Resumo de La Noción De Mímesis En Aristóteles (the Notion Of Mimesis In Aristotle)

The book of Santiago Barber approaches a subject that is receiving
renewed interest: the Poetics of Aristotle, resource of the
unquestionable last word, appears to have fallen into oblivion for the
past three or four decades. It traces the occurrence of the term in the
different works, in the Rhetoric and, principally, in the Poetics, with
particular regard to how to proceed methodologically in unravelling the
concept. It analyses the vital relationship between mimesis and action,
the value of mimesis for the universal in art - and the individual (as
representation), the logic of the mimesis in Aristotle and the logic
model that applies to the study of tragedy, and the nexus that
establishes itself between mimesis and pleasure. A particularly
interesting subject is that related to what S. Barber calls the
"translation" of the mimesis, which he understands to be only possible
if attention is paid to the cultural and ideological context in which
Aristotle exposes an idea or set of ideas.

The section dedicated to the archaic presents the rise of the mimesis
concept, which as such is not in Homer but without Homer is
incomprehensible. S. Barber synthesizes it in one protean formula:
"alternative reality with respect to nature or to everyday reality".
Mimesis expresses itself in a product that is Other but that does not
hide its referential intention; through the skills of the artist, it
evokes the idea of prodigy and the sensation of astonishment: "one
would say that the statue is for speaking", as would say the Mime of
Herodas. The path leads to the Platonic idea of mimesis, which already
incorporates ontological considerations, ethics and pedagogics. The
product of the mimesis no longer refers exclusively to the sensible
world but also to one of ideas; Plato vies to oppose mimesis and
diegesis, postulates the virtues of direct and indirect discourse,
enters into precisions that lay the way to Aristotle, who,
nevertheless, rebels against all previous "poetics of enthusiasm". In
fact, many of the problems that arise are of translation (already using
the term without quotes); in general, it is retaken from the Latin
imitatio, but without incorporating the concomitancies that this word
can have in, for example, the Ars Poetica of Horace, where to imitate
always signifies - "to reproduce something exterior to the work"; if
there is "servile imitation", it is a question related to the
incapacity of the artistic producer. Something similar occurs with the
word "representation", that S. Barber insinuates comes from the idea of
Else - a simple reproduction, connoted with fingere which does not meet
many Aristotilean requirements. In fact, these semantic linkings have
broken with the irruption of non-figurative art, as much in the form of
abstract painting as in the different variables of the non-realist
literary vanguard (that, nonetheless, continue to constitute mimesis
forms). In his conclusions S. Barber presents a series of precisions;
here only those in the text that have resulted in being the most
illuminating can be presented: mimesis and art are almost synonymous in
the archaic world; "to be" and "to be represented" contain an equivalence
with "to be" and "to resemble"; more than with "imitation", the
original Greek word is related to similarity (that in Aristotle is made
intentionally explicit) and artistic reality is more alternative than
imitative.

Resumos Relacionados