Mimesis in the Public Domain

Literary works with multiple oral and textual sources such as such as the Bible, the ancient epics of Greece and India, The 1001 Nights, or The Lancelot/Grail Cycle, create dense and fluid textual networks that survive and grow over time. Most of these works were either orally or collectively composed and remained multiform even after they became texts. For the past decade or so I have been working toward an informed grasp of the similarities and differences between these Anonymous Masterpieces and their widespread influence. Why have they branched out and flourished for so long? Is it because of innate characteristics that transcend cultural barriers and remote origins? The study will trace the history of the concept of authorship as it evolves from ascribing voice and identity to ownership of intellectual property. If I ever finish the resulting project, the book will be a response to Auerbach’s Mimesis  using heuristics adapted from studies of cultural evolution. I will have a section on what are in the West lesser known epics and collections of stories from Native American, African, Indo-European, Middle-Eastern and Asian languages. So, it will be a sweeping but detailed, simplified but learned, and scholarly but entertaining, big old-fashioned book. The only polemics are arguments for the importance of the Public Domain and for reading the biggest stuff first.