Art & MusicGreek → English
Mimesis
/mɪˈmiːsɪs/noun
The representation of reality in art, and the human habit of making such copies.
The Greek roots
μίμησις
mímēsis
imitation, representation
Literally: “imitation”
Follow a root:μίμησις1 word
The story of the word
Plato distrusted μίμησις and Aristotle rescued it. In the Republic the imitator works three removes from the truth, copying a copy; in the Poetics imitation is something people do from childhood, and the reason we can enjoy a painting of a corpse. The root is μῖμος, a mime, a jobbing actor of everyday scenes in the Sicilian theatre, so a term that ends in metaphysics begins in low comedy.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
mimicmimepantomimemimeograph
In a sentence
Auerbach's Mimesis traces one problem, the representation of ordinary life, across three thousand years.
The novel abandons mimesis somewhere in the second chapter and never returns.