The Trouble with Mimesis

Mimesis is a kind of imitation, a representation of nature or reality as it is perceived. The trouble with mimesis is that man's representations are of things perceived - things that no longer are, or at least no longer seem to be what they were, and by rendering his sensory experience into ink on paper, he is establishing permanence antithetical to his reality. That is, the very act of representing makes static what always moves, makes stagnant what thrives on fluidity, makes real things that no longer are. Thus we have a paradox, the representational object becomes an unnatural, static thing, while the subject never remains the same as it was when represented. While the mimetic act of language aids in our recognizing the external world around us, it also limits our ability to perceive outside of the illusory blanket of static ideologies we have created. Mimesis may have the power to teach and delight, but it can also lead to corruption.

This paradoxical act of mimesis is a dangerous game to play according to Plato (Plato 75)¹. He observes that man is often inclined to indulge in the flighty, irrational side of his character, and representing these feelings in art only reinvigorates man's desire to deviate from the more stable and reliable realm of logic. The better part of ourselves more closely resembles the realm of "forms", of perfection: "the intelligent and calm side of our characters is pretty well constant and unchanging (Plato 77). Poetic imitation of the unintelligent aspect of human nature produces " a product which is far from truth", and "forms a close, warm, affectionate relationship with a part of us which is, in its turn, far from intelligence. And nothing healthy or authentic can emerge from this relationship."(Plato 76).

Proving through negation the inferiority of art and superiority of philosophy, Plato nevertheless acknowledges the quality of "good art". When he speaks of Homer, he says that he is "the best poet and the most divine"(Plato 38). His contention is that representers possess a divine gift - an inspiration from the gods and in his "possessed" state, the poet "goes out of his mind until his intellect is no longer in him" (Plato 41). While he dismisses the poet for his mad inspiration, he also esteems the place from which it springs - the realm of the gods. In the Republic, Plato stakes a claim that God is good, and therefore cannot be the cause of anything harmful (Plato 53). So if the gods are the muses of the poet, how can the poet say anything bad? Either the poet is not inspired by the gods as Plato contends, or the gods are not as good as he assumes. So the representer, then, is either not consumed by madness and thus does (or can) in fact create art from Intellect, or he is only representing the truth as revealed by the deities who inspire him, and is innocent of any false representation. And so, if representation and truth are "a considerable distance apart" (Plato 70) and the representer "understands only appearance, while reality is beyond him" (Plato 73), and too; if truth (Intellect) lies in the realm of the gods, then we must assume that the poet is a vessel of both Divinity and Intellect - representing both appearance and reality. It may be true that mimesis is dangerous, but is apparent that it is essential.

Aristotle validates this point when he says "representation is natural to human beings from childhood"(Aristotle 93). However for Aristotle, representation is not a dangerous vessel of false imagery, as Plato argues, but rather a means to acquiring the depths of knowledge that the philosophers idolatrize. The danger in mimesis lies not in the art itself, but in a bad form of it, as when he states that the "error in the art of poetry" derives from an "error in the art itself"(Aristotle 114). That is, the bad or potentially dangerous is not inherent to representation, but comes from the individual artist. [1]

So what constitutes good art - good representation? Aristotle establishes a template from which literature must follow, emphasizing the need for a "beginning middle and a conclusion"(Aristotle 96), a strong and believable plot, and characters to suit the theme and incidents. Consider his guideline for the art of tragedy: "For the plot should be constructed in such a way that, even without seeing it, someone who hears about the incidents will shudder and feel pity at the outcome, as someone may feel upon hearing the plot of Oedipus." (Aristotle 101). By following the proper guidelines for art, the artist can create a good piece of work. The carefully structured representation arouses an emotional climax in the audience - a catharsis. This allows for a safe medium where man can indulge in his "lowly" sensations and learn by representational example how to best follow his Intellect.

