Mimesis and Its Romantic Reflections by Frederick Burwick (review)

Reviews Frederick Burwick. Mimesis andIts Romantic Reflections. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. 203p. Kandi Tayebi Sam Houston State University The field ofRomanticism has assumed that mimesis declined or was completely rejected by the end ofthe eighteenth century. This in large part was due to M.H. Abrams' seminal work TheMirrorandtheLamp. As Frederick Burwick points out in his work Mimesis and Its Romantic Reflections, Abrams' book has encouraged critics to "presume that once the lamp began to glow the mirror was shattered" (46). This assumption has brought about a lack ofanalysis ofthe mimetic techniques used by the Romantic poets. Critics argue that the poets' turn inward toward an examination ofthe creative process forced the Romantics to abandon "the ruins ofimitation" and begin to "worship at the shrine ofsubjectivism" (9). But the debate over the role ofmimesis in literature has continued throughout the ages even into our present day. Burwick's workbegins with the acknowledgement that mimesis continued to be important to the Romantic poets and that the mimetic tradition from as far back as Aristotle made room for the subjective experience that was the cornerstone ofRomanticism. Yet Burwick does not allow his argument to become outdated and irrelevant to Romantic studies today. Instead, he not onlytraces the historical development ofthe mimetic tradition but then illustrates how romantic critics confronted and dealt with the disjuncture evident in representation. Thus, Frederick Burwick's Mimesis and Its Romantic Reflections provides a look at the mimetic tradition that is not only thought provoking but also relevant to present-day criticism. Structuring his workinto two parts—the first three chapters explore the philosophical basis ofkey foundational concepts concerned with mimesis and the last three chapters analyze common manifestations of mimesis in the works of the writers ofthe time period—Burwickdiscusses the reconception ofmimesis in the Romanticaesthetic.The first concept he explores is art for art's sake, a phrase usually identified with the latter half of the nineteenth century, not Romanticism. Burwick argues that this concept used in association with Schelling had a "profound influence on Coleridge and, presumably through Coleridge, on Wordsworth" (13). By filling in the gaps in the history of the term left by other critics, Burwick chronicles how art for art's sake is engendered by a mimetic process that requires an "interplay of the object perceived, the imagination of the perceiver, and the material medium inwhich its form and essence were to be communicated " (44). He then connects this concept with the principles ofmimesis as identity and alterity and mimesis as the palingenesis ofmind in art. SPRING 2002 * ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW * 103 Tracing the historical antecedents ofthe romantic idea ofidentity and alterity, Burwick does not limit himselfto literary accounts but instead explores the concept as it is developed in logic, rhetoric and theology. In this way, he argues that Romantics, such as De Quincey and Coleridge, recognize that art can only retrieve similarity in difference, only "phantom images ofperception, memory, and imagination" (76) and that this becomes a major component of the Romantic aesthetic. The last key concept, the palingenesis ofmind, provides perhaps the most interesting approach to mimesis. His discussion ofColeridge's distinction between copy and imitation clarifies the concepts at the same time it complicates Coleridge's arguments. Burwick not only traces Coleridge's indebtedness to Schelling but also illustrates how Coleridge alters the initially Schellingian concept so that it takes on an obviously non-Schellingian emphasis. Burwicksurprises us with the demonstration ofhow widely Coleridge applies his ideas ofcopy and imitation, and his fresh take on Coleridge's appropriation ofSchelling shows why the idea ofmimesis is important to Romantic studies. Coleridge is able to adapt the idea ofmimesis without ignoring the willing participation ofthe individual. Thus, Burwick argues, Coleridge stressed what Schelling ignored: the individual "manipulating the lever" (106). Although the first three chapters lay important groundwork for the analysis to come, the last three chapters are the most interesting, presenting new insights into Coleridge, De Quincey, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, as well as in-depth analyses ofCharles Brockden Brown's ArthurMervyn, E.T.A. Hoffmann's KaterMurr, and James Hogg's Confessions ofaJustified Sinner. Burwick focuses his attention on the use ofekphrasis, mirror images, and...