The relevance of Aristotle’s Poetics. Artistic mimesis

Abstract

The present article proposes a descriptive reading of the concept of mimesis in Aristotle’s Poetics. The author indicates the elements, which, deduced by the profound convictions of Aristotle on the nature of art and its distinction from philosophy, carry poetic mimesis – imitation, similarity, and universality. Resisting the temptation both to assign to art a meaning prevalently philosophical, and to negate all value from it, the Aristotelian position seems above all pretext to defend art’s specificity, its peculiar ambiguity, which renders it close to Philosophy, but from it distinct, arousing a pleasure that involves the intelligence and sensibility together. In spite of the passage of time and the permeating pretext of metaphysics, upon which Aristotle founds his thought, the Aristotelian mimesis – and this is the conclusion of the article – continues to present itself as an explanation still useful for our comprehension of art and its fruition.