MIMESIS
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
MIMESIS: DIFFERENT VIEWS
MIMESIS IN PAST
MIMESIS AND INTERPRETATIONS
CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INTRODUCTION
When
we start to study any subject, we are introduced to that subject from its very
beginning, its origin, history, development etc. What is the need of searching the ‘past’ of
the subject? The one reason is that, it will provide a thorough knowledge about
a particular subject; the second thing is that, it will give us a model, which
is intended to repeat by us. This repetition is a kind of imitation. Sometimes
we study the ‘past’ not to understand but to imitate. So imitation is a natural
process. This imitation is not bound to human beings only, but even animals too
imitating. So it is clear that imitation is common, but serious approach
towards imitation is very rare.
Even imitation had a great
history, as a subject. It starts from the word origin from Greek to its
influence upon Western Philosophy. In Greek imitation is termed as “mimesis”.
Mimesis is a contradictory subject in western philosophy. The Greek classicists
like Plato, Aristotle and other prominent thinkers opined about their views
regarding mimesis. Among them Plato and Aristotle is significant and they two
had two opposite views. So let us begin with the different ideas of mimesis
according to different thinkers in the primary part.
Mimesis
is like air, we cannot see it, but there is always its presence. Our concern is
mimesis in art, painting, and literature; objectively creative arts. There are
a lot of examples for mimesis in creative fields. But classifying it as mere
imitation is not good, because copying and plagiarism is also a kind of
imitation. So the mimesis discuss here is not the word to word copying; but the
creativity in mimesis. Many prominent figures in literature or in other fields
practiced mimesis. The film adaptation of novel is a type of mimesis or making
a sculpture inspired from any situation or work also mimesis.
We
are studying any subject not for the sake of glorifying our past. We have the
responsibility to know about the current position of our subject. So as a branch of study we have to look at
the present position of mimesis. Past is different from present, so what past
had taught us is not applicable to present. The present is molded by past
memories and experiences. So the life changes, people changes or even the
political situation changes. All these changes largely effect on creative arts,
which will represent the changes in their creativity. So mimesis also underwent
such changes in a few centuries. The mindset of the people broadened and
literature also became the tool of explosion. So how mimesis treated by the
moderns world is discussed in the last section.
MIMESIS :
DIFFERENT VIEWS
PLATO
The
word “mimesis” got importance during Plato’s period. Plato was the major figure
credited for theorizing mimesis. It is said that Plato redefines art as essentially
mimetic. So it is clear that Plato’s precursors also contributed to the subject
mimesis Plato only redefines their definitions in his own perspective. Plato
identifies mimesis as the recognizable category of human action, that is those
actions are known to us, but it recreated as another independent reality. The
essence of human actions is drained to make mimetic art.
Plato is more
cautious regarding influence of mimesis in public life, not in literature.
Plato points out the mimetic influence on political organization, education,
the ideal of justice and the nature of philosophical knowledge. Plato never
approves mimesis as an aesthetic category, nor does he consider it as a source
of didacticism. Instead he finds mimesis as a threat to the ideals of justice
and reason. Plato discuss about mimesis in the concept of ideal commonwealth.
So he shows the practical side of mimesis in our daily life. It’s influence on
human nature and political life.
In Plato’s dialogues, the speaker Socrates put forward
the idea of a city as a way of more effectively rule over human soul; it is the
parallel to ideal commonwealth of Plato. The city is governed by its wise
citizens, philosophers. Likewise the human soul should be governed by its best
part, which is reason. Mimesis is first used in the concept of ideal city. In
that section Plato says that mimesis is a source of feminine adornment. Mimesis
can be used by poets and their helpers, rhapsodies, actors, choral dancers,
contractors and craftsmen in all sorts of equipment in order to impress woman.
Plato argues mimesis was against the idea of masculinity. So he says it should
associate with children, women and insane who do not have role in political
participation. Plato had anti- feminine
as well as ‘anti-mimetic’ mindset, so he considers both as secondary.
For Plato mimesis is luxury
not a necessity. Plato differentiates mimesis from the real. Real is rational
and essential whereas mimesis associated with pleasure and emotion rather than
truth, reason and the necessities of life. Artistic mimesis is discussed in
book II. Here Socrates, the speaker claims that artistic imitation influence
behavior too. Plato also says mimesis can be a good educator because it is
false, but only for good education. So mimesis is helpful in life in a proper
way of use. Plato compares mimesis with many things. One of them is mimesis
acts like a drug, it is useful when administrated correctly, but dangerous when
given indiscriminately. Next, Plato divides narration into three: simple
narration or the narrator is poet himself. Mimetic narration in which narrator
imitates the character. Last, mixed narration, this combines both simple
narration and mimetic narration. The
mimetic narration is disliked by Plato. Plato describes mimetic narration as
‘he gives a speech as though he were someone else’. He banned mimetic poets
from his republic.
