释义 |
‖ mimesis|maɪˈmiːsɪs| [Gr. µίµησις imitation, f. µῑµεῖσθαι to imitate, f. µῖµος mime n.] 1. Rhet. A figure of speech, whereby the supposed words or actions of another are imitated. Also transf.
1550R. Sherry Treat. Schemes & Tropes sig. E 3 Mimisis, that is a folowing eyther of the wordes or manoures whereby we expresse not onlye the wordes of the person, but also the gesture. 1593H. Peacham Garden of Eloquence (1954) 138 Mimesis is an imitation of speech whereby the Orator counterfaiteth not onely what one said, but also his utterance, pronunciation, and gesture. 1650Trapp Comm. Eccles. xi. 9. 154 Solomon..by a Mimesis brings in a wild yonker thus bespeaking himself. Rejoice [etc.]. 1681J. Flavel Meth. Grace xxxiv. 568 Satan called here (by a Mimesis) the god of this world, not simply and properly, but because he challenges to himself the honour of a god. 1962S. E. Finer Man on Horseback xii. 240 This is to reckon without mimesis. Among unstable states, particularly those with a rage for innovation, military intervention has proved to be highly contagious. 1962Listener 13 Dec. 1006/1 Bunyan stands with Malory and Trollope as a master of perfect naturalness in the mimesis of ordinary conversation. 1965M. Bradbury Stepping Westward vi. 292 Walker had never before heard in anyone's speech vocabulary—mimesis, epistemology, mythopoeic. 1965M. Cohen in M. Black Philos. in Amer. 115 If Le Corbusier has encouraged the doctrine of mimesis in designing the chapel at Ronchamp, he has rejected it firmly at the Villa Savoie. 2. Biol. = mimicry 2.
1845Strickland in Lond. etc. Philos. Mag. XXVIII. 356 This term [Iconism], suggested by the Rev. Dr. Ingram,..appears preferable to Mimesis, which I had originally proposed to use. 1885in Cassell's Encycl. Dict. 1896A. H. King Ethnology 196 With the growing needs of society, it could not fail to develop by various processes—mimesis, reduplication, repetition [etc.]. 3. Sociol. The deliberate imitation of the behaviour of one group of people by another as a factor in social change.
1934A. J. Toynbee Study of Hist. III. 245 The problem of bringing the uncreative rank and file of a growing society into line with the creative pioneers..cannot be solved in practice, on the social scale, without also bringing into play the faculty of sheer mimesis—one of the less exalted faculties of Human Nature which has more in it of drill than inspiration. 1962Listener 8 Feb. 257/3 There is..an important distinction between mimesis, which is imitation of those above you, and solidarity, which is imitation..of those with whom you find yourself in a common situation. 1965P. Laslett World we have Lost ix. 213 Only if imitation, mimesis, is taken to constitute ‘solidity’ can the phrase the solid middle class be made to apply to any substantial part of the population.
Restrict Rhet. label to sense 1 a. Delete quots 1962–65 from sense 1 a. Add: [1.] b. Imitation; spec. in Art and Lit., the representation or reflection of life or the ‘real’ world in (a work of) art, literature, etc. Sometimes used with reference to Aristotle Poetics 1447a or Plato Republic 598b.
[1789T. Twining Aristotle's Treatise on Poetry 40 Plato drew his idea of the MIMHσIσ of poetry from the theatre itself, and from the personal imitations of represented tragedy.] 1939Classical Q. XXXIII. 168 The song is a trick, just as in Plato's eyes illusionistic painting is a trick, and this kind of unreal trickery is called mimesis. 1941Auden New Year Let. 19 Art in intention is mimesis But, realized, the resemblance ceases. 1953W. R. Trask tr. E. Auerbach (title) Mimesis. The representation of reality in western literature. 1967G. Steiner Lang. & Silence 111 Baudelaire's Tableaux de Paris, whose shape is a mimesis of the city. 1989R. Alter Pleasures of Reading vi. 192 Several schools of criticism have come to regard mimesis as a sham or impossibility. |