MIMESIS
Mimesis lays the basis for literary
theory and criticism. Literature and art is inconceivable without the fundamental
theory of mimesis. Mimesis is a key term and is indispensible during any
discussion of art and literature. Knowledge of mimesis is inevitable for a good
understanding of Western theories of artistic representation. This concept of
art imitating the real has been a very complex one and has invited
contributions from many literary figures during different ages.
The origin of the theory is attributed
to the works of Plato and Aristotle. Plato and his disciple Aristotle both
argue that mimesis is a key feature of literary theory. The concept of mimesis
was introduced by Greek philosopher Plato in his the Republic as art merely imitating something real and depicted it as something
dangerous and corrupting. Aristotle in his Poetics
too distinguished mimesis from reality but considered it a valid practice. Both
Plato and Aristotle distinguished mimesis from reality but in a way
contradicted each other. Since then mimesis has been a recurring theory of
evaluation for artists and philosophers. Mimesis always worked in binaries-
critics since Plato and Aristotle either were in support of or against the
concept.
Artists,
critics, and philosophers since Plato presented conflicting views in their
attempt to define mimesis. The concept took different meanings and
interpretations in different historical contexts. Now the term not just
describes the imitative relationship between art and life, but also allows new
perspectives on concerns such as nature, identity, individuality etc. The
theory of mimesis today is read in parallel to the theories of aesthetics,
social sciences, psychology, anthropology, educational theory, feminism, post
colonial studies, political theory, biology etc. Twentieth century theories of
mimesis are concerned with the relationships between mimesis and human nature.
Mimesis is considered as a primary human activity, not a secondary but a
derivative repetition of something else. The theory of mimesis is extended
beyond art and representations to questions of identity, desire, language etc.
‘Memes’ or memetics is the possible future of the theory of mimesis.
In this paper, I have attempted to read
the broad concept of mimesis and its interpretation at two different points of
time. First I have documented the origin of the theory and its
interpretation in the works of Plato and Aristotle. The next part deals with
the mimesis in modern theory. The identification theory put forward by Freud
and Lacan is elaborated along with a discussion of race and gender identities
as a performance. A very brief note on a new concept of mimesis- ‘memesis’ is
also included.
PLATO’S MIMESIS
Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher
provided the first account of mimesis. Plato was the most influential classical
theorists in Western culture who was the celebrated disciple of Socrates. He
was interested in philosophical investigation based on reason. His great work, the Dialogues was in the form of discussion of a wide range of matters
by a number of interlocutors, the chief of them being Socrates. Plato held
philosophy in the highest esteem and regarded it as the ultimate truth. He
attacked poetry on the grounds of poetic inspiration, emotional appeal and lack
of concern with morality. For him a good poet must be a good teacher. Plato
dismissed drama explaining that it appealed to lower instincts, repressed
individuality leading to enfeeblement of character. Plato was, most probably
the first to see all art as mimesis or imitation, imitating the objects of life
or Nature. Plato divided art into two kinds- the fine arts, like literature,
painting, sculpture and music; and the useful arts, like medicine, agriculture
and cookery.
Plato introduced the theory of mimesis
to the Western culture and the most important discussion of mimesis comes in
his dialogue the Republic written
around 380 B.C.E. Plato speaks through the figure of his deceased teacher
Socrates. Prior to Plato, ancient Greek culture regarded images as an actual
representation of what they represent. Plato redefines art as essentially
mimetic, as a representation of something else. Greeks regarded images as
embodiments, whereas Plato saw art as a distinct human product.
Plato ties mimesis to much broader
questions of human nature and political life and it is discussed in relation
with many other topics such as politics, society, state, philosophy, education
etc. The dialogue begins with Socrates’ proposition of constructing a city
which should be governed by its wisest citizens or philosophers precisely based
on reason. Then the city is imagined as a place where everyone performs a
specific task and is happy and healthy. When the city gets expanded, the
citizens started to go behind pleasure and as a result poets, writers,
musicians, dancers, actors as well as mimesis find its entrance to the city.
This makes the healthy city a ‘feverish city’ according to Socrates. Here Plato
looks down on mimesis and separates it from all that is real, rational and
essential and dismisses it just as a luxury rather than a necessity.
