an exact duplicate of an event or phenomenon, and imitation also seeks
to copy an original (albeit less literally so than mimicry), mimesis adds
a new dimension: it “re-enact[s] and re-present[s] an event or relation-
ship” in a nonliteral yet clearly intelligible way. (Here, again, Kant’s
“aesthetical Ideas” and Rand’s “selective re-creation of reality [that]
brings... concepts to the perceptual level of consciousness” come to
mind.)
As Donald emphasizes, mimetic representation remains “a central
factor in human society” and is “at the very center of the arts.” While it
is logically prior to language, it shares certain essential characteristics
with language, and its emergence in prehistory would have paved the
way for the subsequent evolution of speech. Yet mimetic behavior,
Donald stresses, can be clearly separated from the symbolic and semi-
otic devices of modern culture. Not only does it function in different
contexts, it is still “far more efficient than language in diffusing certain
kinds of knowledge... [and in] communicating emotions.” Moreover,
the capacity formimetic representation remains [fundamental]... in the operation of the
human brain.... When [it] is destroyed [through disease or injury], the
patient is classified as demented, out of touch with reality.... But when lan-
guage alone is lost, even completely lost, there is often considerable resid-
ual representational capacity.^20Commenting on the power of mimetic representation in his
Anthropologist on Mars, neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote of an autistic
boy whose capacity for abstract and symbolic thought and communica-
tion was severely impaired, but who comes fully to life through artistic
expression, through his “genius for concrete or mimetic representations,
whether drawing a cathedral, a canyon, a flower, or enacting a scene, a
drama, a song.” Mimesis, in Sacks’s view, is “itself a power of mind, a
way of representing reality with one’s body and senses, a uniquely
human capacity no less important than symbol or language.” His claim
is as true of music as it is of the visual and verbal arts, I should add,
although music has long been mistakenly cited as a counterexample to
the essentially mimetic nature of art.^21
If, as Merlin Donald suggests, this prelinguistic mode of representa-
tion and communication developed relatively early in the course of
human evolution, it would have been closely linked to the evolving psy-
chological and physical mechanisms for emotional response, which play
a crucial role in both social interaction and the arts. That would help to48 Michelle Marder Kamhi