Mimesis und Poiesis Einleitende Überlegungen zu Mittelalterentwürfen in moderner Fantasy

Abstract

This introduction examines modern fantasy as a key site of neo-medieval imagination, structured by a tension between the concepts of mimesis and poiesis. Rather than referring to the historical era of the Middle Ages, fantasy constructs an aesthetic simulacrum shaped by cultural memory, popular imagery, and narrative stereotypes. Specific narrative structures, character types, symbolic objects, and sensory aesthetics evoke medieval elements, all the while transforming them into coherent secondary worlds through autonomous worldbuilding. At the same time, the popular Middle Ages emerge as a highly politicised imaginative space, in which issues of power, identity, gender, racism, and colonialism are negotiated.