In the Imitation and the Image of Man James S. Hans presents his conception of the mimetic. His primary goal to this study is to broaden several kinds of discourse: first, to redfine our conception of the literary; second, to expand our ideas of the kinds of things that can be treated together; third, to enrich our understanding of the possibilities of the form of the essay; and fourth, to articulate the need for these changes in terms of a non-linear theory of imitation.