Mimesis is a critical and philosophical term going back to Aristotle. It carries a wide range of meanings, including imitation, representation, mimicry, the act of expression, and the presentation of self. In modern literary criticism, mimesis has received renewed attention in the last two or three decades and been subject to wide-ranging interpretations. Nicolae Babuts looks at the concept of mimesis from a cognitive perspective. He identifies two main strands: the mimetic relation of art and poetry to the world, defined in terms of reference to an external reality, and the importance of...