"The first difficulty that we face in order to understand correctly the workings of tragedy according to Aristotle stems from the very definition which that philosopher gives of art. What is art, any art? For him , it is an imitation of nature. For us, the word "imitate" means to make a more or less perfect copy of an original model. Art would, then, be a copy of nature. And "nature" mens the whole of created things. Art would, therefore, be a copy of created things."

"But this has nothing to do with Aristotle. For him, to imitate (mimesis) has nothing to do with copying an exterior model. "Mimesis" means rather a "re-creation." And nature is not the whole of created things but rather the creative principle itself. Thus when Aristotle says that art imitates nature, we must understand that this statement, which can be found in any modern version of the Poetics, is due to a bad translation, which in tern stems from an isolated interpretation of the text. "Art imitates nature" actually means:"Art recreates the creative principle of created things.""(Augusto Boal. Theater of the Oppressed. 1)

:: note :: . . . translation the bane of all research . . .