From Mimesis to Narrative Modeling: The Evolution of Artistic Representation in Literature

Abstract

This article examines the historical transformation of the object of artistic representation in literature, arguing that literary representation should be understood not as simple reflection but as a form of aesthetic and cognitive construction. The study aims to define the object of artistic representation, trace its evolution across major literary paradigms, and identify the new forms of the artistic world emerging in twenty-first-century literature. Methodologically, the article combines comparative literary analysis, philosophical aesthetics, narratology, and cultural theory. The discussion begins with the classical concept of mimesis in Aristotle, where literature is associated with the representation of possibility rather than mechanical imitation. It then analyzes realism through the works of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, modernism through Franz Kafka, and postmodern narrative multiplicity through the prose of Olga Tokarczuk. Particular attention is given to the shift from external reality to inner experience, discursive plurality, memory, trauma, documentary hybridity, and digital mediality. The article concludes that the object of artistic representation is historically dynamic and that literature functions as an autonomous system of meaning production, a cultural laboratory, and an epistemological tool through which reality is modeled, interpreted, and reimagined.