Mimesis

Matthew Potolsky

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781135996048
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Littérature
• Subtopic: Critique littéraire

A topic that has become increasingly central to the study of art, performance and literature, the term mimesis has long been used to refer to the relationship between an image and its 'real' original. However, recent theorists have extended the concept, highlighting new perspectives on key concerns, such as the nature of identity.

Matt Potolsky presents a clear introduction to this potentially daunting concept, examining:

• the foundations of mimetic theory in ancient philosophy, from Plato to Aristotle
• three key versions of mimesis: imitatio or rhetorical imitation, theatre and theatricality, and artistic realism
• the position of mimesis in modern theories of identity and culture, through theorists such as Freud, Lacan, Girard and Baudrillard
• the possible future of mimetic theory in the concept of 'memes', which connects evolutionary biology and theories of cultural reproduction.

A multidisciplinary study of a term rapidly returning to the forefront of contemporary theory, Mimesis is a welcome guide for readers in such fields as literature, performance and cultural studies.

PART ONE
Foundations

1
PLATO’S REPUBLI C

THE INVENTION OF THE IMAGE

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato provided the first and unquestionably the most influential account of mimesis. Although he refers to mimesis at many points in his career, the most important discussion of the topic comes in his dialogue the Republic, a wide-ranging work of political, ethical and literary theory that was probably written around 380 BCE. Plato does not simply comment upon an existing notion of mimesis in this dialogue but radically redefines art as essentially mimetic, as a representation of something else. This notion is so fundamental to the way we understand art that it is no exaggeration to claim that art itself, as a distinct human product, is a Platonic invention. Plato’s theory of mimesis is very complicated, but is made even more so by the fact that, in this dialogue as elsewhere in his works, Plato speaks through the figure of his deceased teacher Socrates, so we are never certain whether any given utterance should be taken seriously or ironically. Nevertheless, the effect of this theory is so profound that no discussion of art and representation can avoid some engagement with Plato’s definition. To this extent, the history of literary and artistic theory begins with Plato’s account of mimesis.

The word mimesis can be traced to the fifth century BCE, but it is rare before Plato adopted it in the following century, and its specific meanings remain the subject of scholarly dispute. Mimesis derives from the root mimos, a noun designating both a person who imitates (compare the English word ‘mime’) and a specific genre of performance based on the imitation of stereotypical character traits. Very little is known about these performances. In the Poetics, Aristotle mentions ‘the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus’ as a form of ‘imitation by means of language alone’ (1951:9). Other scattered references occur in Greek writing, but there are no surviving examples of these performances. Some scholars have claimed they were religious rituals, but it is now generally accepted that Aristotle refers to a Sicilian dramatic genre in which actors would depict scenes from the lives of commoners (Else, 1958:76). While it is difficult to discern a clear development in meaning, early uses of mimesis and related words refer chiefly to the physical mimicry of living beings by bodily gesture or voice, and only more rarely to paintings or statues. Yet even in its earliest uses, mimesis never simply meant imitation. From the very beginning it described many forms of similarity or equivalence, from visual resemblance to behavioural emulation and the metaphysical correspondence between real and ideal worlds (Halliwell, 2002:15).

As the French classical scholar Jean-Pierre Vernant has argued, Plato’s use of the word mimesis marks a crucial turning point in the history of Greek ideas about art: the emergence of a recognizably modern notion of the image (eidolon). Prior to Plato, Vernant notes, Greek culture regarded images as an actualization or ‘presentification’ of what they represent. Archaic statues of gods, for example, were understood not simply as illusionistic depictions of a deity but as an actual revelation of a divinity that would otherwise be invisible (Vernant, 1991:153–5). Plato transforms mimesis into a far-reaching technical concept that defines the representational arts as such. It is, Vernant suggests, ‘the first general theory of imitation’ in any Western culture (1991:180). This theory is hardly neutral in its aim or effect, for Plato’s innovation fundamentally devalues the image. Where archaic Greek thought regarded images as embodiments, Plato classes the image with a group of behaviours and phenomena that had previously been understood as distinct. Miming, emulation, pictures, mirrors, shadows, echoes, dreams, reflections and even footprints are henceforth regarded as ‘semblances’. They are grouped together in their difference from, but resemblance to, real objects (Vernant, 1991:166). The effect of this transformation is radical, redefining art as mere appearance, not a real thing. Neither craft nor creation, it is now an image or imitation of something else. Plato’s definition at once makes and unmakes art, defining it as a recognizable category of human action, and yet draining it of any independent reality.

