The Order of Mimesis : Balzac, Stendhal, Nerval and Flaubert

This book is a challenging investigation of the idea of literary mimesis in the light of contemporary literary theory.

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 realism: 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 however: 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.