Mimesis (μίμησις) — Greek term meaning “imitation” or “representation,” derived from the verb mimeisthai (to imitate), and one of the central concepts of aesthetics and the theory of art. In Plato, above all in Book X of the Republic, mimesis is regarded with suspicion: the sensible world is already a copy of the Ideas, so painting or poetry, in imitating sensible objects, stands one further step removed from the truth — hence the famous claim that art is “three removes” from reality. In Book III, Plato also distinguishes mimesis (where the poet speaks in the voice of the characters) from diegesis (narration in the poet’s own voice). Aristotle, in the Poetics, rehabilitates the concept: imitation is natural to human beings and a source of learning and pleasure, and tragedy is the mimesis of a serious and complete action, organized into a plot (mythos) that arouses pity and fear and culminates in the katharsis of those emotions. A clear example is the tragic play that, in representing the suffering of Oedipus, does not copy a real individual but figures the universal — that which could happen according to probability. In modern aesthetics, mimesis ceases to be a mere “mirror of nature” and gives way to the expression of subjectivity, marking the passage from classicism to romanticism. The concept thus connects with neighboring notions such as katharsis, poiesis (productive making), and diegesis itself.
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