POETRY AND CENSORSHIP: BOOKS TWO AND THREE

Plato approaches mimesis in two contexts in the Republic: first in books two and three, and then in book ten. In neither context does Plato explicitly set out to define the arts. Rather, the question of mimesis emerges from the discussion of broader topics: political organization, education, the ideal of justice and the nature of philosophical knowledge. But mimesis is never simply an aesthetic category. Instead, it is posed as a potential threat to the ideals of justice and reason. In a turn of argument that will inform almost every theory we will encounter in this book, Plato ties mimesis to much broader questions of human nature and political life. These associations arise from the argumentative context in which Plato introduces his theory. Towards the beginning of the dialogue, Plato’s speaker Socrates proposes constructing a city as a way of more effectively discerning the constitution of the human soul. Much as a just city should be governed by its wisest citizens (the philosophers), so the just soul should be governed by its best part (reason). This city will allow Socrates to argue for the ideal of reason on a larger canvas than the individual life. Mimesis will be introduced in the course of this discussion of the city, and so becomes a microcosm for the problems of political and ethical theory that Socrates takes up.

Socrates begins by imagining a city in which each individual performs one task in accordance with his or her nature, and for the good of the collective. There is a farmer, a weaver, a carpenter, and so forth. Each focuses on his or her proper task and does not try to do anything else. Even when this first city expands to encompass trade and wage labour, what scholars have termed Socrates’ ‘principle of specialization’ remains intact. But Socrates’ auditors believe that the citizens of this city could not do without certain pleasures and would soon come to reject the frugal life Socrates proposes. So in place of his ‘healthy’ city Socrates begins to describe what he calls a ‘feverish city’ (Plato, 1991:49). It is here that the word mimesis makes its debut in the dialogue. This unhealthy city, Socrates suggests, will need luxuries along with its basic functions. Chief among these luxuries is mimesis:

Then the city must be made bigger again. This healthy one isn’t adequate any more, but must already be gorged with a bulky mass of things, which are not in cities because of necessity – all the hunters and imitators, many concerned with figures and colors, many with music; and the poets and their helpers, rhapsodes, actors, choral dancers, contractors and craftsmen of all sorts of equipment, for feminine adornment as well as other things.

(Plato, 1991:50)

This list associates art and mimesis with superfluity, effeminacy, violence, theatricality and social hierarchy. Arriving along with hunters, workers, actors and the makers of women’s adornments, mimesis is defined as secondary and unhealthy. It is a luxury, not a necessity. Even before he formally introduces his definition of art, then, Plato separates mimesis from the real, the rational and the essential, and equates it with pleasure and emotion rather than truth, reason and the necessities of life.

The first discussion of artistic mimesis as such comes somewhat later in book two. Having set out the basic structure of his city, Socrates considers those who will defend its citizens, the guardians. Here again, the account of mimesis arises from a discussion of politics and conduct. Socrates and his auditors worry that those individuals best suited to protect the city from external threats might themselves threaten the populace, since the aggression they properly turn outward can also be turned inward and threaten the city itself. For this reason, Socrates outlines a course of education for the guardians. It is often said that Plato simply opposes poetry, but Socrates in fact advocates the use of stories in education. Noting that young children are easily moulded and readily assimilate themselves to ‘the model whose stamp anyone wishes to give’ them, he argues that the guardians can be shaped ethically by the stories they hear (Plato, 1991:54). Socrates imagines this shaping quite literally. He compares it to the way gymnastics shapes the body, and suggests that mothers and nurses can shape the souls of children with tales in much the same way that they shape their bodies by massaging them as infants. While gymnastics and massage give the child a beautiful form, stories give them a beautiful soul. Later in the dialogue, Socrates describes this beauty as a kind of ethical ‘grace’. The properly trained guardian will act intuitively in the interest of justice, just as a wrestler’s body moves intuitively in the midst of a match.

Stories are central to this training, but they must be used carefully. Inaugurating a line of argument that we still encounter in discussions of the influence of television and movie violence on young viewers, Socrates claims that artistic imitation inevitably begets behavioural imitation. Telling stories to young children will produce imitations of the good or bad actions that the story represents. Socrates makes this point explicitly in book three: ‘Or haven’t you observed that imitations, if they are practiced continually from youth onwards, become established as habits and nature, in body and sounds and in thought?’ (Plato, 1991:74). The initial ‘stamp’, whether good or bad, repeats itself in the conduct of the child throughout life. For this reason, Socrates suggests, ‘we must supervise the makers of tales’ to ensure that the guardians are stamped with the right behaviours. The rulers of the city will have to ‘persuade nurses and mothers’ to tell the young only ‘the approved tales’ (Plato, 1991:55).

Socrates wants to control both the subject of the tales, and the way (and by whom) they are told. The guardians, he claims, should be prevented from hearing ‘untrue’ stories about the gods. As Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe has noted, every story Socrates would censor describes acts of ‘depropriation’: violence, adultery, political usurpation, shapechanging, trickery, madness (1998:130). The first story he excludes from the education of the guardians concerns strife within the divine family: the epic poet Hesiod’s tale of how Uranus tried to prevent the birth of his son Chronos, who in revenge castrated his father (Plato, 1991:55). Above all, Socrates notes:

it mustn’t be said that gods make war on gods, and plot against them, and have battles with them … provided that those who are going to guard the city for us must consider it most shameful to be easily angry with one another.

