Is Mimetic Theory Universal?

Gu, Ming Dong

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-73730-6_6

Ming Dong Gu^3,4

Part of the book series: Chinese Literature and Culture in the World ((CLCW))

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Abstract

This chapter explores whether mimetic theory is unique to Western tradition and whether it exists in Chinese critical discourse. It reexamines the widely accepted view that while mimesis is the foundation of Western aesthetic thought, expression is the dominant mode of representation in Chinese literary thought. By examining ontological and epistemological issues concerning mimesis in the Chinese tradition in relation to conceptual insights in the West, this chapter reaffirms imitation as a transcultural human instinct and mimetic theory in art as a universal thought across cultural traditions and suggests that the difference in the emphasis on mimesis and expression in Chinese and Western traditions is one in degree, not in kind.

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Notes

1.
Stephen Halliwell, The Aesthetics of Mimesis : Ancient Texts and Modern Problems (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), p. vii.
2.
Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 630–661; 819–844.
3.
Aristotle, Poetics, translated by Stephen Halliwell (Cambridge: MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
4.
M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and The Critical Tradition (New York: Norton, 1953), p. 11.
5.
See Eric Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (1953); and Georg Lukács, Essays on Realism (1981), Realism in Our Time (1964), Studies in European Realism (1964), and Theory of the Novel (1971). For conceptual reaffirmation of mimesis, see Paul Riceour, The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, translated by Robert Czerny and others (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), p. 39; Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, tr. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. Second revised edition (New York: Continuum, 1999), pp. 101–169.
6.
See Haun Saussy’s The Problem of A Chinese Aesthetic, pp. 1–12; Longxi Zhang’s Mighty Opposites: From Dichotomies to Differences in the Comparative Study of China, pp. 1–18; and Svensson Ekström’s article, “A Second Look at the Great Preface on the Way to a New Understanding of Early Chinese Poetics,” in Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, 21 (1999): 1–33.
7.
Rey Chow, ed., Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory: Reimagining a Field (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001), p. 10.
8.
In Rey Chow’s critique of the various dichotomies between China and the West, she cited many research sources to support her argument, but on the issue of mimetic/nonmimetic dichotomy, she cited nothing. This is not a miss in her scholarship, but simply because up to the time of her critique, except for some passing critical remarks, there is no relevant research to cite.
9.
See Ye Lang, Zhongguo meixueshi dagang [Outline of Chinese History of Aesthetics] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1985), p. 11
10.
I have conducted an evidential research on this topic. See Chap. 7.
11.
Stephen Halliwell, The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems, p. 15.
12.
Irena R. Makaryk, ed., Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), p. 591.
13.
I adopted this conceptualization from the New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, p. 576.
14.
Meir Sternberg, “‘The Laokoon’ Today: Interart Relations, Modern Projects and Projections,” Poetics Today (1999)20.2: 291–379.
15.
James J.Y. Liu, Chinese Theories of Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), pp. 48–49.
16.
Wen is a polysemous word in Chinese. It means “pattern” in its most general sense but refers to “literature” in its aesthetic sense. It also covers culture, cultivated virtue, civilization, and civil aspects of society, etc.
17.
Stephen Owen, Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics: Omen of the World (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), p. 20.
18.
Pauline Yu, The Reading of Imagery in the Chinese Poetic Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 39.
19.
Pauline Yu, The Reading of Imagery in the Chinese Poetic Tradition, p. 35.
20.
Pauline Yu, The Reading of Imagery in the Chinese Poetic Tradition, p. 82.
21.
Andrew Plaks, “Towards A Critical theory of Chinese Narrative,” in Chinese Narrative, Critical and Theoretical Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), p. 311.
22.
François Jullien (1995), Detour and Access: Strategies of Meaning in China and Greece, tr., Sophie Hawkes (New York: Zone Books, 2000), p. 164.
23.
Craig Fisk, “Literary Criticism,” in William Nienhauser, ed., The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1986), p. 49.
24.
Liang Shi, “The Leopardskin of Dao and the Icon of Truth: Natural Birth Versus Mimesis in Chinese and Western Literary Theories,” Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 31, No.2, 1994, p. 159.
