...For this reason they delight in seeing images [mimemata], because it comes
about that they learn as they observe and infer what each thing is.^62Representation, that is to say, arises out of our normal interactions with others
and with our environment; it is natural to us. Our representations are more
flexible and aspect-oriented than are those of other animals. We are aware of
our thoughts and beliefs asourproducts. They are not simply and only the
results of sensory-motor processes; they express points of view and manners of
interest in things and their aspects. We delight in them in that by means of
them we learn about things and their aspects–we learn which aspects of things
may matter to us in different contexts–and we delight in the communicative
achievement that is involved in a striking medium-specific representation.
Hence we can delight directly in the representation as a medium-specific
achievement as well as delighting in what we may learn from it.
Distinctive functions of artistic representation
The success of an artistic representation, as of much specifically human cultural
representation more generally, involves the achievement of sense or meaning,
the casting of a certain light on things and connections among things. A simpler
animal sensory-motor representation may succeed in representing a present
particular threat or possibility. The eye of the frog succeeds in communicating
the presence of a fly and so prompts the darting of the tongue. But human
cultural representations present more than this; they present instances of kinds
andconnections amongkindsthat matterto us by engaging our broader interest
in truth, over and above survival. They aim at more than mere recording. Hence
It is the function of a poet [as a maker of verbal artistic representations] not to
relate things that have happened, but things that may happen, i.e. that are
possible in accordance with probability or necessity...For this reason poetry is
a more philosophical and more serious thing than history; poetry tends to speak
of universals, history of particulars. A universal is the sort of thing that a certain
kind of person may well say or do in accordance with probability or necessity–
this is what poetry aims at, although it assigns names [to the people].^63(^62) Aristotle,Poetics,p.4.
(^63) Ibid., p. 12. Note that what Aristotle means by“history”is what we would more naturally
call mere chronicle or a list of particular events. Serious narrative history is just as much
Representation, imitation, and resemblance 47