Irregular feelings: mimēsis, poikilia, and the emotions in Plato’s Republic

This paper deals with the psychology of poetic mimēsis in Plato’s Republic and its consequences on artists and audiences in terms of emotional arousal. Focusing on the conceptual bonds between μίμησις and ποικιλία and on the effects they exert on emotions, the author discusses Plato’s ethical concerns about μίμησις from a vantage point that emphasises the role it plays in structuring human cognition. In doing so, the author aims at showing the way aesthetic experience and the emotional engagement it calls forth jeopardize the unity and justice of Plato’s well-structured city and its citizens’ harmonious souls by having a uniquely powerful effect on human learning competences.