Mimesis, or imitation (imitatio), was a widely used rhetorical tool in antiquity up until the 18th century's romantic emphasis on originality.
Mimesis criticism looks to identify intertextual relationships between two texts that go beyond simple echoes, allusions, citations, or redactions.
The effects of imitation are usually manifested in the later text by means of distinct characterization, motifs, and/or plot structure.
), an Epicurean philosopher and poet and one of Virgil's teachers, affirms that writers of prose histories and fictions used literary models.
In book 10, Quintilian - who was well-read with respect to both Greek and Latin rhetoricians, including Dionysius - gives advice to teachers who are instructing students in oration.
He tells them that, by the time students begin composition, they should be so well-versed in exemplary models that are able to imitate them without physically consulting them (10.1.5).
It is for this reason that boys copy the shapes of letters that they may learn to write, and that musicians take the voices of their teachers, painters the works of their predecessors, and peasants the principles of agriculture which have been proved in practice, as models for their imitation.
In fact, we may note that the elementary study of every branch of learning is directed by reference to some definite standard that is placed before the learner.
One way for students to accomplish this task, Quintilian says, is to imitate several models in eclectic fashion: "We shall do well to keep a number of different excellences before our eyes, so that different qualities from different authors may impose themselves on our minds, to be adopted for use in the place that becomes them best" (10.2.26; Butler, LCL).
In the same way, one can justifiably argue that Luke has used the story of Elpenor from Odyssey 10-12 as a model for his account of Eutychus in Acts 20:5-12 using the criteria.
Elpenor fell to his death because he was in a drunken stupor; Eutychus appeared to die after falling asleep (out a window) while listening to Paul preach deep into the night.
In his seminal work Christianizing Homer: The Odyssey, Plato, and The Acts of Andrew, MacDonald argues that the second-century c.e.
"[3] Thus, Sandnes argues deductively: Since such familiarity with Homer was limited to the upper stratum of society, and since the authors of Mark and Luke-Acts (nor their audiences) are not believed to belong to this stratum, then the authors of Mark and Luke-Acts simply could not have imitated Homer in the way MacDonald suggests.
According to a first-century CE writer, "From the earliest age, children beginning their studies are nursed on Homer's teaching.