According to The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, literature is

categorized using three theories: mimetic theory, didactic theory, and expressive theory.
Mimetic theory “represents life” and acts as “a mirror to nature,” which defines and
supports the imitation of art that is found with Greek antiquity (Leitch 4). Expressive
theory defines the temperament of the Romantic era of writers and represents “the inner
soul rather than the external world of the writer,” and explores the emotions and feelings
released from experiencing nature. Didactic theory, or morality theory, supports the
concept that literature is used “as a source of knowledge, insight, wisdom, purgation,
and perhaps prophecy”.  Literature as a “form of human expression” has been
dominantly controlled by mimetic and didactic theory; however, the Romantic period has
exposed the expressive theory shifting focus from the universe to the author’s
experience with nature. All three theories explore its own special relationship with the
universe, work, artist, and audience. Mimetic theory “emphasizes the relations between
the work and the universe,” where a work of art or literature mirrors life and the world.
Expressive theory describes “the link between the work and the artist,” which reflects
the author’s experience with nature and the world around the writer. Didactic theory
illustrates the “tie between work and audience,” which means that the meaning or intent
of the writing is aimed to educate or to train the audience; in this case, literature is
meant to teach moral values and lessons. All definitions of literature and its theories
serve an individual purpose in the world of literature, which means that there is no
superior theory for what the definition of literature should be.

The first category of mimetic theories forms the oldest and is,
according to Abrams, the “most primitive” of the four categories. According to this
theory, the artist is an imitator of aspects of the observable universe. In The Republic,
Plato divides his universe into three realms: the realm of ideas, the realm
of particulars, and the realm of reflections of particulars (i.e., art and other "shadows").
The realm of reflections of particulars is the furthest removed from the realm of ideas
and is therefore the lowest ranking of the three realms. Consequently, its
practice, namely, mimetic art, is held in low regard. Plato's mentor Socrates seemed
to agree with Plato's thesis, as he too ranked the third realm― mimetic
art― at the bottom. In his famous analogy of the three beds, Socrates refers to the first
bed, Bed 1, as the bed of ideas. Bed 2 is the bed I lie in, the carpenter’s bed, which is
the bed of the realm of particulars. Bed 3, the bed in the painting, is a representation of
a representation of the ideal bed. Thus, being twice removed from the ideal bed, it is the
most "untrue" of the three. Aristotle points out, however, that the value of Bed 3 (the
painter’s bed) is not dependent upon its relation to Bed 1 (the bed of the gods or ideal
truth). Art, rather, is independent and should be assessed on its own terms. Aristotle
thus frees the text from its relation to the universe to which Plato and Socrates bound it,
while still acknowledging the text's imitative relation to universe. Aristotle shows that it is
the "manner of imitation" and not the relation to truth which is important in art, and that
aesthetic evaluation should be based on the assessment of both the "manner of
imitation" and the emotional effect produced in the audience

Mimesis is a term used in philosophy and literary criticism. It describes the

process of imitation or mimicry through which artists portray and interpret the world.
Mimesis is not a literary device or technique, but rather a way of thinking about a work
of art. The word “mimesis” is derived from the Ancient Greek word meaning “imitation”
or “representation” in common parlance, but the continued use and definition of mimesis
today is due to the philosophers Plato and Aristotle. They adopted the term in their
aesthetic theories and evolved the definition into the one we use today.

The mimetic theories judge a literary work of art in terms of imitation. This is the
earliest way of judging any work of art in relation to reality whether the representation is
accurate (verisimilitude) or not. For this purpose, all these theories treat a work of art as
photographic reproduction i.e. art’s truth to life, poetic truth and so forth. 

2 Ways to Use Mimesis in Poetry

The evolution of thinking on mimesis suggests that copying and imitation play a
powerful role in poetry and literature. They enable readers and listeners to suspend
their disbelief, identify with characters, and get deeply immersed in a text. There are two
types of mimesis within poetry:

Vocal mimesis, or writing in a particular accent or speech pattern that is appropriate for
the character.

Behavioral mimesis, in which where characters respond to scenarios in

understandable ways.

Plato’s View on Mimesis

Plato wrote about poetry and mimesis in multiple texts and was generally disparaging
towards the art form. He saw poetry, along with other mimetic forms such as theatre, as
a representation of nature that was inherently inferior to the original.

In The Republic, he presented a dialogue between Socrates and his pupils where the
philosopher argued that an artist’s copy of an object can only ever capture a small part
of the thing as it really is. He used the example of a bed, saying that although a poet
might describe a bed in detail, they don’t have the knowledge of carpentry that the
craftsperson used to make the actual bed. Therefore, they can’t hope to capture the
truth of the bed.
In the Platonic view, the carpenter is also imitating—in this case, copying the ultimate
ideal of the bed. So the writer’s bed is actually a third-hand copy, far removed from the
true reality.

What’s the Difference Between Mimesis and Diegesis?

Both Plato and Aristotle distinguished between different styles of art when it
came to mimesis. They contrasted mimesis with another term: “diegesis.” Diegesis
refers to a narrator that explains the action indirectly and describes the characters’
mindsets from the outside. Mimesis, on the other hand, shows rather than explains the
action. When a poet spoke in their own voice, therefore, it usually wouldn’t be mimetic—
it would be simple diegesis. But when a poet assumed a character and spoke in a voice
that was not theirs, it would be mimesis.

Mimetic Theory of Literary Criticism

The mimetic theory of literary criticism places primary importance on how well a
literary work imitates life. In practice, mimetic critical theory often asks how well the
literary work conveys universal truths and teaches the reader positive moral values and
modes of personal conduct. 

Culler says that a literary work plays in different modes and has different content
than its literal. A literary work is the creation and organization of signs which produces a
human world charged with meaning (Culler, 1975: 189). This also signifies that readers
always find the meaning of a literary work by comparing it to the real world in order to
get the meaning. This perhaps sounds confusing, but it is the truth. A literary work, or in
a broad sense a text, cannot be separated totally from ‘the property of our conceptual
system’ about the reality. Interpreting therefore tends to be subjective. Thus, this is the
importance of literature theory. Its aim is to make a convention of procedures for every
reading so the result of it, the interpretation, becomes as objective as possible (Teeuw,
1983)
References:

Gleason, P. (2018). Mimetic Theory of Literary Criticism. Retrieved from:

https://penandthepad.com/feminist-approach-literary-criticism-5819656.html

MasterClass (2020). Poetry 101: What Is Mimesis? Mimesis Definition with Examples.
Retrieved from: https://www.masterclass.com/articles/poetry-101-what-is-
mimesis-mimesis-definition-with- examples#what-is-mimesis

Purohit, D. (2013). Four critical theories from view point of M.H.Abrams. Retrieved
from:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301228266_Four_critical_theories_from
_view_point_of_MHAbrams