A writer need not be familiar with, let alone understand, Aristotle’s Poetics in order to write excellent fiction. A writer does not need to master mimetic prose before composing non-mimetic prose of the first order. A writer does not need to understand what a narrative arc is, or what foreshadowing is, or what thematic development is, to write successful fiction. A writer ignorant of “mirrored action” is not any less of a writer.
“You must know the rules before you can break them,” is a lie told by the academy out of a canny instinct for self-preservation.