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Mimesis

Mimesis

  • Mimesis (Greek word) is generally translated as imitation or representation.
  • Greek Philosopher Plato in his Republic used the term mimesis to describe arts in general. For him a work of art is twice removed from the original and hence it is an inferior copy.
  • Plato's disciple Aristotle in his Poetics (c. 350 BCE) writes, "Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their general conception modes of imitation". 
  • Aristotle accepted the term mimesis from Plato and deepened and enriched its meaning.
  • For Aristotle, Art is improvement upon nature and hence a work of art is a superior copy. Nature is not passive but the creative force and productive principle of the universe.
  • Arts differ from one another in three respects- 
    • the medium of imitation
    • the objects of imitation
    • the manner or mode of imitation 

Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and the Fine Arts
S. H. Butcher

Chapter: II - Imitation as an Aesthetic Term

  1. A work of art is a likeness or reproduction of an original, and not a symbolic representation of it.
  2. A work of art reproduces its original, not as it is in itself, but as it appears to the senses.
  3. Imitative art in its highest form, namely poetry, is an expression of the universal element in human life.
  4. A work of art [is] an idealised representation of human life-of character, emotion, action-under forms manifest to sense.

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