MimologicsU of Nebraska Press, 1995 M01 1 - 446 pages 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. ø 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 Gärard Genette. Genette treats matters as basic and staid as the alphabet and as reverberating as the letter R in ur-linguistics. ø 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. |
Contents
Foreword | ix |
Invitation to a Voyage in Cratylusland Thaïs B Morgan | xxi |
Introduction | l |
Eponymy of the Name | 7 |
De ratione verborum | 29 |
Chapter 3 | 99 |
Chapter 5 | 108 |
Painting and Derivation | 115 |
Desert Languages | 189 |
Failing Natural Languages | 201 |
The Age of Names | 249 |
The Stakes of Writing | 261 |
Singe | 277 |
Taking Sides with Words | 297 |
Mimophony Restricted | 309 |
Notes | 319 |
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Common terms and phrases
alphabet analogy arbitrary articulation Bachelard Beauzée Brosses Brosses's chapter Claudel clearly color consonants conventional Cratylian Cratylus derivation Dictionnaire discourse elements Encyclopédie English eponymy Essay etymology example expressive fact feminine figure French function Gébelin Genette Genette's grammar Greek guage harmony Hermogenes hieroglyphic Ibid idea ideogram imitation Indo-European inflection inversion Jakobson language system langue Latin Leibniz Leiris letter lexical linguistic Mallarmé Marsais meaning metaphor metonymy mimesis mimetic mimologism mimologist mimophony motivation Mots anglais natural language Nodier noise Note noun object onomatopoeia opposition ordo origin of language painting Paris Paul Claudel phonetic phonic Plato Plato's Cratylus poetic poetry Ponge principle Proust purely relation relationship Renan reverie rhetoric Roman Jakobson Saussure semantic Semitic Semitic languages sense signified Socrates sound sound symbolism speak speech Stéphane Mallarmé symbolic theory things thought tion tongue Trans translation University Valéry valorization verb vowels words writing system