Contrary to Plato's insistence that the "low grade mother"(Plato 76) representation provides nothing more than a rampant breeding ground for false images, which in turn, takes over the mind of the beholder, Aristotle shows that we are not just ignoramuses who cannot distinguish between reality and make believe. In fact, we are the better for engaging in fantasy, as it is superior to philosophy in its ability to educate:

Everyone delights in representation. An indication of this is what happens in fact: we delight in looking at the most detailed images of things which in themselves we see with pain, e.g. the shapes of the most despised wild animals even when dead (Aristotle p 93).

The philosopher, with his dry and tedious lectures on moral conduct, fails to stir the audience as profoundly as do the artists "beautiful lyrics" (Plato 41).

Following in this Aristotelian approach to representation, Horace locates "truth" as something external from, but learned through artful representation. He expands on Aristotle's foundation of arts' delightful capacity to instruct, saying that the purpose of art is to teach and delight the audience: "The man who combines pleasure with usefulness wins every suffrage" (Horace 132). And like Aristotle he argues that good art stems not from madness, but from wisdom: "Wisdom is the starting-point and source of correct writing"(Horace 131). Longinus reiterates this contention when he says "Greatness . . . is a natural product, and does not come by teaching" (Longinus 138). Presumably, fine art is derived from natural genius and refined by acquired skill.

If the purpose is to amuse and instruct, what "lessons" must be learned from this entertaining and insightful enterprise? Obviously one must teach the value of "goodness" and the wretchedness of "evil", for if the observer is to reach for the perfection of the gods, he must be able to discern the merits or penalties wrought by these extremes through models of the observed. Literature should "side with the good and give them friendly counsel, restrain the angry, and approve those who scruple to go astray . . . It should keep secrets entrusted to it, and beg and pray that Fortune may return to the wretched and abandon the proud"(Horace 128), as well it should, as Longinus asserts, aim to exemplify the perfection of the gods who are "something higher than human"(Longinus 153).

So what then, is the nature of this reality "higher than human" nature? According to Plotinus, we are not separate from this Divine Intellect whatsoever. We are, in fact, better off if we recognize that "we ourselves possess beauty when we are true to our own being", for "our ugliness is in going over to another order; our self-knowledge, that is to say, is our beauty; in ignorance we are ugly"(Plotinus 184). So if we need not seek a path to enlightenment, what purpose does art serve? Is it dangerously futile, as Plato reasons, or a reminder of the True path to Wisdom, as the other classical authors suppose- or, is it something altogether different? It depends on what is being represented.

The representation of physical reality is devoid of spiritual truth, for this only captures images of anatomical processes - not their Beauty. Beauty, then, or aesthetic, must be integrated into the written, for the Divine "has nothing to do with the blood or the menstrual process: either there is also a color and form apart from all this or there is nothing unless sheer ugliness (at best) a bare recipient, as it were the mere Matter of beauty"(Plotinus 175). That is to say, it is not just the imitation of things as they are seen, but the deeper meaning of things as they are. Although it may seem that Plotinus echoes Plato's dogmatic separation between Truth (natural) and Art (artifice), he is in fact saying that Truth is found in the synthesis of the natural and the beautiful. As we are part of the Divine Beauty that shaped us, we inherently possess both the natural and the inspired; emotion and logic sprout from the same sacred seed. Good art, True art, is indistinguishable from God, the supreme source of Intellect.

How does one find this True nature when it is buried within the embellishment of artful rhetoric? St. Augustine of Hippo claims that True meaning cannot be determined absolutely by man because of the gap between the signified and signifier - the Word (of God) and the words (of man), for "no one uses words except for the purpose of signifying something"(hippo 188). Following Plato's lead, Augustine claims that the represented and the representer are quite a ways apart. Thus representation carries a danger with it when one assumes that what is represented is True. Humanity simply cannot represent Truth in its entirety because we are so far removed from the divinity that created us: " signs could not be common to all people because of the sin of human dissension' (Augustine 190). Humanity is not as god-like as Plotinus portrays, for although we are creatures of the Form, we have descended far from it, and are forever trying to recapture it, reintegrate it into the Known. Furthermore, man cannot comprehend any essence of Truth from just any poetic representation, he must infer it from the ambiguous Word of God found only in Scripture. Essentially, Augustine contends that representation is inherently good, but only when it speaks the Truth, and Truth is found only in Scripture, not Philosophy.