In the Republic, Plato conceptualizes mimesis first in the books two and
three and then in the book ten. The first discussion of artistic mimesis
appears in the book two of the Republic. Here
Plato, through Socrates gives an account on how guardians who defend the
citizens and protect the city from external threats must be educated. They were
of the belief that these guardians must be properly educated with right stories
so that they won’t turn their outward aggressiveness inward and pose as a
threat for the city. Socrates advocates the use of stories for ethically
moulding the characters of these guardians. He compares this process to that of
the shaping of body by gymnastics. He also suggests mothers and nurses to shape
the souls of children by narrating those stories with moral message. Socrates
opines that stories beautify souls and at the same time, states that stories,
whether good or bad will produce imitation among children which may contribute
to the entire conduct of the child. He warns mothers to narrate only approved
tales to children. Socrates is concerned also with subject of the tales, the
way of narration as well as the narrator.
In book three, Socrates speaks about
stories and behaviours that must be avoided. He forbids stories portraying
torment, lament silly, desirous and disobeying characters to the guardians.
Socrates gives stories a high position in the process of education, but at the
same time speaks of it as excessively imitative and immoral. He considers
stories as drugs which would prove useful when rightly pursued, and disastrous
if given indiscriminately. Socrates states how stories shape the souls of its
audience, both children and adults. Then he divides narration into three:
simple, mimetic and mixed. In simple narration which is the style of historical
narrative, the poet speaks in his or her own voice. In the mimetic narration,
the narrator imitates the character’s gesture or voice. Third kind of
narration, mixed narration is the combination of first two methods where both
the narrator’s voice as well as character’s voice is included as in epics.
Socrates then suggests guardians not to be mimetic narrators and gives four
reasons for its prohibition. He considers mimetic narrators as liars, that this
narration violates the principle of specialization in the city, makes the
person imitative of inappropriate behavior and impersonation of these bad
traits by the imitator as it would destroy the personality of an individual.
Socrates banishes mimetic poets from the republic.
Book ten redefines Plato’s concept of
mimesis in a philosophical manner. Here Socrates puts mimesis in contradiction
to reason highlighting the quality of reason as an inevitable factor for good
life and state. He justifies his banishment of poets from the republic. Book
ten is begun by proposing challenges to the theory of mimesis and its reality.
For this the ‘allegory of cave’ in the book seven is used to show how for a set
of prisoners take shadows on the wall of the cave becomes the ultimate reality.
A prisoner is being imagined as released, after which he comes in contact with
actual materials whose shadows the prisoners get. This knowledge is compared to
a philosopher’s knowledge where common people’s reality is less real than
truths for them. Speaking about redefinition of truth, Socrates views artistic
images as corrupting which are just the shadows of the things they imitate. To
support his point, he uses the analogy of comparing mimesis to mirror in which
a great craftsman creates everything carrying a mirror everywhere around. This
mocks the notion of the artistic skill and art as a reflection with no
essence.
Another
analogy is made use of in order to mark his point. Plato viewed art as
intimately bound with his Theory of Ideas. In the Republic he states that the world of ideas as the real one and thus
the ultimate reality. He considered the material world as an imperfect copy of
the real world where things are copies of the original idea, and art a degraded
copy of a copy, which is twice removed from reality. The theory was explained
with three different couches: divine couch by god, couch made by a craftsman
and a couch painted by an artist. Plato has his spokesperson Socrates disapproves
of literature’s imitation of reality on the grounds that it cannot depict truth
and teach morality and is irrational. According to him, works of art helped
neither to mould character nor to promote the well being of the State.
According to Socrates mimesis pose
threats to knowledge. One of them is the imitators deceiving people. Socrates
blames mimesis as playful, which do not hold truth but only appear to be wise.
He comments that imitators do not have any knowledge but they merely mirror
works of others. Socrates believes mimesis to be dishonest, corrupting and
undermining the power of reason. Mimesis is considered as an optical illusion
and Socrates uses the image of a stick placed into a pool of water appearing
bent to explain this effect. Socrates then turns to the effects of art in our
emotions. He now considers tragedy that it imitates human actions stirring our
emotions and encourages us to indulge in suffering. He criticises that rather
than being ruled by reason, we are ruled by emotion. Socrates concludes by
banishing poetry from his republic.
