Dionysian imitatio
BY DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS, THE FIRST FORMULATION, IN THE WEST, OF THE DOCTRINE OF IMITATION
Imitatio
Dionysian imitatio is the influential literary method of imitation as formulated by Greek author Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the first century BCE, which conceived it as the rhetorical practice of emulating, adapting, reworking and enriching a source text by an earlier author. It is a departure from the concept of mimesis which only is concerned with "imitation of nature" instead of the "imitation of other authors.