Imbibing the Reality of Metaphors Made Manifest

I will be Paris and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy shall Wittenberg be sacked.
- Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Faustus declaims an impassioned identification, invoking a magical fusing of past and present, the fire of his emotion being hot enough to make the metaphor real.

On 7 February 1601, the evening before the abortive Essex Rising, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex and his supporters requested the Lord Chamberlain’s Men to perform a play on the matter of Henry IV, and the "deposing and killing" of Richard II.

We seek out art that "expresses" or makes manifest the swirl of inarticulate emotions within us. This is Aristotle's κάθαρσις - catharsis - the purgation of excessive feelings. But we see with Essex and with Faustus that the imitation is commutative: art represents life, and life would reinforce its patterns by imitating the art it selects. Instead of Richard, Elizabeth; instead of Troy, Wittenberg.

Plato had identified this danger of poetry, see Republic 3.395d ... (here starting back in the middle of 395c): ἐὰν δὲ μιμῶνται, μιμεῖσθαι τὰ τούτοις προσήκοντα εὐθὺς ἐκ παίδων, ἀνδρείους, σώφρονας, ὁσίους, ἐλευθέρους, καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα πάντα, τὰ δὲ ἀνελεύθερα μήτε ποιεῖν μήτε δεινοὺς εἶναι μιμήσασθαι, μηδὲ ἄλλο μηδὲν τῶν αἰσχρῶν, ἵνα μὴ ἐκ τῆς μιμήσεως τοῦ εἶναι ἀπολαύσωσιν. ἢ οὐκ ᾔσθησαι ὅτι αἱ μιμήσεις, ἐὰν ἐκ νέων πόρρω διατελέσωσιν, εἰς ἔθη τε καὶ φύσιν καθίστανται καὶ κατὰ σῶμα καὶ φωνὰς καὶ κατὰ τὴν διάνοιαν;

"But if they imitate they should from childhood up imitate what is appropriate to them — men, that is, who are brave, sober, pious, free and all things of that kind; but things unbecoming the free man they should neither do nor be clever at imitating, nor yet any other shameful thing, lest from the imitation they imbibe the reality. Or have you not observed that imitations, if continued from youth far into life, settle down into habits and (second) nature in the body, the speech, and the thought?"

The translation here is Paul Shorey's. I think "lest from the imitation they imbibe the reality" is an instance of the translator introducing a new metaphor that isn't in the original ἵνα μὴ ἐκ τῆς μιμήσεως τοῦ εἶναι ἀπολαύσωσιν. As much as I like the florid grandeur of "imbibe the reality", perhaps Benjamin Jowett's older translation is closer to the mark "lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate."

Jowett's version of this section runs: "if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession - the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind?"