ARISTOTLE’S POETICS
Aristotle who lived from 384 B.C to 322
B.C. was a disciple of Plato and the teacher of Alexander the great. He wrote critical
treatises of which only two works Poetics
and Rhetoric are available to us. Poetics is a fundamental text for
mimesis and it contains 26 small chapters of treatise of about fifty pages. It
is a summary of his lectures; the second part of this book is lost. The first
four chapters and twenty fifth chapters talks about poetry. Fifth and
fourteenth chapters discusses about comic, epic and tragedy. It is an
incomplete lecture notes on tragic drama and other subjects written between 360
and 320 BCE and its actual date of publication is unknown. In this book, he
explained about ancient drama which later treated as guide book by playwrights.
The Greek tragedy is the main subject and it also discusses about the mimesis.
Aristotle’s mimesis is a critical response to Plato’s Republic. He reinforces
the platonic mimesis over Western art theory. According to Aristotle mimesis is
a real thing and considers it as a valid practice.
According to Aristotle, poem is a
natural object and is an imitation of nature which treats in itself. His
metaphors of poetry mirror, shadows and optical illusions say about the
unreality of art and literature and argued poetry as equally pleasing as the
real. He makes a comparison between poetry and history. Poetry gives pleasure
in the end. Here Aristotle imitates Plato, the function of poetry and the other
arts is to instruct. He considers poets, painters, dancers, musician all
mimetic but imitate with different tools. He says that imitation makes the
poet. He finds different objects of mimesis to differentiate artistic styles. By
the inspiration of Homer, he offers the natural history of drama. He comments
that tragedy presents people as good and comedy as worse. He makes distinction
between essential and accidental errors in art. Mimesis judges by its aims and
methods not by comparing to other objects.
Plato says that when a child imitate
something it is dangerous but on the other hand, Aristotle regards it is
naturalness of mimesis that learning gives pleasure for the people and mimesis
gives insights of action and character. When Plato argues that tragedy is evil,
for Aristotle it appears to be rational. He says that it deals with emotions,
desires and supernatural elements. He defines tragedy as an imitation of
serious action. Tragedy which is compact is considered superior to loose
structured epic. He then introduces six parts of the tragedy: plot, character,
diction, thought, spectacle and song. He claims that mimesis have its own
internal capacity, a unity and reason. He states that all actions comprise body
activities including heart and mind. He
also gives an account of magnitude and for him plot, related to our actual life
is the soul of tragedy which is governed by reason. There may be good plots and
worst plots. He argues that human thoughts lead to the realism of mimetic work
not the external world. He opposes the use of irrational events by poets.
Mimesis need not to be true to the fact but true to the human cognition. He
classified plot into two: simple and complex. He argues that poets are
philosophers who present what should happen when historians describe what has
happened. He argues poetry to be more philosophical and places it superior to history.
The concept of emotion of Aristotle and the poet are entirely rational. He
feels that when poets do not produce tragic emotions they fail as a poet and fear
and pity must be the two essential emotions that must be evoked in the reader
of a text. When Plato says that audience imitate the emotion of characters and
dismisses art, Aristotle speaks of the
essentiality of pity and fear that must be experienced which would lead to
‘catharisis’ or purgation of the minds.
Aristotle’s interpretation of mimesis
was his own- he did not consider art as an illusory copy of reality, but rather
an imaginative version of reality. Aristotle related literature with life,
stated its philosophical value to mankind.
MODERN MIMETIC THEORY
MIMESIS AND IDENTITY
Mimesis or imitation is very closely
related to human nature- the very definition of the theory of mimesis is based
on the human tendency towards imitation. The combinations of mimesis and human
nature have contributed to the development of many theories in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. Psychoanalytic theory focuses on the unconscious
imitation and the resulting human identity formation which considers mimesis as
a primary aspect of life. Psychoanalysts compare human collective life to the
instinctive imitative behavior of animals and consider human existence as a
series of copies. Modern theorists try to make mimesis more inclusive taking it
beyond art and literature to questions of identity, language, individuality
etc. Plato begins his study on mimesis
with the child education and then moves on to discuss about mimesis in art and poetry.
When Plato attacks the mimetic behavior, Aristotle defends it and views man as
an instinctive imitator. Plato and Aristotle were the first ones to associate
mimesis with human behaviour.
