On the Mimesis of Reification: Adorno's Critical Theoretical Interpretation of Kafka

One of the most central concepts of Adorno’s aesthetic theory is that of mimesis. It is, perhaps, surprising to find this concept – so deeply associated with a debate in ancient philosophy – employed in the context of a new theory of aesthetic modernism, one conceived within the intellectual space of critical theory. And it is not only its archaic associations that appear to make it an unlikely way of capturing the specific properties of modernism. Mimesis carries with it connotations of imitation and representation. It has something to do with art’s supposed mission, that of copying reality. Yet these are the traditional norms of aesthetic production that modernism self-consciously and often polemically repudiated. Mimesis, however, is an evolving concept. As Jacques Derrida notes: “The whole history of the interpretation of the arts of letters has moved and been transformed within the diverse logical possibilities opened up by the concept of mimesis.”