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February 27, 2007
Keesey: Not just a flying enemy in the Legend of Zelda
“the work is good to the extent that it accurately depicts the clash of class interests, the forces of economic determinism, the dialectic process of history, in brief, the social reality as the critic's particular interpretation of Marxism may conceive it.”
I think I'm getting this (note: doesn't mean I necessarily agree with it), so correct me if I'm wrong.
The mimetic critic, which derives its name from mimicry, which is the resemblance of two (or more) different items in action, appearances, etc, acts as the interpreter of the world and is evaluated in “goodness” and “truth,” by how accurately they report the world around them. As such, the Marxist would then want to properly portray the rising, ruling class taking advantage of the underclass, and the underclasses ability to rise against them....in other words, any “poet” who has ever written a poem about their job at Walmart.
Interesting. I might be off base, but that was what I was able to get out of this. Its the whole idea of “holding a mirror up to nature” as Dr. Wendland has said numerous times.
Posted by KevinMcGinnis at February 27, 2007 9:45 AM
Comments
I like that you defined mimicry. I had to be a dork and talk about mimes on mine, just cuz they creep me out. Anyhow, I think you are correct, because how many times do we have to hear about famous writers, actors, etc. talk about how they ate ketchup and lived in their car before they became these fabulous people. Whether it's really reality or not we'll never know. As Plato said, it's all up to the senses.
Posted by: Erin at February 27, 2007 12:27 PM
I would more so place the "eating ketchup and living in the car" thing under the inspirational and picking-self-up-by-the-boot-straps category. Tyler Perry is a good example of that. He was more or less living on the street and then rose to become one of the more popular and famous playwrights of today (Diary of a Mad Black Woman, the entire "Madea" series, etc).
And that understanding and so forth, at least to me, would be considered along with author background the like. Mimicry instead, as best as I understood it, attempts to replicate the feeling and experience of something real. Keats describes his experience looking upon an urn. I wrote a poem about working at Petsmart (ugh, what a terrible job).
If the poet had written a poem about the ketchup packet they ate for lunch while living in their car, well, that's a different story.
Posted by: Kevin at March 1, 2007 1:54 AM