Mimesis Not Diegesis Effecting Catharsis!

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 31 July 2014.

Apollo and Socrates (at the Academy of Athens)

I am also interested in bringing up a new topic, that of mimesis vs. diegesis. I began thinking along these lines when you brought up Drunk History, which is a pretty unalloyed modern example of diegesis, although the actors, of course, engage in (deliberately pitiful) mimesis. It must be first admitted that the writers of Drunk History would--without the slightest doubt--be forcibly and immediately expelled from the Republic, because their narration does absolutely nothing to promote values and virtues of youth.

That said, the only poets who would be allowed to remain in the Republic were the diegetical ones; mimesis is considered unacceptable because, among other things, "human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man plays one part only" (The Republic, Book III). I don't have a fully formed idea here, but there seems to be an intersection between this and the idea of multiple identities that occur after the turbulent reversals. Actually, it seems to intersect in a lot of ways, but I haven't figured them all out.

Socrates would reject what we are doing in imitating our characters. And it doesn't help matters that most of the characters we imitate in this drama are not ones of a praiseworthy sort. Also, some of our characters do the same thing as we do, usurping the identity of others. Finally, we have the more overarching sense in which we all--to a greater or lesser extent--fashion multiple identities for ourselves in this age of avatars.

This same Book III talks about the importance of engendering courage in youth. And the blame is placed on even the poet Socrates revered--Homer--for perpetuating ideas of the afterlife that were contrary to nurturing this all-important virture. The main issue is making it look like everyone--with the exception of maybe Teiresias--has a shitty afterlife, and thus that death is to be avoided at all costs. They've got a point about that one passage in The Odyssey in which the fearless demigod Achilles says he would rather be alive as the basest slave than king of the dead. It's almost as if he regrets the valor that put him constantly in harm's way.

This aspect seems to have a connection to our focus on the underworld and Hell. In some ways, Farthington is doing what Socrates would have him do, that is, make that realm more desireable or palatable, and make life as we know it a thing of lesser value and passing worth, thus engendering courage in his followers. But the followers of Farthington are well on their way to becoming shades, to entering into the anonymous and ignominious part of Hell. More and more, they live the life of a disembodied shade, seeking only to drink blood on the rare occasion it becomes available. Perhaps Farthington thinks that, by leading them into the underworld willingly and while still alive, he is making them kings of that world, himself being the high king.

There is also the issue of exile, the fate which all mimetic poets would suffer in Plato's Republic. Is Arthur and Farthington's trip to Iceland an experience of exile? It sure bears a distinct resemblance to St. John's exile on the island of Patmos and capitalizes on that visionary tradition. I think it is an exile in the sense that neither of them have any place in modern civilization. They have been expelled by Nietzsche's hated Socratic man, who sees rationality, science, and mechanistic thinking as perfectly capable of fathoming the depths of reality.

Apollo and Marsyas

Arthur and Farthington turn this all its head by enacting their modern mythmaking, co-opting the symbols and concepts of empiricism/positivism (think dinosaurs), and allowing the Dionysian to regain superiority.

Arthur is likely from the upstart musical tradition of Marsyas, not Apollo, and is, in some sense flayed alive (or is just among those musicians and poets expelled in The Republic).

Your idea about podcasting also brings up the whole diegesis/mimesis idea. As long as it's just us talking about the characters and the story, we might last longer in a republic ruled by the Socratic man. Of course, I guess that's sort of what we've been doing with the blog as well.

Now with all this hating on Socrates in our story, it's interesting that, in some ways, he also gives voice to its happy ending:

our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else; if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession--the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind? 

This seems to be an apt ending for any divine comedy, if we replace "freedom" with "virtue" and "State" with "Church."

A major criticism of our approach is that we delve so deeply into baseness--to an extent that can our work even be considered Christian? Did anyone who attended "An Evening with Arthur White" feel strengthened in their faith? Did anyone feel "encouraged" or "equipped"? And if so, what is the mechanism that allows someone to profit from this? Obviously, Socrates sees no benefit in this approach; I think a whole lot of Christians see no benefit in this approach either--they too have roundly expelled these kinds of poets (just keep that dial locked on Family Life Radio!).

Or is it, as Aristotle says, "an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude...in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions"?

In other words, mimesis not diegesis effecting catharsis!