25.
M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp, p. 8.
26.
Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, p. 640.
27.
Aristotle, Poetics, translated by Stephen Halliwell, p. 37.
28.
Xu Shen, Shuowen jiezi, edited by Xu Xuan, Juan 15a (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, n.d.), p. 314. Henceforward, unless indicated otherwise, all quotations from Chinese sources are my own translation.
29.
Meir Sternberg, “‘The Laokoon’ Today: Interart Relations, Modern Projects and Projections,” p. 296.
30.
Luo Genze, Zhongguo wenxue pipingshi [History of Chinese Literary Criticism], Vol. 1 (Beijing: 1958), p. 53.
31.
James Liu, Language Paradox and Poetics: A Chinese Perspective (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 23–24.
32.
Gao Heng, Zhouyi Dazhuan tongshuo [A General Discourse on the Great Commentary to the Zhouyi], quoted from Zhongguo shixue tixilun [The Chinese System of Poetics] (Beijing: Zhongguo sheke chubanshe, 1992), p. 167.
33.
Huang Shouqi and Zhang Shanwen, Zhouyi yizhu [The Zhouyi Annotated and Translated] (Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 1989), p. 592.
34.
Zhouyi zhengyi [The Correct Meaning of the Zhouyi], annotated by Kong Yingda (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, n.d.), ce 3, juan 7, 19a.
35.
Zhouyi Zhengyi (Correction Interpretation of the Book of Changes), ce 3, juan 7, 19a.
36.
Huang Shouqi and Zhang Shanwen, Zhouyi yizhu [The Zhouyi Annotated and Translated], p. 569.
37.
Huang Shouqi and Zhang Shanwen, Zhouyi yizhu [The Zhouyi Annotated and Translated], p. 535.
38.
Ge Zhaoguang, Zhongguo sixiangshi [History of Chinese Thought], (Shanghai: Fudan danxue chubanshe, 2001), Vol. 1, p. 73.
39.
The Yellow Emperor, a quasi-mythological figure, is believed to be an ancestor of the Chinese nation.
40.
Xu Shen, Shuowen jiezi [Elucidations of Characters and Words] (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1937), juan 15a, p. 1a.
41.
Xu Shen, Shuowen jiezi [Elucidations of Characters and Words], Juan 15A, 1b.
42.
Zheng Qiao, Tongzhi lue [Outline of General Records] (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1933), Ce 4, p.11.
43.
Zhang Yanyuan, Lidai minghua ji [Records of Famous Paintings through the Dynasties] in Zhongguo hualun leibian [Classified Collections of Chinese Theories of Painting] (Taipei: Huazheng shuju, 1977), p. 27.
44.
Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, pp. 819–844.
45.
Abrams offers a concise account of how Plato constructed a relationship among the three worlds and how Aristotle simplified it by “shorn[ing] away the other world of criterion-Ideas.” The Mirror and the Lamp, pp. 8–10.
46.
Pauline Yu, The Reading of Imagery in the Chinese Poetic Tradition, p. 5.
47.
See Liang Shi, “The Leopardskin of Dao and the Icon of Truth,” p. 163.
48.
Laozi elaborated on this idea in a number of places in his Daode Jing [The Classic of Way and Virtue], annotated by Guo Xiang (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995), see chs. 1, 4, 6.
49.
Liu Xie, Wenxin diaolong [Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons], annotated by Lu Kanru and Mu Shijin, p. 452.
50.
Adapted from Vincent Shih’s translation, The Literary Mind and Carving of Drogons (Taipei: Zhonghua shuju, 1975), p. 10.
51.
Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi [Writings of Zhuangzi] (Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 1995), chap. 22, p. 233.
52.
Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Council on East Asian Studies, 1992), p. 185.
53.
Liu Xie, Wenxin diaolong [Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons], p. 602.
54.
For a canonization of this view, see James J. Y. Liu’s Chinese Theories of Literature, p. 69, and Stephen Owen’s Readings in Chinese Literary Thought, p. 37.
55.
Vincent Shih’s translation, p. 349.
56.
An interested reader may read beginning of chap. 37, and all of chaps. 8 and 46.
57.
Xie Zhen, Siming shihua [Poetic Talks by Siming], in Zhongguo meixue shi ziliao xuanbian [A Selected Collection of Materials on Chinese History of Aesthetics] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1985), p. 112.
58.
Wang Fuzhi, Jiangzhai shihua [Poetic Talk of Jiangzhai], Zhongguo meixue shi ziliao xuanbian, p. 277.
59.
A collection of Chinese ballads folk songs dating from antiquity to the Tang dynasty, compiled by Guo Maoqian in the twelfth century.
60.
Zhongguo meixue shi ziliao xuanbian, p. 275.
61.
Alexander Pope, “Essay on Criticism,” in Critical Theory Since Plato, p. 279.
62.
Nicolas Boileau, Art Poétique, in Oeuvres Complètes de Boileau (Paris: Société Les Belles Lettres, 1967), pp. 81–117.
63.
Zhongguo meixue shi ziliao xuanbian, p. 281.
64.
Plotinus, “On the Intellectual Beauty,” in Critical Theory Since Plato, p. 109.
65.
Paul de Man, Blindness and Insight, 258–9. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer of Poetics Today for calling my attention to this parallel idea.
66.
Yuan Hongdao, Yuan Zhonglang wenxuan [Selected Writings of Yuan Zhonglang] (Shanghai: Fanggu shudian, 1937), p. 210.