This idea permeates much of Medieval thought. Moses Maimonides expounds on this notion when he says:

Because our capacity falls short of apprehending the greatest of subjects as it really is, we are told about those profound matters - which divine wisdom has deemed necessary to convey to us - in parables and riddles in very obscure words . . . so that the multitude might comprehend them in accord with the capacity of their understanding and the weakness of their representation (Maimonides 217-18).

The "divine wisdom" is that of God, and the difficulty in ascertaining it is due to the ambiguity of tricky (or obscure) language. This pleasing rhetoric is meant to draw in the reader - to "delight" them so that they eagerly listen to and learn from these True stories of the Bible. The reason parables and riddles are so prevalent in Scripture is so that some surface meaning of morality can be plainly seen by the peons of society, while the "greater truth" is only known to the "perfect man, who is already informed, will comprehend them"(Augustine 218).

Fellow medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas asserts "that spiritual truths be expounded by means of figures taken from corporeal things, in order that thereby even the simple who are unable by themselves to grasp intellectual things may be able to understand it" (Aquinas 244). But Aquinas takes it a step further still, making the claim that the "literal sense is that which the author intends" (Aquinas 245). How does he purport to know the intention of the author from the text that is so far removed from its creator? Well, because Aquinas, like Augustine and Maimonides, considers only Scriptural representation as having any merit or substance of Truth. He explains that many layered meanings stem from the literal with this analogy:

When Scripture speaks of God's arm, the literal sense is not that God has such a member, but only what is signified by this member, namely, operative power. Hence it is plain that nothing false can ever underlie the literal sense of Holy Writ. (Aquinas 246).

Dante, a contemporary of Aquinas, further emphasizes the distinction between literal and allegorical saying:

For the first sense is that which is contained in the letter, while there is another which is contained in what is signified by the letter. The first is called literal, while the second is called allegorical, or moral or anagogical... and although these mystical senses are called by various names, they may be called the allegorical, since they are all different from the literal or historical (Dante 251).

Apparently, to the medieval theorist, there is a gap between the symbol and the symbolized. How do we properly interpret what is being represented and how it aligns with Reality? Where Plato would bridge this gap with his Philosophy, or Aristotle and his consortium would say that it is "not just philosophy but fun" that lights the way, the Medieval man would say that wisdom can only be portrayed allegorically, and the truth is thus obscured by the fanciful artifice of rhetoric. He would say that the missing link from sign to signified is Faith, revealed only in glimpses, and only to the holy.

We have arrived at a pivotal point in the theoretical investigation of mimesis, where interpretation and interpreter begin to lose their righteous clutch to authority. Whereas the classical and medieval ages reflect a common cultural belief in one monolithic truth (the Form, the Ideal, the God, etc), the renaissance proposes a theory to shatter this foundation.

Christine de Pizan begins this inquest by examining the Scriptural interpretation of women. She questions why women are represented so foully by the Word of God: "If it is so, fair Lord God, that in fact so many abominations abound in the female sex, for You Yourself say that the testimony of two or three witnesses lends to credence, why shall I not doubt this is true?"(Pizan 266). Evidently Pizan has some notion that Scriptural works are "true", and being a pious woman she cannot, in good faith, deny that the Word of God is anything but. But Pizan reveals an important distinction. Man's, not God's hands are the deliverers of Truth, and even if the Word of God be pure, the hands of man are not free from the dirt of earthly perversion. Pizan is not really questioning the univocal Word of God, but rather the fallible and sometimes deceitful voice of man. Though man is natural, and a product of God, he is still tainted with imperfections inherent in "original sin", and sometimes deviates from representing the natural world to creating false images of it. In her conversation with Lady reason, Pizan asks:

But please tell me why and for what reason different authors have spoken against women in their books, since I already know from you that this is wrong; tell me if Nature makes man so inclined or whether they do it out of hatred and where does this behavior come from? (Pizan 268).

