The Order of Mimesis: Balzac, Stendhal, Nerval and Flaubert (Cambridge Studies in French)

Filenote | IA OL2538065M, TOC built, PaginatedThis book is a challenging investigation of the idea of literarymimesis in the light of contemporary literary theory. Drawing on arange of theoretical perspectives developed in and around the workof Barthes, Kristeva, Genette and Derrida, Dr Prendergast exploresapproaches to the concept of mimesis and relates these to a numberof narrative texts produced in the period which literary historyfamiliarly designates as the age of realism: Balzac's IllusionsPerdues and Splendeurs et Misres des Courtisanes, Stendhal's LeRouge et le Noir, Nerval's Sylvie and Flaubert's L'EducationSentimentale.The book is not merely expository however: one of the author'saims is to engage with much of the polemical debate which hassurrounded the topic, in the belief that a recognition of thehistorical conditions determining both the theory and practice ofmimesis must be recovered.