Imitation of Models (Literary Mimēsis)
Learning to write and speak well by closely studying and imitating the great authors.
Here mimēsis means stylistic imitation — the practice of absorbing the strengths of model authors so thoroughly that one can rival them rather than merely copy them. It runs through Hellenistic and Roman rhetorical teaching and gets its fullest treatments in Dionysius of Halicarnassus' On Imitation and the reading-list in Book 10 of Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria (late 1st c. CE); imitation of great authors is also one of the chief paths to grandeur in 'On the Sublime' (Longinus). This is distinct from Plato's and Aristotle's mimēsis, which means the artistic representation of reality.
How it traveled
- On OratoryFormiae · -55explains
- BrutusFormiae · -46explains
- OratorFormiae · -46explains
- De Optimo Genere OratorumFormiae · -46explains
- On the Sublime— · 50explains
- EnneadesRome · 270explains
- De imitatione (fragmenta)Romeexplains
- ControversiaeRomeexplains
- Oratio 64Antiochexplains
- OrationesPrusaexplains
- Descriptiones—explains
- De LysiaRomeexplains
- De ThucydideRomeexplains
- Ars Rhetorica—explains
- De IsaeoRomeexplains
- De DinarchoRomeexplains
- De Compositione VerborumRomeexplains
- Περὶ ἰδεῶν λόγου—explains
- De Demosthenis dictioneRomeexplains
- ImaginesAthensexplains
- Scholia in Iliadem—explains
- EpistulaeRomeexplains
- Epistulae—explains
- De compositione verborum (epitome)Romeexplains
- In Aristotelis artem rhetoricam commentarium—explains
- Stromata—explains
- Life of Apollonius of TyanaAthensexplains
- Progymnasmata [Dub.]—explains
- Peri SophistonAthensexplains
- Epistula ad Pompeium GeminumRomeexplains
Key passages(20)
De Dinarcho · Dionysius of Halicarnassus
De Thucydide · Dionysius of Halicarnassus
De compositione verborum (epitome) · Dionysius of Halicarnassus
De imitatione (fragmenta) · Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Life of Apollonius of Tyana · Philostratus the Athenian
De Optimo Genere Oratorum · Cicero
Ars Rhetorica · Pseudo-Dionysius of Halicarnassus
De Compositione Verborum · Dionysius of Halicarnassus
De Dinarcho · Dionysius of Halicarnassus