67.
Ye Xie, Yuanshi [The Origin of Poetry] (Beijing: renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1979), p. 25.
68.
This translation is quoted from Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought, p. 516.
69.
Ye Xie, Yuanshi [The Origin of Poetry], 23–24.
70.
For example, W. J. T. Mitchell writes in his article, “Representation”: “the founding fathers of literary theory, Plato and Aristotle, regarded literature as simply one form of representation. Aristotle defined all the arts—verbal, visual, and musical—as modes of representation.” See Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin, eds., Critical Terms for Literary Study, p. 11.
71.
Alex Preminger and T.V. F. Brogan, eds., New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 1037.
72.
Ye Xie, Yuanshi [The Origin of Poetry], p. 21.
73.
Frederic Mote, Intellectual Foundations of China (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), pp. 17–18.
74.
See Michael Puett’s book-length study, To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Dvinization in Early China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2002); and Yong Ren’s summary in his article “Cosmogony, Fictionality, Poetic Creativity: Western and Traditional Chinese Cultural Perspectives,” Comparative Literature, 50.2 (Spring, 1998), 98–117.
75.
Yong Ren, “Cosmogony, Fictionality, Poetic Creativity: Western and Traditional Chinese Cultural Perspectives,” Comparative Literature, 50.2 (Spring, 1998), p. 101.
76.
See Yong Ren, “Cosmogony, Fictionality, Poetic Creativity: Western and Traditional Chinese Cultural Perspectives,” Comparative Literature, 50.2 (1998): 98–119.
77.
Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, pp. 821–823.
78.
Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 820.
79.
Plato, Republic, Book X, in Critical Theory Since Plato, p. 33. On the same page, there is a footnote that suggests perhaps a better translation: “we have been accustomed to assume that there is one single idea corresponding to each group of particulars; and to these we give the same name (as we give the idea).”
80.
Feng Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, translated by Derk Bodde (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), vol. 1, p. 203.
81.
Gongsun Long, Gongsun Longzi jiaoshi [Kongsun Long’s Writings Collated and Annotated], annotated by Wu Yujiang (Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 2001), pp. 1–2.
82.
Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (New York: Free Press, 1948), p. 87.
83.
Chen Liangyun, Zhonggo shixue tixi lun (The Chinese System of Poetics) (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui kexue chubashe, 1992), pp. 338–9.
84.
Quoted from Wang Bi’s annotation of the Zhouyi, in Wang Bi ji jiaoshi [Wang Bi’s Collecte Works Annotated and Collated], vol. 2: 543.
85.
M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp, p. 36.
86.
Xunzi, Xunzi yizhu [Xunzi Annotated and Translated], annotated and translated by Zhang Jue (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1995), p. 347.
87.
Earl Miner, “On the Genesis and Development of Literary Systems,” Part I, in Critical Inquiry, 5.2 (Winter1978), p. 350.
88.
William Wordsworth (1850), “Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” in William Wordsworth: Selected Prose, ed., John O. Hayden (Harmondswroth: Penguin, 1988), p. 297.
89.
Robert Scholes, “Language, Narrative, and Anti-Narrative,” in W. J. T. Mitchell, ed., On Narrative (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 205.
90.
Ma Zhiyuan sanqu zhu (Ma Zhiyuan’s Dramatic Lyrics Annotated) (Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1989), 22.
91.
Chen Liangyun, Zhonggo shixue tixi lun (The Chinese System of Poetics), p. 183.
92.
Liu Xie, Wenxin diaolong [Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons], p. 168.
93.
Faye Chunfang Fei, ed., and tr., Chinese Theories of Theatre and Performance from Confucius to the Present (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), p. 62.
94.
Cai Zongxiang et al., Zongguo wenxue lilun shi [History of Chinese Literary Theories], 5 vols. (Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1987), vol. 4, p. 629.
95.
Ernest Fenollosa, The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, edited by Ezra Pound (San Francisco: City Lights, 1968), p. 9.
96.
Stephen Halliwell, The Aesthetics of Mimesis, p. 33.

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School of Foreign Languages, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China
Ming Dong Gu
School of Arts and Humanities, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA
Ming Dong Gu

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Gu, M.D. (2021). Is Mimetic Theory Universal?. In: Fusion of Critical Horizons in Chinese and Western Language, Poetics, Aesthetics. Chinese Literature and Culture in the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73730-6_6

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73730-6_6
Published: 08 July 2021
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