ENGL 3Q93 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Mirror Stage, Jacques Lacan, Simulacrum
10 Mar 2016
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Lacan positions this stage at 18 months and the child goes through this stage before passing onto other stages. It"s a stage that we never really get rid of. Lacan will articulate very clearly something like the mirror stage and label it clearly as a stage but will state that we never really leave this stage. How the stages of early human development are labeled are somewhat entangled. Lacan uses mimicry which is related to the term mimesis, imitation. We have seen various critiques deine mimesis in various ways. Aristotle"s deinition of tragedy is mimetic tragedy is a particular kind of mimesis and has a particular psychological function to evoke and then purge pity and fear. The mirror stage is the stage before the oedipal stage. What he is describing as the mirror stage, other psychoanalysts would describe as the pre-oedipal stage. The key relationship at this stage is the relationship between the infant and its mother.
