FHeasus, vol 180. 2, 199E MIMESIS AND DIEGESIS: FOUNDATIONS OF AESTHETIC THEORY IN PLATO AND ARISTOTLE John T. Kirby for ELI and NEB “Phe arts, and literature foremost among them, have come under more rad self-reflection in our time than in any other. In qualifying this absolute state~ ment, | might except the efflorescence of aesthetic philosophy under Plato and ‘Aristotle, for it was they who first sketched out for Western culture a schema by which to address that most fundamental question: How is art to be seen in its relation to the (rest of the) phenomenal world? It is a tribute to the Fertility oftheir approach that, twenty-four hundred years later, many still find themsel- ves trafficking in currency bequeathed them by these philosophers. But the continuing incorporation of the classical models into this context has not always been easy, for certain specific reasons, of which 1 would mention three: [1] the texts are increasingly arcane to those who cannot read the ancient anguages; [2] there is often a sense of the limitations imposed by their Ginevitable) cultural specificity; and [3], in some eases, 1 surmise that there is simply a weariness stemming from the sameness of tradition itself ~a desire for new, previously unirodden, avenues of inquiry. ‘On these counts { would say, first, that the problem of linguistic competence not an ephemeral one: as history progresses and the overall volume of knowledge inereases on our planet, the problem can only become more acute, and we will be progressively more constrained to spend our energies on what ismost valuable. Ifthe Greek classics are indeed of value to us today, their study will require some priority, the difficulty of the task notwithstanding; but that value must first be determined, by individual readers and by interpretive communities Second, no human being exists apart from culture; thus the question is not whether a human phenomenon shows signs of cultural specificity, but whether ithas a value that transcends its own culture. This is, obviously, related to the first point; even those in our culture who understand that our philosophical, social, moral, and aesthetic roots extend (in part) back to the Greeks and Romans tay not Find that Fact to be of current importance. But even in an honest ‘assessment of the cultural specificity and limitations of our classical roots, we may actually discover the extent to which they have transeendent value, “Third—and this is related to my second point, as the second is 10 the first-—that same weariness or boredom which might at one point have made the Greek classics seem barren may in fact came ‘eventually to their aid: as oth approaches are weighed in the balance and found wanting, one may find oneself turning away from more jejune formulations and returning to the c models for their sharp clarity, their elegance, and their sense of essentiality. ical ua4 HELIOS Indeed there are signs that at some level this is already coming to pass. Lines of filiation in the history of philosophy are being drawn and understood more clearly than ever. One cannot read Ricceur or Jauss, for example, without unclerstanding how Aristotle has affected their thinking. And the debt owed by these and other modern scholars o Aristotle is, [ think, an index of the continuing value of Aristotle's thought for the philosophy of art. In turn, Aristotle's overall work cannot be fully understood apart from that of his teacher Plato, and this holds true particularly in the case of his writings on the arts. It is no exaggeration to say that Plato and Aristotle pioneered the study of narrative in Western culture, In developing theories of texts, of creativity, and of the psychosocial roles of art, they found it necessary to develop a working vocabulary. | propose in this essay to consider certain terms that recur in their writings on literature, in order to provide an understanding of how these have affected modern narrative theory. On a broader scale, I will suggest that the classical models may, in fact, afford us an even more far-reaching tool for understanding the nature of art in general, including (as we shall sce) the visual arts—what I will call a comprehensive typology of aesthetics. Such a typology will, of course, be too vast to delineate in extenso here, but some directions can at least be adumbrated. We have largely to thank Gérard Genette for the recent popularity of the terms mimesis and diegesis in discussions of literary theory. In using these {erms, most notably in his Figures I! and Figures HII, he draws attention to theit original use by Plato and Aristotle:! For Aristotle narrative (diegesi boing the direct represent public one of the two modes of poetic imitation (mimesis) the other jon of events by actors speaking and performing before the 0, the domain of what he calls levis (or manner of speaking, as opposed 10 i sel) can be theoretically divictd into imitation properly speaking (minesis) anil simple narrative (diegesis) Relying solely on this précis of the classical models and without scrutinizing the original texts; however, one might come away with a somewhat distorted conception of their import (and of their symbiotic relationship). I would like to begin from a tabula rasa, providing schematic explanations of the systems envisioned by Plato and Aristotle. Building on this foundation, I submit, we will discover that Aristotle turns Plato’s schema literally upside-down; that Genette and Aristotle produce quite divergent readings of Plato; and that a.return to Aristotle’s inscription of the fundamental issues may open up broad unforeseen vistas, The.relationship of diegesis to mimesis has weighty implications for the verbal text, but for other art-forms as well. 1. Plato Socrates, at Republic 392¢ If., sets out a schema of what he calls diéeésis, “parative,” which may or may not include mimésis, “imitation.”