The Order of Mimesis: Balzac, Stendhal, Nerval and Flaubert (Cambridge Studies in French, Series Number 12)

by Christopher Prendergast

This book is a challenging investigation of the idea of literary mimesis in the light of contemporary literary theory. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives developed in and around the work of Barthes, Kristeva, Genette and Derrida, Dr Prendergast explores approaches to the concept of mimesis and relates these to a number of narrative texts produced in the period which literary history familiarly designates as the age of Balzac's Illusions Perdues and Splendeurs et Misères des Courtisanes, Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir, Nerval's Sylvie and Flaubert's L'Education Sentimentale. The book is not merely expository one of the author's aims is to engage with much of the polemical debate which has surrounded the topic, in the belief that a recognition of the historical conditions determining both the theory and practice of mimesis must be recovered.

Genres: Theory

300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986