ABSTRACT
Since Plato first defined art in terms of the concept of mimesis, and Aristotle developed this concept for the linguistic arts in the Poetics, Western literature and commentary on literature has been dominated by it. In this extract from "The Double Session," which comprises all of the "first session" except some introductory pages, Derrida shows how mimesis has always been closely tied to a notion of truth, whether truth as aletheia (nature unveiling itself) or as homoiosisladaequatio (nature represented by an accurate imitation). EN Derrida discusses Plato's attempt to distinguish between a living memory (mneme) or knowledge as this kind of memory (aletheia) and the operation of being reminded by something external such as writing (hupomnesis) in "Plato's Pharmacy," Dissemination. EN Lustre, an important Mallarmean word exploited by Derrida, means, in English as well as in French, both "chandelier" and "brightness".
