Harlem Renaissance

Positive Effects of Cultivational Theory

1. It Starts With Aristotle

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Philosophers and writers including Aristotle, Plato, Moliere, Shakespeare, Racine, Diderot and Rousseau applied the mimetic theory of literary criticism to their work and lives; modern thinkers such as Benjamin, Derrida, and Girard have reworked and reapplied their ideas. The mimetic theory is the universal foundation of literature and of schools of literary criticism. The pragmatic school of literary criticism deals with the relationship between text and audience. The concern for the moral effects of art is often drawn from mimetic theory. The expressive school deals with the relationship between poet and work, and the objective school emphasizes the integrity of the work itself without considering the audience, poet or external reality.

2. Literature in the Real World

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The goal of mimetic criticism is to determine how well a work of literature connects with the real world, and the theory can be broadened to include approaches that deal with the spiritual and symbolic, the images that connect people of all times and cultures. Mimetic criticism can include aspects of moral/philosophical criticism, psychological criticism and feminist criticism. Mimetic criticism also argues that art conveys universal truths instead of just temporal and individual truths. Mimetic critics ask how well the work of literature accords with the real world. They analyze the accuracy of a literary work and its morality. They consider whether or not it shows how people really act, and whether or not it is correct. The mimetic critic assesses a literary work through the prism of his or her own time, judging the text according to his own value system.

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3. Did Shakespeare Reflect Human Nature?

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Mimetic criticism at its best praises literary works of authors like Homer, Shakespeare and Goethe for expressing the highest ideas and aspiration of humankind. Representatives of the Mimetic Theory of Literary Criticism include Plato, Samuel Johnson, Matthew Arnold and Leo Tolstoy. Samuel Johnson argued that Shakespeare portrayed universal character traits and moral values.

Mimetic Negatives
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The negative side of mimetic criticism occurs when the critic's subjective bias leads to dogmatic condemnation and censorship. Many works otherwise labeled aesthetically great have been blacklisted, banned or burned throughout the history of humankind by moral critics.

The Mimetic Down Side

A few of these banned works are "Ulysses" by James Joyce, "Candide" by Voltarie, "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman, works by Jean Jacques Rousseau and "Black Beauty" by Anna Sewall. Even Plato wanted to keep poets out of his Utopian republic because he felt that they were a danger to the general morality, and that poetry failed on mimetic terms because it has no access to the world of forms.

Rene Girard Crosses Time and Disciplines

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Rene Girard is the modern thinker who has stretched the mimetic theory of literary criticism across time and disciplines. In his 1961 book, "Deceit, Desire and the Novel," he argued persuasively that great novelists alone in the Western world have understood the mimetic foundations of human interaction.

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