridays: Essays, Lectures, and Other Nonfiction (1995) ‐ “n versameling opstelle; en On With the Story: Stories (1996) ‐ ‘n versameling kortverhale. Die titel en inhoud van die laasgenoemde werk bevestig my vroeëre aanname dat Barth se latere werk gerig word deur die prinsipe van wat ek narrativistiese mimesis noem; die uiterste vorm van poststrukturalistiese mimesis. Sy fiksies het ‘n voortgaande kritiek ontwikkel op verskillende vorme van mimesis, van realistiese en mitemiese tot poststrukturalistiese en narrativistiese mimesis. Tegelykertyd sien ons ook in Barth se latere werk dat nie alleen die oorsprong nie, maar ook die lewensvatbaarheid en out of fiction” (Barth 1987: 612), have become “prisoners of dramaturgy”, as Barth's alter ego in the novel, Djean, says, and “they've thrown away the key” (p. 604). The language used in story‐telling is not used to refer to things of the world, but used to live in the world. Language does not represent a reality outside itself. This lands us in the realm of narrativist mimesis. Scheherazade, her sister, the Author, Odysseus, Nausicaa, Don Quixote and Huckleberry Finn in The Tidewater Tales, and William Behler and Yasmin in The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor all overcome boundaries of time and place by erasing boundaries between reality and imagination, in a dynamic process of intertextual spatialisation

Epistemology · Borges, Kipling, and Jewish Identity · Hispanic-African Historical Relations · Literature, Magical Realism, García Márquez · Philosophy

• “Repetitions with a difference”

  Open Access•LOES NAS•Journal of Literary Studies•1993

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• Chaos Bound

  Open Access•N Katherine Hayles•Chaos Bound•2018

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