In book X Plato again discuss
mimesis. In that too he criticize mimesis like he did in book II and III. But
in book X Plato connects mimesis with literature. Earlier he mentioned it as a
tool for education, but here he argues artistic images are simply shadows.
These shadows only represent the outer segment not the rational truth. Plato
had the concept that things are first conceived as ideas, and then it takes the
shape in material. That shows each and everything is once removed from reality
or ideas. What the poet or painter do is they recreate such once removed
reality in words or colours. So it is twice removed from reality, and lacks
rationality. He again compares mimesis with mirror, which reflect mere phantoms
not real thing. Plato says imitator have neither knowledge nor opinion about
what they imitate. So Plato does not have a positive opinion regarding mimesis.
Plato is purely a moralistic who wanted universal well being, for that mimesis
is harmful.
ARISTOTLE
Aristotle discusses about
mimesis in his Poetics as a critical
response to Plato. Plato wanted to banish poets from his commonwealth.
Aristotle was not against the notion that all art is essentially mimetic.
Aristotle agrees that Plato’s mimesis theory had a hold on western theory. So
Aristotle does not attempt to defend Plato. Like Plato, Aristotle categorizes
all art on the basis of mimesis. Aristotle simply put his conceptions on
mimesis which were against Plato’s mimesis.
Unlike Plato, mimesis is a
real thing for Aristotle; worthy of critical analysis. Plato looks at mimesis
as mirror basically deceptive. Aristotle defines mimesis as a craft, with its
own laws and aims. Aristotle treat poetry ‘in itself’ not as a reflection of
something else. Poetry is natural object that is not simply imitating anything.
For Aristotle the object of poetry is “men in action”. Plato says metaphors,
mirrors and shadows are used to make poem artificial. But Aristotle considers
it as materials each art is uses to represent people and objects. Aristotle
says it is important to imitate skillfully than to imitate exactly. Aristotle
suggests the manner of imitation should not be judged by whether it reveals the
poet or not, but if it is appropriate to the nature of materials.
Plato has the opinion that
children’s imitation of elders as danger, Aristotle optimizes it as naturalness
of mimesis. Humans are the most imitative of all creatures. So mimesis is
implanted in us from our childhood itself. The children not simply imitate
adults, but they develop the adult’s actions in their own way and recreate it.
So mimesis will not cause harm to humans, the bad imitation is not a common
phenomenon, but it depends on persons. Aristotle considers mimesis as a unique
source of learning.
SIR.PHILIP
SIDNEY
Sir Philip Sidney follows the
Platonic tradition in his Defense of Poetry.
Sidney defines poetry as an imitation of imitation, is thrice removed from
reality. Sidney supports Platonic views, but he advances the idea of poet as
maker. The imitative poet does not simply copy nature, but “doth grow in effect
another nature in making things either better than nature bringeth forth, or
quite anew, forms such as never were in nature” (78. 24-26). In imitation,
important is ‘of what may be and should be’. Those mimetic poets are tried to
bring something different. They make things better than as they are, and also
add extra to it. Sidney resembles many of the opinion with Plato, so he is not
much contributed to mimetic theory.
DIONYSIAN
IMITATIO
Dionysian
imitatio is an influential literary method, which is formulated by Greek author
Dionysius Halicarnassus in the first century BCE. It is conceived as technique
of rhetoric: emulating, adaptation, reworking and enriching a source text by an
earlier author. It departed from Aristotle’s mimesis as “imitation of nature”
instead encouraged “imitation of other authors”. Latin orators too supported
this method.
MIMESIS IN PAST
Mimesis or imitation is
visible in all artistic fields. The success of an imitator lies on imprinting
his own talent in the mimetic art. Otherwise the imitation will remain copy of
the original, just like the distilled water, which is clear in the outer
appearance but lacks the quality and taste. If any imitator purely imitates the
thing in its physical appearance, his/her work will not lasts for a long
period. What is celebrated and accepted is new and creative not the past and
its repetition.
Artists of eighteenth century
found pleasure in reconfiguration of traditional materials. The old stories
made fresh and new, familiar conventions are represented differently. Virgil
took inspiration from Homer, to write Aeneid.
Literary imitation is necessary to maintain cultural stability and a powerful
way to unite contemporary culture with the past. In the history of Europe
itself Roman claimed over Greek tradition through imitating Greek art. In the
period of Renaissance Greek classical works are revived. Epic, pastoral, comedy
and tragedy all originated in Greece. These forms identified as literary forms
because of imitation. Virgil imitated pastoral poetry of Theocritus, Horace
imitated Plautus and Terence imitated comedy of Aristophanes, Seneca retold
tragic narratives of Sophocles.
