Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2000. [Vol. 6.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)

Studies - Hans-Wolfgang Schaller: The Survival of the Novel: E. L. Doctorow's Escape out of the Postmodern Deadend

This, of course, is possible only if one overcomes the postmodern ethical and moral relativity and introduces, as Doctorow tries to do, an intersubjective ethical consensus which is based not an outside reality but an a cultural agreement as to moral norms. Aristotle's term of mimesis now takes an a new or rather renewed significance. Aristotle never understood mimesis as an imitation of reality as such but as an imitation of meaningful human action which takes place within a meaningless world. And in that sense literature again becomes possible and important as it can show good examples of how ethical and moral convictions may serve to secure and extend meaningful and fulfilling human lives. And that means that the Aristotelian mimesis is far from obsolete. Imitating human action in a strange world in a structured, persuasive, and logically convincing way may yet be more necessary than ever before. Thank God that every generation so far has come to this conclusion, because human creativity is the only guarantee that we will continue to lead meaningful lives. WORKS CITED Doctorow, Edgar Laurence, " False Documents", American Review 27 (November 1977), 215-232. Eliot, T. S., The Sacred Woods, New York: Scribner's, 1920 Else, Gerald, F., Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument, Leiden: Brill, 1957 Federman, Raymond, "Surfiction

—Four Propositions in Form of an Introduction", in: Raymond Federman, ed., Surfrction: Now ... and Tomorrow, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1975, 23-31. Gass, William H., Fiction and the Figures of Life, New York: Scribner's, 1972 Hemingway, Ernest, Death in the Afternoon, New York: Scribner's, 1932 * Horstmann, Ulrich, "Parakritik und Dekonstruktion. Der amerikanische PostStrukturalismus", in: Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Bd. 8 (1983), Heft 2, 145-158. Kannicht, Richard, "Handlung als Grundbegriff der Aristotelischen Theorie des Dramas", Poetica, 8, (1976), 326-336. 95