Home › Glossary › Letter M

Mimesis

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Mimesis is the representation or imitation of reality in art, central to classical aesthetics from Plato to Aristotle.

Detailed Definition
Poetry engages mimesis not as mere copying but as re-creation—shaping reality through selective vision. Debates about truth in art, realism versus idealism, or language’s fidelity to experience all orbit this concept, making it foundational to poetic theory.
Example
Example in poetry:
Homer’s epics exemplify mimesis through vivid battle and feast scenes; William Wordsworth’s "Tintern Abbey" mimetically renders landscape and memory; Charles Baudelaire’s "Correspondences" uses synesthesia to mimic nature’s hidden harmonies; Shakespeare’s sonnets mimic emotional rhythms through iambic pentameter; mimesis appears in documentary poetry like Muriel Rukeyser’s "The Book of the Dead," which re-presents historical trauma.
Additional Notes
Mimesis (Plato/Aristotle) debates whether art copies reality or reveals deeper truths; Plato banned poets for distorting forms; Aristotle saw catharsis in imitation; modern poetry often rejects mimesis for constructivism (Stevens: “not ideas about the thing but the thing itself”); students should ask: does the poem mirror, interpret, or invent the world?
Other Meanings of “Mimesis”
Also Known As
Imitation Representation (in classical contexts) Realism (in Aristotelian sense)
Skip to main content