Ekopoetyki
Ecopoetics

Mimetic Versus Post-Mortonian Theories: An Attempt at Classification

Summary/Abstract: The starting point for the article is the claim that within ecoposthumanist research one should speak of multiple ecopoetics. Taking into account examples of selected theoretical propositions, primarily those by John Elder, Terry Gifford, Leonard Scigaj, Jonathan Skinner, Sarah Nolan, and Lynn Keller, an attempt is made to expose differences between mimetic and post-Mortonian theories, which represent the two main movements of ecopoetics as a subdiscipline. Thus, on the one hand, we are delivered with proposals that take interest in the Romantic tradition and the mimetic description of nature, both of which enhance the belief in the unity between humankind and the world. On the other hand, there are theories that refer to the mimetic tradition with detachment; they seek to account for spaces beyond the natural, redefine the notion of nature and propose broader interpretive possibilities. This analysis is also accompanied by a historical outline on the origins and development of the twentieth- and twenty-first-century ecopoetics and Jonathan Skinner’s turn.

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