Definition of "mimesis" [‖Mi•me•sis]

• The imitation or representation of aspects of the sensible world, especially human actions, in literature and art. (noun)
• Biology Mimicry. (noun)
• Medicine The appearance, often caused by hysteria, of symptoms of a disease not actually present. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "While the term mimesis surfaces in numerous fields with diverse connotations, in Girard desire itself tends to be mimetic or imitative."
• "Where mimesis is breached and the figurative function of the semiotic milieu foregrounded, the result may be a radical schism from reality."
• "To free repetition from mimesis is to allow it, as Adrian Parr puts it, "the possibility of reinvention, that is to say repetition dissolves identities as it changes them, giving rise to something unrecognisable and productive""