1) Aristotle believed that mimesis could be defined as the replication of nature.

In
Greek thought, the concept of mimesis was very important because they believed
that art was a search for imitating the beauty of reality, and this concept of
imitation is very important in the search for true art that reflects reality accurately.
For Aristotle, mimesis did not just simply involve imitation but also equally appealed
to mathematical principles in search of perfection.

Aristotle, linked to the concept of mimesis, wrote about the "four causes" in nature.
The first was a "formal cause" which is like a blueprint, and the second is the
material, which focuses on what an object is made out of. The third is the agent
which is the artist that made the object. The fourth and final cause is the good, or
the purpose of the object. It is a natural human inclination, Aristotle argued, to try
and reflect the beauty and perfection of reality that we see around us in poetic
form.

Aristotle also believed that mimesis is the key to the cathartic response that he
thought was so important in tragedy. Through watching tragic events occur on
stage, we experience "simulated representation" which enables us to engage in a
kind of mimetic role play, allowing us to experience the same emotions that are
reflected on the stage and thus be purged of them.

2) Mimesis is a Greek term that means imitation. The first step in understanding
Aristotle's account of mimesis is remembering that he spent many years studying at
Plato's Academy. In Platonic thought, the things we encounter via our senses, the
phenomena, are imitations of ideal forms. Art (whether poetry or painting), in
imitating the phenomena, is thus merely an imitation of an imitation. Plato also
divides imitation by medium (words, paint, marble, etc.). He further divides the
verbal techniques of imitation into pure imitation or mimesis, in which an actor
impersonates a character on stage, and diegesis, or narration, in which a narrator
speaks in the third person about events. Epic is a mixed form, using both
impersonation and narration when performed by a rhapsode. Plato tends to
condemn imitation as degrading, because (1) impersonation can inculcate bad or
non-rational habits and (2) because it focuses attention on mere phenomena.

Aristotle accepts the Platonic distinction between mimesis and diegesis, but finds
both valuable as modes of training and educating emotions. Ontologically, he does
not believe in separated forms, but argues that forms inhere in phenomena, and
thus the only way to understand concepts or qualities is as they are embodied and
thus advocates rather than objects to close study of appearances.

For Aristotle, mimesis is a natural human activity. He agrees with Plato that children
learn by imitation. While Plato worried that people observing villains or despicable
characters in poetry would imitate them, Aristotle believes that bad examples teach
people how not to behave just as good examples teach people how to behave.
3) This question appears to be prompted by a reading of Aristotle's Poetics, which
contains the author's most famous remarks on mimesis. The Greek word mimesis,
which provides the root for our word "mime", carries connotations such as
"imitation" and "representation".

In the Poetics, Aristotle plans to discuss the genres of tragedy, comedy, and epic
poetry, so he has occasion to talk about how poets of these various genres
"represent" or "imitate" various things. For example, each of these genres, Aristotle
tells us in Section 2, represent human beings in different ways. Aristotle also
discusses how the poets of different genres can use different styles of language and
rhythm as a means of representation.

In Poetics 4, Aristotle tells us that people are naturally imitative, that they learn by
imitating, and so they enjoy seeing and hearing the representations created by the
poets. People enjoy representations because everyone learns something different
from being able to identify something in a representation:

Thus the reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is, that in contemplating it they
find themselves learning or inferring, and saying perhaps, Ah, that is he' (S. H.
Butcher translation).

Because most of the surviving part of the Poetics deals with tragedy, most of
Aristotle's remarks on mimesis are focused on this genre. Aristotle defines tragedy
as "an imitation of an action that is complete, and whole, and of a certain
magnitude" (S. H. Butcher translation). Furthermore, Aristotle says that tragedy
should "imitate actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of
tragic imitation." Even these sorts of representations, sad though they may be,
provide the audience with some sort of pleasure.