? In construct- ing this schema, he engages in the process of diairesis, that is, the “division” of a thing into ils constituent parts, in order to understand its nature." In this case, the division is determined by the presence or absence of direct quotaKIRBY—-MIMESIS AND DIEGESIS 415 Diegesis entailing mimesis [1] may be further subdivided into [1a] diegesis consisting entirely of mimesis, such as tragedy and comedy, and [1b] diegesis that includes some mimesis, such as epic. Pure diegesis without any mimesis [2] is found in poetic genres such as the dithyramb. Table 1—Plato Diegesis [essere gegen 1, with mimesis 2. without mimesis 1 fees aaa! fa} diegesis that is [b]diegesis that [a] pure diegesis, pure mimesis (e.g. includes some mimesi no mimesis tragedy, comedy) e.g. epic) (eg. dithyramb) Once this spectrum is delineated, the question is posed: Should we allow any mimesis in our poets’ diegesis (394d1-4)? That is, the whole issue has been raised for its relevance to the moral parameters of the Ideal State under discussion, Socrates places certain restrictions on mimesis (395b-96a) and, later in the Republic, elaborates further his reservations about the concept of imitation (601c ff.).* The problem is intimately connected with the doctrine of the Forms. For Plato's Socrates, what is real and true does not change; consequently, the mutable sensible world around us is not “real” in this sense. It is a reflection or representation—one might say an “imitation”—of what isreal (Republic 597a)# But the mimetic artis\—whether poet, painter, or musician-—represents not the Forms but merely the sensibles (597d-e). Thus mimesis is at third remove from reality.® mo Concomitant with all this is the assumption that there exists a hierarchy of: perception, with sensory operations ranking well below reason (nous). And the latter is held to be closely connected with the Good (tagathon): in expounding the analogy of the sun, Socrates maintains that the relation of the Good to reason is the same as that of the sun to vision (508b-e). The analogy of the Divided Line, at 509-11, clearly valorizes the operation of reason over any kind of sensory perception; moreover, it seems that the idea of the Good belongs at the very top of the hierarchy, even above the other Forms. The groundwork is laid in this fashion. Socrates proceeds to say that the perpetration of mimesis is the creation of illusion and, consequently, the distortion of reality (602c-d). The effect ofthis ilusion and distonion, he sa weigh that which is real and undistorted (602d), Therefore, the mimet arouses, nurtures, and strengthens the tendeney ofthe soul oward slavery tothe emotions, a danger to which even the best of us are susceptible (605b-07a). Icis understandable that an epistemology like that underlying the Republic non anything that might seem to threaten the smooth and cipal116 HELIS goal of philosophy, and since mimesis is held to hamper accurate understanding, it could hardly be seen as anything other than a stumbling-block to the philosophic life; and Plato's Socrates is not one to allow any confused notion of pleasure or beauty to usurp the primacy of the Good.? Plato's unremitting attitude toward mimesis seems somewhat modified (and mollified) in his later work. In the Laws, for example, all mousiké is said to be eikastiké and mimétike—productive of likenesses and representations (68b)— and while the springboard of the discussion is choral singing (1é t6n khordn {scil. mousa] 666d), the context broadens to include the visual arts (kata én opsin . ..apeikasiai 668d) and eventually every kind of mimesis (peri hekastén cikona, kai en graphikéi kai en mousikéi kai pantéi 669x; verbal texts are explicitly considered in this passage as well, rhémasi te kai melesi kai tois rhuthniois 6690). On the basis of what we have seen in the Republic, we might expect Plato to condemn all such activities out of hand, But instead, in full recognition of this universally mimetic character of mousiké, he offers some criteria for evaluating the nature and quality of these artistic productions —con- firming, in the process, their (potential) moral and social value.