Sign Systems Studies (Dec 2003)

Lotman on mimesis

  • Jelena Grigorjeva

DOI
https://doi.org/10.12697/SSS.2003.31.1.09
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 31, no. 1

Abstract

Read online

The article considers some basic notions of semiotics of mimesis by Juri Lotman, such as model, similarity, and relations between an object and its representation. The way Lotman defines and interprets these notions is compared with definitions given by adherents of the “semiotics of the transcendence” (German and Russian romanticism and Neoplatonism, Russian symbolism, theory of mystical symbol). A certain typological proximity of some important theoretical statements ensures the necessity to revise the traditional image of Tartu semiotics as a purely positivistic school of thought.