Mimesi, stupore e straniamento fra Brecht e Platone

Thinkers as diverse as Benjamin and Zizek describe Brecht's theatre as quintessentially Platonic. Needless to say, there exists a vast gap between Brecht and Plato, and yet a 'Platonic' reading of Brecht's writings proves worthwhile. Taking my cue from a few scholarly contributions, I have collected all the relevant parallels, so as to give a fuller picture than has hitherto been attempted. Both authors share a 'sociological' approach to theatre, and the analogies - even in points of detail - are remarkable, both from a 'negative' point of view (critiques to current theatre) and from a more constructive perspective (proposals for a reformed theatre). To be sure, Brecht had only a very limited acquaintance with Plato, so that issues of intertextuality may be safely ruled out. Any comparison, then, should remain a theoretical one: if Aristotle's Poetics makes an anti-Platonic move, Brecht's 'Platonism' is arguably the result of his anti-Aristotelian stance. Be that as it may, Brecht's 'Platonic' arguments are sometimes given in fuller detail than in Plato himself, whence the heuristic potential of the comparison: by way of conclusion, I propose three thought experiments, whereby Brecht's views offer a refreshing approach to some vexed questions of Platonic scholarship.