third party, that is, that the columns should look like palm trees and the
voice sound like a nightingale. In the case of the adulterous spouses, it’s
not that the imitation isdesignedfor a third party (as in the previous two);
but, at the very least, it’s available to be recognised by a third party.
Although, as we’ve seen, there are many differences among them, I shall
refer to this group collectively as kinds of‘imitation-mimesis’. With ima-
gination, however, the story is different. The children pretend to be their
heroes. They aren’t trying to look like their heroes, or to pass themselves
off as their heroes. The crucial point, therefore, is the imaginative act of
pretending that takes place within each child. Note that to say the pre-
tending is‘first-person’doesn’t mean it is necessarilyfirst-personsingular.
There’s no reason why a lone child can’t successfully engage in play-
acting; but many types of play-acting involve more than one person,
imagining together. I shall refer to this as‘imagination-mimesis’. Now
that we have some hold on the various meanings ofmimesis, we can move
on to consider what Plato says about its relation to theatre.
Plato onmimesis
Plato’s claims about theatre are not always clearly distinguishedfirst of all
from his comments about other kinds of art, such as painting, and from
his claims about other kinds of poetry. But tragedy, in particular, comes
in for a lot of attention in Plato’s The Republic; and this attention is
famously and almost exclusively negative. Plato did not intend to give a
careful definition of theatre, but he takes some time to explain the kind of
mimesisthat he thinks is at work, and it is helpful to spell out his claims.
The context of Plato’s most famous remarks on theatre isThe Republic,a
dialogue between Socrates and a number of Athenian youths, including
Glaucon and Adeimantus (Plato’s brothers). As always, Plato does not
speak directly in his dialogues, but rather explores the ideas through the
figure of Socrates, who can neither be identified with Plato nor be com-
pletely isolated from Plato’s own views. The conversation turns to the
concept of justice, and Socrates, with the help of his interlocutors, begins
to describe an ideal, just city. The rules for how this ideal city is set up
have a variety of implications for education, family, political organisation
and, of course, for poetry (tragedy and comedy being, for the Greeks, a
kind of poetry). There is some debate about whether Plato intends to ban
all mimetic poetry, or whether it is only certain kinds, but clearly, he
subjects the most significant and successful Greek poets to scathing
attacks and (imagined) censorship.^3 Theatre comes in for particular criti-
cism. For now, the important thing is that Socrates’criticisms of theatre
depend upon his understanding of what theatre requires compared with
other kinds of poetry. What it requires ismimesis.
Mimesis 23