The Concept of Mimesis: Evolution From Plato to Longinus

Wei CHEN, Wangmei XIONG

Abstract


This essay traces the time-honored literary concept “mimesis” from Plato to Longinus, mainly dealing with four classical critics from the Greco-Roman period—Plato, Aristotle, Horace and Longinus. Through comparison and contrast, it focuses on the “hard-core” essence of each critic’s position on and attitude toward “literary imitation”, as well as their inheritance in the history of literary criticism. The point is to highlight the emphasis of each of them, and shed some light to their succession and innovation of this important literary concept.


Keywords


Mimesis; Literary imitation; Reality; Tradition; Classical criticism

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References


Aristotle. (2006). Excerpts from physics (pp.49-51). In A. Hazard & S. Leroy (Eds.), Critical theory since plato. China: Peking University Press.

Aristotle. (2006). Poetics. In A. Hazard & S. Leroy (Eds.), Critical theory since plato (pp.52-69). China: Peking University Press.

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Longinus. (2006). On the sublime (pp.95-118). In A. Hazard & S. Leroy (Eds.), Critical theory since plato. China: Peking University Press.

Plato. (2006). Excerpts from Phaedrus. In A. Hazard & S. Leroy (Eds.), Critical theory since plato (pp.95-118). China: Peking University Press.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/n

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