Plato and Mimesis
For Plato, mimesis is the imitation of nature, in his work The Republic, he mentions this concept. In The Republic, he explains it with the literary form poetry, poetry does not show the exact reality and while dealing with poetry we should keep that in mind. In the part ten of Plato’s book, three beds metaphor is given, he gives this example in order to make us figure out the situation more vividly. It is said that there is “idea” of bed made by God, then carpenter makes a bed, and artist paints the picture of the bed, so we are away from truth. Firstly carpenter imitates, then artist imitates the imitation of carpenter, so we are really far away from truth. While imitating, showing the reality becomes less and less with mimesis as while carpenter uses the idea of bed less, artist uses it lesser. The poetry is the same, we all imitate each other and getting away from truth, so poetry does not tell the truth, it is just imitation of something else.

Aristotle and Mimesis
Famous philosopher Aristotle is the student of Plato and Aristotle defines the concept mimesis, too. He defines it as the imitation and perfection of nature. Aristotle’s Poetics is a great literary source and in it he also deals with mimesis. He has not such strong oppositions to poetry as Plato, according to him, imitating is the human nature and human should create something without force. Aristotle accepts that reality and poetry, art are different, but they also have common points, for instance, after watching a tragedy, the audience may say “Thanks God! It is not me!” He identifies this with the concept “catharsis”, and he also mentions and identifies many other literary concepts in his Poetics.

Mimesis in Literature with Aristotle and Plato
Both of these philosophers and writers see literature as imitation, they have controversial ideas; they argue what mimesis is, where it is used and what its function is. Throughout Literary history some people supported Plato while some others supported Aristotle, nowadays thoughts of both of them are effective and ideas are especially used for literary criticism.

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