(Plato, 1991:56)

In book three, Socrates continues his list of prohibited stories and behaviours. To encourage manliness and bravery among the guardians, Socrates forbids stories about the torments of the underworld, any depictions of heroes lamenting their fate, laughing uncontrollably, disobeying their superiors or being immoderate in their desires for sex, food or money. Following the principle that imitation begets imitation, he wants to prevent the guardians from repeating any activities that would be unbecoming of the defenders of a city. Even though Socrates gives stories an important place in the education of the young, then, he follows his initial implication that mimesis is excessive, unnatural and false. Indeed, mimesis is an effective educator precisely because it is false. Its power to circumvent reason turns ethical training into a matter of automatic and unthinking imitation rather than rational choice. It acts like a drug, Socrates suggests, that is useful when administered correctly, but dangerous when given indiscriminately (Plato, 1991:60).

Socrates extends his account of the ethical influence of mimesis on its audience to the effects of literary style on the performer. Like their content, the form of stories shapes the souls of those exposed to it. This is true both of children and adults, as Socrates subtly broadens his account of mimesis from the training of the young to a generalized psychology of artistic response. Socrates divides narration into three types: simple, mimetic and mixed. In simple narration, the poet speaks in his or her own voice, telling a story without taking on the role of any of the characters. This is the style of historical narrative. In mimetic narration, by contrast, the narrator imitates the character in voice or gesture, as in a theatrical performance: ‘he gives a speech as though he were someone else’ (Plato, 1991:71). Mixed narration, the main style of epic, and, as many commentators have noted, of Platonic dialogue, combines the two methods. At times the poet narrates, and at times he or she mimics the voice of a character. It is important to note that ancient Greek poetry was spoken, usually by travelling performers called rhapsodes, who would recite or act out scenes from Homeric epics and other works. Literate individuals would read poetry out loud even when alone. So when Socrates defines the different types of narration, he has in mind a performance rather than a strictly written literary style. He pictures the rhapsode or the reader ‘becoming’ the character he or she speaks about.

This context explains what might otherwise seem to be an odd claim. Socrates suggests that the guardians should not be mimetic narrators, and that what they imitate in any context should be severely limited. He gives four reasons for prohibiting such imitations, each of which draws a connection between mimesis and human behaviour. First, the mimetic narrator, for Socrates, is inherently a liar. He conceals his personality behind that of his character, and thus opens up the possibility of other deceptions. Second, mimetic narration violates the principle of specialization. The only task of the guardians is to protect the city, but imitating others is akin to performing their tasks as well: ‘he’ll hardly pursue any of the noteworthy activities while at the same time imitating many things…. The same men aren’t capable of doing both.’ Third, the imitator cannot avoid a certain contamination by the object of imitation. The guardians must be careful to mime only appropriate behaviour, ‘so that they won’t get a taste for the being from its imitation’ (Plato, 1991:73–4). For this reason, Socrates insists that they should only imitate good and courageous men, rather than women, slaves, bad men, inhuman sounds (thunder, animals) or the insane. This leads to the fourth reason Socrates prohibits most imitation among the guardians: the character of the imitated inevitably reflects upon the imitator. A good man, Socrates notes, will feel ashamed at imitating a common man: ‘he can’t stand forming himself according to, and fitting himself into, the models of worse men’. Indiscriminate imitation fragments the personality, makes one ‘double’ or ‘manifold’ (Plato, 1991:75–6). In the end, Socrates argues that the mimetic poets should be exiled from the republic.

MIRRORS AND FORMS: BOOK TEN

The aims of this exile become further reaching when Socrates returns to his discussion of mimesis in book ten of the Republic. We have seen how the discussion in books two and three subtly moves from the effects of mimesis on children to its potential effects on adults. Book ten redefines these effects in philosophical terms. Socrates returns to the status of mimesis after he has finished outlining the structure of his republic and the human soul. His reflection on the soul has persuaded him, he says, that he was entirely correct in banishing the mimetic poets. The best republic and the best life are both governed by reason, but mimesis is contrary to reason in almost every way. Socrates’ inquiry into the opposition between mimesis and reason is complicated and takes up much of book ten. For the sake of simplicity, we can distinguish three grounds upon which Socrates bases his critique: the reality of mimesis; the relationship of mimesis to knowledge; and the effects of mimesis on the emotions.

Plato begins his discussion of art in book ten by challenging the reality of mimesis, its status as a thing with unique properties. This challenge follows upon a distinction Socrates introduced in a famous allegory he constructs in book seven. The so-called ‘allegory of the cave’ imagines humans as prisoners watching shadows cast on the wall of a cave. What these prisoners take to be reality is, from the perspective of philosophy, mere illusion. Since they, and implicitly we, know nothing beyond the shadows they see, the prisoners can have no grasp of reality, nor any sense of why the world as they know it is false and incomplete. All they know from birth to death are shadows, not realities. Socrates imagines one prisoner being released from his chains and turning towards the light and the actual objects that cast the shadows, an...