Modern theory is concerned with
liberation of the individual, but when these theories are deeply studied, it
can be understood that their elements are really forms of imitation. The
writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche explored the unconscious elements
that shaped everyday life and defined imitation as a fundamental human
behavior. Late nineteenth century French psychoanalytic theorist Gabriel Tarde
in his the Laws of Imitation (1890)
saw all social behaviours as imitations. He considers imitation as a
fundamental life force which organizes physical, biological as well as social
life of a person. He holds an expansive view of mimesis which includes
everything like the use of language, influential ideas, manners, memory, habit
etc. According to him, personal and individual choices and tastes are
imitations. Tarde explains how ancient societies imitated their ancestors and
how people in modern societies imitate each other. For him, all inventions and
discoveries are instances of imitations. He regards imitation as a socially
progressive phenomenon where the imitation begins in the family.
FREUDIAN AND LACANIAN MIMESIS
The influential twentieth century
psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud developed the concept of imitation by the human
psyche. His theory is based on identification, which he considers as a form of
unconscious imitation, in which we model ourselves upon another person.
According to Freud, our most deliberate thoughts as well as actions are
controlled by our unconscious desires and repressed feelings. Along with this
notion, the self gets shaped with an unconscious imitation of others. Freud did
not consider selfhood and identity as something innate, but the imitation of
those who have influenced the ego or the sense of self. Freud defines identification
as ‘the earliest expression of an emotional tie with another person’. He
stresses the identification as a largely unconscious process where a person is
the people whom s/he has imitated. We are unconsciously drawn to some people or
social situations that we imitate in a variety of ways. Freud traces
identification in the earliest stages in the human development and defines
character or personality as a set of identifications.
Freud finds the most influential
identifications forming in our childhood which Freud terms as the ‘primary’.
Childhood identifications are mainly based on the emotional and physical
dependence on parents who are the first role models in our lives. He theorised
the identification of the male child with his father and of the girl child with
mother and development of desire for the other parent. Freud argues that this
bond of identification and desire contribute to the development of child’s
sexual identity. Freud brings in the concept of mimesis to the process of
development of an individual.
It is Jacques Lacan, a French
psychoanalyst of the twentieth century who provided a seminal contribution in
the theory of identification along with that of Freud. Lacan developed Freud’s
account of childhood development in his essay ‘The Mirror Stage as Formative of
the Function of the I’ (1949). His essay
provides an extension to Freud’s view that a child finds his/her first role
models in its parents and discusses about the process of identification from
its very beginning. Lacan complicates the idea put forward by Freud and
suggests that a child identifies with an image of itself, much before the child
identifies with its parents. He calls this primordial identification as the
‘mirror stage’ of the child when the human infant between the age of six to
eighteen months begins to recognise themselves in a mirror. Lacan describes the act of identification as
‘the transformation that takes place in the subject when he assumes an image,
he calls it an imago, where the child
gets fascinated by the mirror image and respond to it. Lacan expands the
identification theory treating it as a mimesis between undeveloped ego and the
mirror image of a child, whereas Freud viewed identification as mimetic
relationship between two people. Lacan traces the origin of identification in a
person’s life where children identify and imitate their parents after
identifying with themselves in the mirror stage. During mirror stage the child
lacks any control over its body and is physically, psychologically dependent.
The image in the mirror which appears fixed and autonomous contrasts its
present conditions, makes the child anticipate maturation in the future. At
this point of time, child distinguishes itself from the feeding mother and
finds out an identity for itself. Lacan concentrates on the artistic foundation
of selfhood. He cites the example of the myth of Narcissus, who falls in love
with his own image reflected in water. Lacan also discusses about the
engendering process in the mirror stage using the analogy of sexual organs of
female pigeons. According to Lacan the image in the mirror is not a pre-
existing self or the self gets constructed with the help of an image- which is
mimesis or imitation. French Marxist Louis Althusser in his essay, ‘Ideology
and Ideological State Apparatuses’ (1970), suggests the mirror stage as
something very social and political that constitutes a person’s psychology.
RACE AND GENDER AS A PERFORMANCE
The mimetic foundation of the concept of
identity is an area of study to current theorists of race, gender and
sexuality. They do not see race and gender orientations as a fixed entity by
birth, but they are considered to be the ‘performative’ elements in the
formation of an identity. These socially constructed identities calls for specific
behaviours from those belonging in a similar category.
