In this intriguing seminar, our associate junior researcher Adam Nilsson, will argue for a synthesis of ideas between Russian Formalism, Mimesis theory sensu Donald, and phenomenology sensu Merleau-Ponty. All are warmly welcome, with cameras on for zoom visitors please.

The purpose of the artistic text, according to Shklovsky (1917), or of art in general, is to make the object one perceives unfamiliar, and not habitually perceived (in the case of “prosaic” text). There is in other words a signitive opaqueness to the artistic text, that raises our awareness to types of meanings not found in the automatic operations of fully conventionalized meanings. These qualities are what I will call formal qualities.

Formal qualities of literature, like style, voice, mood, musicality etc. are things that arise out of this signitive opaqueness, and are something more than the meanings of the sentences, but couldn’t arise without them. My proposal is that these formal qualities are “echoes” from a deeper stage of meaning, namely the mimetic stage (Donald 1993). 

A mimetic act is “a motor performance that reflects the perceived event structure of the world” (Donald 2005), and is made communicable through “bodily mimesis” (Zlatev 2014). Seeing the formal qualities of artistic text as mimetic meanings or invitations to (internalized) bodily mimesis, I will try to answer the wish for philosophy put forth in Merleau-Ponty’s last published words, that of philosophy being able to express a “wild meaning” and “an expression of experience by experience” (1968, p.155), and also suggest a view of linguistic creativity, expanding on models in cognitive semiotics (Zlatev 2023)

Donald, M. (1993). Precis of Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition. Behavioral and brain sciences, 16(4), 737-748.

Donald, M. (2005). Imitation and Mimesis. In: S, Hurley & N. Charter (Eds.). Perspectives on Imitation: Imitation, human development, and culture, 283.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968). The visible and the invisible: Followed by working notes. Nortwestern University Press.

Shklovsky, V. (1917). Art as technique. Literary theory: An anthology, 3, 8-14.

Zlatev, J. (2014). Human uniqueness, bodily mimesis and the evolution of language. Humana. Mente Journal of Philosophical Studies, 7(27), 197-219. 

Zlatev, J. (2023). The intertwining of bodily experience and language: The continued relevance of Merleau-Ponty. Histoire Épistémologie Langage, (45-1), 41-63.