Imitation and Literature :: Literature Essays Literary Criticism

phony and Literature Imitation is a foundational concept in the creation and weigh of literature. The fundamental assumptions embedded in exaggeration create a manifest and divisive method of perception. Imitation requires a basic belief in separation appearance ap trick from reality, form ap invention from content. Literary whole kit and boodle possess a dual existence, where the surface becomes most useful in its ability to reveal the substance contained within. Because the truth remains concealed, it can only when be discerned or discovered through imitation. Thus imitation exists as an intermediary in a variety of artistic representations, each aim for an accurate depiction of meaning, perhaps even the basic truths of human existence. For Plato, however, art imitates a world that is already far removed from authentic reality, Truth, an inherently flawed copy of an already imperfect world. Art as an imitation is irrelevant to what is real. Many critics since Plato have atte mpted to reestablish the essential evaluate of art by redefining or renegotiating the boundaries amid imitation and authentic reality, between the text itself and meaning. From ancient to more modern critics, art is defined, vilified, or redeemed by its ability to imitate. Aristotle values imitation as a graphic process of humanity. Tragedy is simply a manifestation of the human proclivity to imitate. He asserts that every person learns his lesson through imitation and we observe that tout ensemble men find pleasure in imitations (44). Unlike Platos world of Forms, acquaintance of truth and goodness are rooted in the observable earthly concern to Aristotle. Because imitation strives to create accurate particularized images of the real world, it is a line for potential discovery and delight. Neoclassical criticism accepts as givens Aristotles statements about the constitution of art and reality. Art is valuable precisely because it is imitative. As Sir Philip Sydney stat es, Poesy is an art of imitation...with this end, to teach and delight (137). Imitation non only entertains, but gains a clean/ethical purpose to teach virtue. Artists must, in addition to possessing bully creative skills, also bear moral responsibility for shaping their imitations. Samuel Johnson seems to revisit Platos attack upon art with his admission that an accurate imitation of morally suspicious subject matter is not only unacceptable, but potentially catastrophic to those who encounter it. In order to accommodate a strong moral sense, Johnson describes imitation as a process of interpretation. The business of a poet... is to examine, not the individual, but the species.