The race and gender identities can be
considered as the identities which constitutes of very much effects of
imitation. Society which functions on the basis of power and privilege believes
the most conventional to be the most natural, forcing people to play roles or
perform identities, like that of gender and race. Gender identification is a
social process, rather than a biological one. The French philosopher Simone de
Beauvoir’s comment ‘One is not made a woman, but, rather becomes one’ considers
identity of woman as a social construct. Judith Butler calls gender, race and
all sorts a ‘compulsory performance’. Another influential account of gender
identity as a performance is provided by psychoanalyst Joan Riviere in the
essay ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade’ (1929), where the case history of an
intellectual woman with her traits of Electra complex tries to get rid of it by
becoming more feminine spending time flirting with men. Here, gender is a mask
and has nothing to do with essence. Luce Irigaray, the French feminist
philosopher urges women to ‘play with mimesis’ which would expose femininity as
a mere performance. Judith Butler in her essay ‘Imitation and gender
Insubordination’ (1991) argues gender and sexual identities as forms of
imitations without real. Like performers, we dress up in the morning as man or
woman. She speaks about the construction of heterosexual ‘original’ out of
which the imitations of homosexuality are made. She further states that gender
cannot be freely chosen by the performer.
The mimetic foundations of racial identities
roots to imperialism. The psychoanalyst and anti- colonial theorist Frantz
Fanon, in his book, Black Skin, White
Masks (1952) speaks about the racial identity formation as a result of
colonization. The colonized subjects are repeatedly encouraged to identify with
the mother country, its manners, system etc.
Homi Bhabha in his essay, ‘Of Mimicry and Man’ argues that the colonizer
sees the colonized as other and the natives must imitate or mimic the colonizer
or the European colonizer. Bhabha considers mimesis as a tool for justifying
colonialisation in order to rule over the colony.
THE CONCEPT OF MEMESIS
The concept of
mimesis itself has developed little over time. The possible future of mimesis
is in the concept of ‘memesis’. The recently developed theory of memesis
connects evolutionary biology and culture. The British zoologist Richard
Dawkins in his influential 1976 book The Selfish Gene, proposes that
human mental life may operate according to the same principles of evolution
that determine physical life. He proposes the existence of a distinct unit of
cultural evolution that operates independently of biological advantage. Just as
physical life is governed by genes, intellectual and social life, Dawkins
suggests, is governed by units of imitation he calls ‘memes’. A meme, he
writes, is ‘an entity which is capable of being transmitted from one brain to
another’. Whereas genes survive by means
of human sexual reproduction, then, memes survive through human imitation.
Memes can be anything that survives through imitation, from ideas to songs to
ritual practices. The theory of mimesis, we might suggest, is among the most
successful memes in history. But even more than a single idea, mimesis is what
memeologists would call a ‘memeplex’, a co-adapted group of ideas or practices
that tend to be imitated together. Memetics seeks a biological origin and
purpose in human intellectual and artistic creation. Although no one has
discovered a material entity that might prove the existence of memes, a
significant group of philosophers, psychologists and evolutionary biologists
has taken up Dawkins’ idea.
Mimesis simply
means ‘imitation’ in Greek. It is a theory which refers to the concept of
imitation in art and literature. The origin of the term is attributes to the
writings of Plato and Aristotle. Plato and Aristotle distinguish mimesis from
reality. Poets and philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to most modern theorists
have incorporated some aspect of or response to the theory of mimesis in their
work. Modern theories of mimesis are concerned with the relationships between
mimesis and human nature, identity, culture etc. Memetics theory is the most
recent development in the concept of mimesis. Mimesis is one of the most
important conceptual medium of Western thinking about art, artists and
audiences, and about their relationship to broader currents in human psychology
and collective life.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abrams, M.H.,
Geoffrey Harpham. A Glossary of Literary
Terms. New York: Cengage Learning, 2011.
Aristotle.
“Poetics.” The Norton Anthology of Theory
and Criticism. Ed.Leitch Vincent.
New York: W.W. Norton and Company Ltd, 2001.
Plato.
“Republic.” The Norton Anthology of
Theory and Criticism. Ed. Leitch
Vincent. New York: W.W. Norton and Company Ltd, 2001.
Potolsky,
Matthew. Mimesis. New Delhi:
Routledge, 2006. Print.
Prasad, B. An Introduction to English Criticism.
New Delhi: Macmillan, 2013. Print.
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