The Aesthetics of Mimesis

by Halliwell, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9780691048826
• ISBN10: 0691048827
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-07-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Mimesis is one of the oldest, most fundamental concepts in Western aesthetics. This book offers a new, searching treatment of its long history at the center of theories of representational art: above all, in the highly influential writings of Plato and Aristotle, but also in later Greco-Roman philosophy and criticism, and subsequently in many areas of aesthetic controversy from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. Combining classical scholarship, philosophical analysis, and the history of ideas--and ranging across discussion of poetry, painting, and music--Stephen Halliwell shows with a wealth of detail how mimesis, at all stages of its evolution, has been a more complex, variable concept than its conventional translation of "imitation" can now convey. Far from providing a static model of artistic representation, mimesis has generated many different models of art, encompassing a spectrum of positions from realism to idealism. Under the influence of Platonist and Aristotelian paradigms, mimesis has been a crux of debate between proponents of what Halliwell calls "world-reflecting" and "world-simulating" theories of representation in both the visual and musico-poetic arts. This debate is about not only the fraught relationship between art and reality but also the psychology and ethics of how we experience and are affected by mimetic art. Moving expertly between ancient and modern traditions, Halliwell contends that the history of mimesis hinges on problems that continue to be of urgent concern for contemporary aesthetics.

Author Biography

Stephen Halliwell is Professor of Greek at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Acknowledgments	xi
Note to the Reader	xiii
Introduction: Mimesis and the History of Aesthetics	1	(36)
PART I
Representation and Reality: Plato and Mimesis	37	(35)
Romantic Puritanism: Plato and the Psychology of Mimesis	72	(26)
Mimesis and the Best Life: Plato's Repudiation of the Tragic	98	(20)
More Than Meets the Eye: Looking into Plato's Mirror	118	(33)
PART II
Inside and Outside the Work of Art: Aristotelian Mimesis Reevaluated	151	(26)
The Rewards of Mimesis: Pleasure, Understanding, and Emotion in Aristotle's Aesthetics	177	(30)
Tragic Pity: Aristotle and Beyond	207	(27)
Music and the Limits of Mimesis: Aristotle versus Philodemus	234	(29)
PART III
Truth or Delusion? The Mimeticist Legacy in Hellenistic Philosophy	263	(24)
Images of Life: Mimesis and Literary Criticism after Aristotle	287	(26)
Renewal and Transformation: Neoplatonism and Mimesis	313	(31)
An Inheritance Contested: Renaissance to Modernity	344	(39)
Bibliography	383	(36)
Index	419