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Mimesis Quotes

Browse 11 quotes about Mimesis.

Mimesis Quotes

“Why is society crumbling, collapsing, as it surely is? One of the fundamental reasons is that the individual – you – has ceased to be creative. I will explain what I mean. You & I have become imitative, we are copying, outwardly and inwardly. Outwardly, when learning a technique, when communicating with each other on the verbal level, naturally there must be some imitation, copy. I copy words. To become an engineer, I must first learn the technique, then use the technique to build a bridge. There must be a certain amount of imitation, copying, in outward technique, but when there is inward, psychological imitation, surely we cease to be creative. Our education, our social structure, our so-called religious life, are all based on imitation; that is, I fit into a particular social or religious formula. I have ceased to be a real individual; psychologically, I have become a mere repetitive machine with certain conditioned responses, whether of the Hindu, the Christian, the Buddhist, the German, or the Englishman. Our responses are conditioned according to the pattern of society, whether it is Eastern or Western, religious or materialistic. So one of the fundamental causes of the disintegration of society is imitation, and one of the disintegrating factors is the leader, whose very essence is imitation.”

Culture Creativity Learning Individuality Imitation Group Identity Mimesis

Book:On Right Livelihood

Source: On Right Livelihood

“Imitation is natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over the lower animals being this, that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learns at first by imitation.”

Philosophy Human Nature Mimesis

Book:Poetics

Source: Poetics

“Literature can no longer be either Mimesis or Mathesis but merely Semiosis, the adventure of what is impossible to language, in a word: Text (it is wrong to say that the notion of 'text' repeats the notion of 'literature': literature represents a finite world, the text figures the infinite of language).”

World Literature Language Impossible Figures Adventure Infinite Notion Repeats Finite Mimesis

Book:Roland Barthes

Source: Roland Barthes

“The most prevalent poetic representation of contemporary experience is the mimesis of disorientation by non sequitor.”

Poetry Literature Contemporary Poetic Representation Disorientation Mimesis

Author:Tony Hoagland

“On this showing, the nature of the breakdowns of civilizations can be summed up in three points: a failure of creative power in the minority, an answering withdrawal of mimesis on the part of the majority, and a consequent loss of social unity in the society as a whole.”

Whole Three Social Loss Creative Civilization Majority Unity Minorities Breakdown Withdrawal Creative Power Mimesis

Author:Arnold J. Toynbee

“Mimesis has longevity on its side. But Oasis wrote two of the greatest pop songs of all time, each with lyrics that mean less and less the more you think about them. So I'm going to have to go with the Gallagher brothers.”

Thinking Mean Two Song Sides Brother Pops All Time Longevity Oasis Pop Song Gallagher Mimesis

Author:Matthew Zapruder

“There is something thrilling in the mimesis of life's surprising unfolding.”

Surprising Thrilling Unfolding Mimesis

Author:Joyce Carol Oates

“On the whole, dialogue is the most difficult thing, without any doubt. It's very difficult, unfortunately. You have to detach yourself from the notion of a lifelike quality. You see, actually lifelike, tape-recorded dialogue like this has very little to do with good novel dialogue. It's a matter of getting that awful tyranny of mimesis out of your mind, which is difficult.”

Writing Mind Littles Matter Whole Difficult Quality Novel Doubt Notion Tyranny Dialogue Awful Tape Difficult Things Mimesis

Author:John Fowles

“Our lazy embrace of Stewart and Colbert is a testament to our own impoverished comic standards. We have come to accept coy mockery as genuine subversion and snarky mimesis as originality. It would be more accurate to describe our golden age of political comedy as the peak output of a lucrative corporate plantation whose chief export is a cheap and powerful opiate for progressive angst and rage.”

“The oldest theory of art belongs to the Greeks, who regarded art as an imitation (mimesis) of reality. The strength of that theory is that it explains the way in which art takes its materials from real life.”

Way Art Real Reality Materials Theory Art Is Real Life Greek Imitation Mimesis

Book:The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Writing

Source: The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Writing

“Newness only becomes mere evil in its totalitarian format, where all the tension between individual and society, that once gave rise to the category of the new, is dissipated. Today the appeal to newness, of no matter what kind, provided only that it is archaic enough, has become universal, the omnipresent medium of false mimesis. The decomposition of the subject is consummated in his self-abandonment to an ever-changing sameness.”

Source: Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life