To which Lady Reason replies:

This behavior most certainly does not come from Nature, but rather is contrary to nature . . . The causes which have moved and which stillmove men to attack women, even those authors in those books, are diverse and varied, just as you have discovered. (Pizan 268).

She argues that man does not capture woman in her "natural" form (Pizan 265), and thus his representations are not based on the natural, but the unnatural. The danger in mimetic art lies not in the art itself (Aristotle would agree), but in man's poor implementation of it. Pizan and Plato share the same belief that imitation is dangerous when it captures "false" images. But where Plato detests all forms of representation, Pizan berates only that which is not a known fact from God, such as the lies men tell about women's nature. She questions the validity of Scriptural images.

Mazzoni, in turn, asserts that "It is not true that the idol that is born of human artifice is an adequate object of every imitation"(Mazzoni 304). That is to say, that man creates images of fantasy based on what he has seen, what he has perceived to have happened, and what he imagines may come to be, and these representations are not always suitable ambassadors of the Truth. But there is also a distinction between truth and credibility, and credibility can be more relevant to knowledge than truth, for:

If we remove the false and put in its place true, we do not therefore destroy poetry, since we have already said that it can stand together with the true. The same can be said of the possible, for if the impossible is substituted in poetry, it will not therefore come to be corrupted or spoiled, if the impossible is credible. But if we take away the credible and in its place put the incredible, the nature of poetry is totally destroyed. And on the other hand taking the credible and at the same time removing the possible, we still have the poetic subject . . . Therfore it ought to be said that among all these there is no more appropriate subject of poetry than the credible (Mazzoni 307).

If we compare this to Aristotle, we find that he concedes with this argument when he says a poet represents things as they are, things as people believe them to be, or things as they ought to be (Aristotle 113). Truth need not be found in Plato's logic (which even he contradicts), or the medievalist's Scripture, or even in the artist's Divine Intellect. So what then, is Truth? Where is it found in representation?

If mimesis does not necessarily need to be an imitation of nature as it is, then it is fair to say that it can be an imitation of nature as the representer believes it to be, or even wants it to be. And if representation need not represent any of the real "present" or the actual "presence" of things, what good can come from it? Evidently, we need these symbols and signs to get across some notion of what is being signified, else we would have no language or speech or even communication at all. For, as Augustine says "even to nod, what else is it but to speak, as it were, in a visible manner?"(Augustine 194). But if the representer is presenting falsities, isn't that dangerous to our conceptions of "truth", as Plato would contest? If the audience knows that fiction is fantasy, then there can be no harm in his enjoyment of it - especially when artfully composed, as "It is indeed true that beautiful words are the light that illuminates thought". (Longinus 148).

The danger in mimesis lies, as Plato feared, in fiction being passed as Truth. The harm comes when we forget that representation itself is tainted by the hand of the artist, and again tainted by the eye observer. When these things represented are seen as some some static entity separate from the inconstancy of time and space, that they exist apart from the inherent mutability of nature, they can become monsters. For reality itself is "the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them"(Ask Oxford)². When we assign values and definitions to things, we are always trying to locate something that permeates everything, never sits still, and cannot be captured. That is, when we conceive of things and make images of them, we are immediately taking something from nature (be it "real" or imaginary) and solidifying it in the land of make-believe. When we assign these perceived things some inherent nature, we give perception absolute power, and thus the power to corrupt absolutely. Mimesis, then, is as natural as it is not, and as important as it is insignificant, a part of us that allows us to understand ourselves, but can get us trapped into believing what we find out.

[2]

WORKS CITED

1) Leitch, Vincent. Ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 2001.

2) Oxford Dictionary online. 2 November, 2006.http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/

[1] All citations are from Leitch, unless otherwise noted. See Works Cited.

[2] This citation is from Ask Oxford.com, see Works Cited list.