Aristotle's Ideal Spectator: Mimesis and Cognition from the Aristotelian Stage

Phillip Sidney Horky

doi:10.1353/rht.2025.a965120

Rhetorica Jan 2025

Aristotle's Ideal Spectator: Mimesis and Cognition from the Aristotelian Stage

Phillip Sidney Horky

Abstract

Abstract: This article investigates the conditions under which someone can be deemed an effective spectator of a poetic or oratorical performance, first considering Aristotle's distinctive theory of mimesis from Poetics . The question of whether Aristotle believes that spectatorship has a positive effect on the soul (not expressly dealt with in Poetics ) is illuminated by Aristotle's argument in Rhetoric that effective rhetorical performances produce psychic correspondences between speaker and audience member, something like "sympathies," crucial to Aristotle's theory of successful political persuasion and action. Aristotle coins a new term sunomoiopathein to explain how these sympathies obtain. The audience member in a rhetorical speech literally identifies with the character of the orator—an activity parallelled by the spectator's mimesis of the theatrical actor's actions. Hence, the dramatic and rhetorical stages become, for Aristotle, universal centres for learning about human character and its consequences for ethical and political action.

Journal: Rhetorica
Published: 2025-01-01
DOI: 10.1353/rht.2025.a965120
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Open Access: Closed
Topics: classical rhetoric rhetorical criticism argument
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Aristotle's Ideal Spectator: Mimesis and Cognition from the Aristotelian Stage

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