* Here poetry “cannot, $0 to speak, be trusted on its own, but as the ward of a philosophic guardian can put its talent to good use." Even in the Laws, it should be noted, the cherished values of the Republic, such as truth and goodness, are maintained. There is also a deep appreciation of, indeed an insistence upon, the “rightness” (orthorés) of a representation; this is said to depend, not on pleasure (hédoné 667d), but on “equality of quantity and quality” between original and likeness (isotés . . . tow te tosoutou kai tou toiourou 6674; cf. 668b: miméseds gar én, hds phamen, orthotés, ei to miméthen hoson te kai hoion én apoteloito). The judgment of such quantitative and qualitative isorés, and hence of orthotés, is of course the purview par excellence of the logistikon. So the concern for the potential dangers of distortion and blurred understanding is still very much alive in what is perhaps Plato’s Inst dialogue. Il, Aristotle Aristotle's Poetics forms a part of his anti-Platonic program." His solution to the problem could hardly be bolder: rather than worry at all about the “reality” of imitation, he begins with a defence of poiétiké on the grounds that it is a natural result of the mimetic urge, and then asserts point-blank that mimesis itself is natural (and peculiar) to humans (1448b). That is, he shifts out of the original realm of inquiry entirely. Furthermore, in what is perhaps the boldest stroke of all, he reverses the genus/differentiae distinction originally posited by Plato in Republic 3." There, as we saw, diegesis was the genus, and the presence and absence of mimesis were its differentiae. In the Poetics, mimesis becomes the genus, the topic of diairesis. Nor is this all Aristotle does to controvert the Platonic diairesis: he supplies entirely new differentiae, namely the medium,KIRBY—MIMESIS AND DIEGESIS 17 object, and mode of imitation. 11s not until he comes 10 the last of these three (1448a) that he picks up Plato’s distinctions as a further subdivision of the mode of imitation: ‘Table 2,—Aristotle Mimesis Lemedium Sfmimess =~ eobjget of mimesis ~ 3. mode of mimesis sia Je Eee eee | ——+—21 alpine ati apple med Bete ep veg wowetey, syn ding —=—naave ——arave dialogs shapes Singing, ngage tidaiogse ey (rama) en, ating, ———_adnty eer) nb) pining, reiaton) scare) 1 oS feeaaetesccel iahrough —ethoeh iboaW ifvioe egonedy Hastie Hi ropey tekine—_abiaton people people sia face ealeaeeaae iv. with alltee fhythm ——thythm and ehylhamand og. tragedy, comedy, e(eg. melody Fanguage ——_setyrecrame mime duice) de geaulos = (genic hyramb, and kithara—andelegy) and nome) seeeeer ea aaeaeeEeEEES oo Te pick ehartter thought fanguage rmisiespoeaele Asif this were not enough, Aristotle takes the third (and presumably the most heinous) of Plato's genres-—pure mimesis, or drama—and makes i the opie of veinute sixfold diairesis. His analysis of the six meré or “parts” of tragedy ‘constitutes the central portion of our extant torso of the Poet i Nstotle’s system is not only visibly more sophisticated than that propounded in the Republic, but it unfolds as solution to problems raised by vratonie metaphysics and ethics. Plato is interested in detecting (and eradicay ing) every trace of mimesis inthe narrative, Aristotle, on the other hand, boldly contends that mimesis is a topic good and worthy of study, and pursues paints of it in order to understand its essential nature. Por it is not merely airy human behavior; through it, we are susceptible of learning (1448D)—~ another typically human activity,” and on supremely worthy ‘of the philosopher. Thus Plato's premise that mimesis obstructs Knowledge is disal- paved inthis way, the mimesis/diepests relation is wed precisely fo legitimize the discipline” in the face of Platonic objections.18 HELIOS TIL. Genette Genette’s Discours du récit undertakes nothing less than a “grammar” of narrative. This intention (which, be it said, he accomplishes with tremendous success) is signaled by his use of the terms “tense,” “voice,” and “mood” to designate various aspects of the narrative," To this end he proposes a schema that takes into account certain phenomena: [a] the order of events in the narrative, [b] what he calls “levels” of narrative, and [c] the position of the narrator (and narratee) in the narrative,'® It is worth detailing Genette’s motiva- tions here, [lj Genette’s concerns are radically different from those of our Greek philosophers: he is looking for a tool to use in a specific kind of analysis of particular literary texts. Aristotle's work is on a much more sweeping scale; though hes, finally, primarily concerned with drama andepie, he does not move ‘on to these concerns until he has situated them within a larger framework (of which more below). Plato, of course, has a special polemic in mind, and this, inevitably dictates his course of inquiry. Given these differences, it is not surprising that each of the three should have his own approach, [2] For Plato, dicgesis is the genus, and mimesis determines the differentiae; the opposite is truc in Aristotle. Because of their different goals, they structure the hierarchy differently. Though Genette is aware of the hierarchical nature of Aristotle's approach, he seems to think that Plato opposes mimesis to diegesis as terms of the same order of magnitude.'