La controversa eredità della mimesis comica

Is it possible to identify the legacy of one of the milestones of Western thinking? The aim of this paper is to investigate the reception of the notion of ‘mimesis’ in comedy as well as in the comic theatre in general, from Agathon’s first statement in Aristophanes’ Tesmo­phoriazusae (146-156) down to our days. The paper focuses on the way in which the comic performer repeatedly rejects tragic ‘mimesis’, while at the same time playing with it in an open relationship with the audience. Comic mimesis thus emerges as the ‘practical’ legacy of actors, from Dicaeopolis to Dario Fo