Imitation makes the classical
works as the model for further imitation. It does not echo the words of
forerunners, but changes original text into recognizable set of conventions.
Romans considered imitation as an essential method for artistic innovation. For
example, Horace imitates Pindar, but forges something new with his poetic
material. The imitator should be an opponent to their role models not the mere
followers of them. So imitation is encouraged in classical period in order to
preserve the past literary tradition.
Imitation is the outcome of
effectiveness of tradition. So imitation revives the work of art. The best
example of generic imitation is Virgil’s Aeneid,
tells the story of fall of Troy- but this story had its own origin in Homer’s
epic Iliad and Odyssey. John Milton narrates one version of Satan’s fall from
heaven to hell in book VI of Paradise
Lost. In chapter VI of Ulysses, James Joyce’s modern day
Odysseus, Leopold Bloom attends a funeral. There is nothing inherently epic
about a descent to the underworld, or about the number six. Both gain
importance through Virgil’s imitation of Homer and the subsequent imitation of
writers from Dante to Joyce.
Thomas Greene says “the
process called imitation was not only a technique or habit; it was also a field
of ambivalence, drawing together manifold, tangled, sometimes antithetical
attitudes, hopes, pieties, and reluctances within a concrete locus” (1982:45).
Greene points out that in imitation sometimes two opposite poles are combined
together in a specific place. It is not always harmonious. Imitation become
different not by its unique entity, but its creative use of existing ideas and
conventions make them different. So the renaissance period credited all past
tradition. They consider that art only manipulates the narratives and images of
cultural product; there is nothing completely new in work of art.
Writers such as Horace, Seneca
and Longinus offer subtle accounts of how artists relate to the past and create
something new through mimesis. Roman past is not only popularizing great
authority of renaissance artists and scholars, but the hostile religion and
unfamiliar social practices also a matter of discussion. The practice of
mimesis was a source of rebirth, a way to bring illustrious past into present.
Medieval and Renaissance writers of Europe were self-conscious and critical of
practicing mimesis. Don Quixote by Cervantes is an example of
this. Cervantes’ hero had the tendency to imitate knights, and chivalric
romance. Renaissance writers found that past is essentially different from
present. Imitation became a labour of historical recovery.
After eighteenth century
mimesis started lose hold on western literary world. That is because of ideal
battle between ancients and moderns. Up to renaissance, the writers respected
past and admired traditional knowledge. So imitation of past is considered as
creative too. But in modern times thinkers give stress to the power of reason.
Rene Descartes, the French Philosopher rejected the ancient authorities. He
said “to search for knowledge other than what could be found within myself”
(1998:5). We all have ideas and rational thinking, the habit of fear made them
to look back to our past for scientific and philosophical authority. Descartes
had a view that ancients are a burden, not a source of inspiration.
The German Philosopher
Immanuel Kant also had a modernist view regarding genius. Genius is marked by
originality and inspiration not by rules and role models. It mimes nature’s
productive process and reproduces the laws of nature in a different form, not
merely reproducing the eternal forms. Kant has the opinion that a genius cannot
copy another genius; he/she can take inspiration from the former genius. So
mimesis is not acceptable to Kant too.
The Romantic writers of the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth century consider genius as a ‘native
growth’. There is always conflict between genius and tradition as well as
creation and imitation. Sir Joshua Reynolds supports imitation. He says there
is no good art without imitation. But for William Blake, genius can only be
born, not taught. The quality of a genius is not molded by conventions and
tradition, it is unique to individuals. So the conflicting points are goes on.
Tradition and conventions acts like a shackle in the creative art. Mimesis
encouraged by the renaissance writers was not helpful to creative writing. The
modernist view had relevance in present era too.
MIMESIS AND
INTERPRETATIONS
Sigmund Freud introduced the
Psychoanalytic criticism. He was a Viennese psychologist, who talked about
concept of identifications in his work. These identifications have the
connection with mimesis also. There are many interpretations had given to mimesis
by many writers. Let us deals with the theories which see mimesis not as
secondary but primary aspect of human life. There is no single identity for
each human being; they behave according to the time and situations. So the
human existence is a series of copies, without a true original. Plato notes
close relationship between mimesis and human nature, without discussing the
fundamental question of identity. The long association of mimesis with acting,
illusion and extreme emotions bewitches the anxiety about these implications.
The subject mimesis in
Psychology and Anthropology mainly stick to the Platonic tradition of mimesis.
It was not considered as aesthetic theory, but of sociological theories of
imitation among nineteenth century thinkers. Many of the thinkers consider
mimesis as foundational human behavior. From Charles Darwin’s evolution
theories to Marx and Nietzsche there find elements of mimesis. Nietzsche and
Marx speak about the unconscious forces and unquestioned assumptions that shape
everyday life. Both of them do not discuss mimesis as their central theme. For
both philosophers, our lives are governed by conventional imitations that pass
for facts of nature. Actually modernist wanted liberation from tradition, they
focus on individuals, but the fact is that each and every aspect that we find
unique is really forms of imitation.