*1 think Genette may have been misled by a statement in the Republic (39347): ouk an mimésis én alla haplé diégésis. Socrates is saying that if Homer were to report all the actions and statements of the Hliad “as Homer"—that is, without “impersonating” the dramatic characters by writing their direct speech—then “this would be, not mimesis, but pure gesis.” Taken by itself, this could be read as pitting mimesis and diegesis against cach other on equal terms; but the whole context makes it clear that the word “mimesis” here is shorthand for “diegesis entailing mimesis.” [3}-The hierarchical schema is, in any case, irrelevant to Genette’s purposes; among other things, he is especially interested in supplying a distinction lacking in the classical models, namely that between “narration” and “description.” [4] Genette may have been further misled by his impression that the Platonic (or the Aristotelian) terms were closely analogous to a distinction made by Emile Benveniste between récit (“narrative”) and discours (“discourse”).!® This, distinction was based on the tense-system of the French verb and on the nature of first-, second-, and third-person specification in language. Benveniste is concemed not with the question of whether the speech of the characters within the narrative is reported directly or indirectly, but rather with the question of whether the narrator sets up an I/you discourse with the reader.” By Benveniste’s criteria, when historical tenses and the third person are used, we have narrative; when primary (enses and the first or second person occur, there is discourse.KIRBY—-MIMESIS AND DIEGESIS wy 1V. A Comprehensive Typology of Aesthetics Though he mentions other arts, Plato's primary concern with mimesis is quia aspect of literary diegesis. Aristotle's reversal of the diegesis/mimesis hierarchy is behavior no less polemical than that of Plato, and indeed is a counter- polemic to the Platonic position, But the shift to mimesis has far-reaching consequences: by beginning with neither the act of narration nor the resulting narrative, he opens the realm of genres and even of media. Whereas Plato’s system, like Geneite’s, sets verbal texts as the definiendimn, the Poetics makes it clear that verbal texts ate only one kind of star in the mimetic constellation.” Genette’s schema is without doubt more detailed than either classical model. But it is not therefore more comprehensive. I find it significant that we can refer to his work as a ““grammar’ of narrative”: Aristotle’s schema is, rather, on a higher order: it is what I would call a “rhetoric,” and not just a thetorie of narrative, but potentially of all poidriké tekhné. Our text of the Poetics con- centrates on just one portion of his diairesis, namely the six meré of tragedy; hence its specifically literary orientation, With world enough and time, how- ever, it could be expanded to embrace in comparable detail all the fine arts of ‘Aristotle's culture (and virtually all of ours; see my Postscript). In other words, it approaches the status of a comprehensive typology of aesthetics. ‘To do so, it was essential that Aristotle shift from diegesis to mimesis as the genus under serutiny, This shift, then, has the practical virtue of expanding the sealm of inquiry; at the same time, it has the theoretical strength of allowing for the Faet that ail sign-based communication and interpretation is mimetic. Every work of art, regardless of the medium employed, represents something, if no more than a thought or conception of the artist; and every viewer or audience of an art-object or event receives an internal impression of it. This impression is, 1 contend, also mimetic. But I'do not think that we can therefore jettison diegesis as a crucial element of our appreciation of art, Indeed, while we are sometimes able to dispense with the concept of diegesis in analyzing the production of mimesis, we must nonetheless adopt what may be called modes of diegesis in order to appropriate mimesis mentally, in terms both of intake and of contemplation. 1 would like to consider the issue on these two levels,” focusing attention particularly on vision and the visual arts. First, as to.intake, which is a physiological process: the research of Noton and Stark in ocular perception demonstrates the role played in human vision by “saccades,” rapid movements of the eyes connecting a series of fixations on isolable points ir the visual field.* What is more, this leads to the internal representation of the image in the viewer's memory; and when the viewer sees the image again, he or she recognizes it, not only by the peculiarities of the isolated points he or she fixes on, but by scanning it, point by point, along the same series of saccades followed originally. Noton and Stark call this the “scanpath.”> ‘Analogy may be drawn between this and-what Aristotle calls the stanhesis pragmuaton, the “putting-together of events” (Poetics 1450a; a synonym of120 HELIOS Fare: 1s Georges Seural. Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Sate, 1884-1886, ol on canvas, 207.6 x 308.0cmeen Birch Bartlet Memorial Collection, 1926.224. Reprodctioncopyright © 1988 The Art Insitute of Chicago. All rights reserved. nuithos or “plot”), Each feature of a vistial image might be considered in some sense a pragma or event in the image, and there is a progression from feature to feature, We invest the image with an internal logic so as to order the series of movements; the repetition of this series of movements constitutes an act of visual recognition. In other words, there is a kind of diegesis (0 our process of seeing,” and it seems that this process will obtain for any mimetic experience nvolving sight, In the case of auditory intake (as with musical performances) 4 similar dicgesis must also occur, whether the musical “language” is readily recognizable or not. On asecond, larger level as well—that of contemplating and understanding what we have taken in— think it must be said that we can appropriate mimesis only via diegesis. Muthos can only be spun out, and apprehended, in time 2? This is nol to say that an iconic representation (stich as a painting) cannot embody a nnuthos—on the contrary!—nor that we are ineapable of appropriating the iconic (lo some extent) in an instant, at least on the intake level. But to “unpack” the nuthos embodied in such a representation, even silently—much more so orally or in writing—does indeed consume time, Take, for example, Seurat’s Un dimanche aprés-midi a Vile de la Grande Jatte (Figure 1). Ata glance we know that this isa group of what Aristotle would call prationtes—people doing things (Poetics 1448a).2* We know that they are in some sort of integrated social setting, because there are men, women, children, even pets. We know from their clothing that they come froma cert portion of the socioeconomic spectrum, and from their attitudes that they are at leisure, not (for example) al war. All this comes, perhaps subliminally in part, from no more than a took at the painting.” Certain other things are as immediKIRBY—MIMESIS AND DIEG SIS tet ately apparent, though these themselves begin 10 lead us toward another issue of time: the costumes give some indication of the historical period, and (along with the flora) of the season of the year.” These questions of period and season offer us a point of reference for the praxis, the activity pictured. Moving to a more expansive consideration of the painting, we may ask questions of & different nature: Where have these people come from? How did they get there? Whom do they hope or fear to see at this park? What are their joys and woes? Now each one of these questions, and many more such, might elicit a mutho: But to answer them, to weave the answers together into a sunthesis pragimatdn, ‘and to represent or report that sunthesis, would all take time. “This is somehow profoundly connected with the way our minds digest or process information, Norman Bryson remarks on the discursive and figural aspects of an image: By the “discursive” expect of an image, 1 mean those features which show the influence over tte image of language—in the case of the window at Canterbury {sci the East Window at Christchurch Cathedral, the biblical texis which precede it and on which it depends, the uscriptions it contains within itsof to tell us how to perceive the different panels, and also the how overall mienning generated by its internal juxtapositions.By the “figural” aspect of an image, T mean those features which belong to the image as a visual expericnce independent of Janguage—its" being-as-image. T would like to borrow this terminology and to contend that all images have a discursive aspect, at least insofar as we attempt to consider them cognitively or (specially) to communicate our cognition to another person. And to consider an image cognitively, to engage in discourse about it—be it a stained-glass Crucifixus or a Vasarely “composition” —is to textualize T reiterate: to textualize takes time, We may textualize in myriad ways. Do we tty 10 imagine the original promenew's at the Grande Jutte that Sunday afternoon? Consider the woman with the parasol and the pet monkey. 1s that her husband next to her, or her brother, or is this some Flaubertian assignation? ‘Are they calmly observing the boats on the Seine, or are they tense with conflicl, maintaining a brittle composure? On another level, was the model for this woman a friend Seurat had asked to pose especially for him, or a mere stranger, like the grotesques that da Vinci would pass in the street and then sketch from memory at home? Or, to begin afresh, who is to say that the whole painting is hot an iconic mise-en-abyme, the representation of a group of actors who are dressed to replicate the Paris of the 1880s? After all, the lighting changes drastically as we progress into the deeper registers of the painting. Who is to say that the seven people in the foreground, and their animals, are not standing in front of a backdrop painted to look like the park at the Grande Jalte? And so on, and on, We ean textualize the image endlessly, can make innumerable igcursive evaluations of it, But each time we do so, we incarnate this in narrative, Not only does the spinning of narrative take time: the very fabula takes some time as well, however much or little. We may organize it in any number of chronologies, depending on whether we wish to emphasize that the woman with the monkey has just walked into the field of vision, or that the rowers are passing by as we watch, or that the dog is about to run off with the