The later nineteenth century
psychologist Gabriel Tarde influenced by Freud’s thought. He defines imitation
in his work The Laws of Imitation. Tarde defines imitation as a
fundamental life force, one of three great forms of ‘universal repetition’ that
organizes physical, biological and social life. According to Tarde, memory and
habits are also forms of imitation. Memory recalls a mental image, and habit
repeats an action. We unknowingly participate in the process of mimesis. He
says, ‘wherever there is a social relation between two living beings, there we
have imitation’ (Tarde, 1962: XIV). Ancient society imitates their ancestors
and gods. But in modern period people imitate each other. What we think
original or individual option is simply suggestions.
Tarde accepts mimesis as
socially progressive. Imitation begins from the family, where father is the
model for children, but later this imitation go beyond family and it create man
as a social being. All people allowed imitating others, and each individual can
imitate different aspects of different groups or individuals. What to imitate
and what to discard is the real personality of a person. Tarde hopes that mimesis can unite
individuals and nations into ‘a single peaceful human family without difference
in race, class and gender’
Freud supports Tarde’s idea
that imitation is everywhere in human psychic life. Freud says that deliberate
thoughts and actions of people are governed by unconscious memories and
desires. Freud discusses both ancient and current theories of mimesis. Freud
says identity and selfhood are not inborn qualities; it is acquired through the
influence of unconscious imitation of others. Freud describes about hysterical
imitation, the person who suffering from hysteria will imitate the symptoms of
everyone around them. In other words, rather than simply imitating the physical
manifestations of the symptom, the hysteric imitates its psychological causes
too. Freud found identification in Oedipus complex also. The boy wanted to
become like his father, and take his place everywhere. It is a kind of
imitation.
The French psychoanalyst
Jacques Lacan produced his most influential works during 1950s and 1960s. Lacan
contradiction to Freud points that, before the child identifies with its
parents, it identifies with an image of itself. Lacan termed it as ‘mirror
stage’. We have seen Plato’s interpretation mimesis as mirror. Lacan notes that
between the age of six and eighteen month, human infants begin to recognize
themselves in a mirror. The young infants get fascinated by the reflection on
mirror. Lacan indicates it as an act of identification. Lacan treats
identification as a mimetic relationship between the still developed ego and
its mirror image. So children not recognize their parents, rather they identify
reflection of themselves
Lacan diverts the theory of
identification to its origin in the mimetic tradition. Lacan’s concept reverses
the traditional relationship between copy and original. He implies, self
originates in an image, it returns to the image as an abiding symbol for its
autonomy an ironically mimetic means of asserting our independence from
mimesis.
Current theorists of race,
gender and sexuality have followed Freud and Lacan, in discerning the mimetic
foundations of identity. Apart from all inborn qualities, there is a strong
skill in each individual to perform. Race and gender identities are the effects
of imitation. One must be a man or act like a lady as if gender were in ideal
one needed to reach rather than an underlying biological truth. The clothes we
wear, the way we talk and the manner in which we behave in public or in the
bedroom are all imitated from an anonymous cultural tradition.
CONCLUSION
Plato attacks mimesis on the
basis that it is harmful to childhood education and connects with extremes of
human emotion. But Aristotle uses the same reasons to defend mimesis. Aristotle
considers that the element of mimesis is implanted in us from childhood itself.
So the history of mimesis begins with Plato but it does not prove that mimesis
is not there before Plato. So we cannot able to conclude the beginning or
ending of mimesis, because mimesis is not only meant to literature.
We have seen mimesis in
different situations. From that we can identify that there is always a conflict
taken place between thinkers about mimesis, whether Plato and Aristotle or
Freud and Lacan. But this conflict shows different dimensions of the term
mimesis. The term does not undergo any kind of change, but the way thinking
changed the subject mimesis. Ancient way of thinking is totally different from
modernist thought; the socio-political condition contributes to the change. We
can understand that mimesis is not just imitation, it connects with
individuals, their thought process, the literary genres etc. The elements of
mimesis are hidden in each and every aspect of the world.
Here mimesis is analyzed only
in terms of western theory; there may be different opinion or ideas about
mimesis in eastern theory also. Mimesis is changes from person to person; it is
a wide area of study.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ø Potolsky,
Matthew. Mimesis.Oxon:Routledge,2006.print
Ø Draper,
John W, Aristotelian ‘Mimesis’ in Eighteenth Century England .Modern Language Association,
Vol 36, No 3(sept 1971) pp.372-400.print
Ø Raiger,
Michael. Sidney’s Defense of Plato.
The University of Notre Dame, Vol 30, No 3 (1998) pp. 21-57.print
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