The three unities or classical unities are rules for drama derived from a mistaken interpretation of a particular passage in Aristotle's Poetics. In their neoclassical form they are as follows: This does not cite its references or sources. ... Aristotle (Greek: Aristotélēs) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... Aristotles Poetics aims to give an account of poetry. ... Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture. ...

1. The unity of action: a play should have one main action that it follows, with no or few subplots.
2. The unity of place: a play should cover a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place.
3. The unity of time: the action in a play should take place over no more than 24 hours.

Aristotle dealt with the unity of action in some detail, under the general subject of "definition of tragedy", where he wrote:

Now, according to our definition, Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is complete, and whole, and of a certain magnitude … As therefore, in the other imitative arts, the imitation is one when the object imitated is one, so the plot, being an imitation of an action, must imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed. For a thing whose presence or absence makes no visible difference, is not an organic part of the whole.

His only reference to the time in the fictive world is in a distinction between the epic and tragic forms: The epic is a broadly defined genre of poetry, and one of the major forms of narrative literature. ... In general usage a tragedy is a play, movie or sometimes a real world event with a sad outcome. ...

Epic poetry agrees with Tragedy in so far as it is an imitation in verse of characters of a higher type. They differ, in that Epic poetry admits but one kind of metre, and is narrative in form. They differ, again, in their length: for Tragedy endeavours, as far as possible, to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but slightly to exceed this limit; whereas the Epic action has no limits of time.

Unlike his prescriptive attitude regarding the plot (unity of action), Aristotle here merely remarks on the typical duration of a tragedy's action, and does not suggest any kind of imperative that it always ought to be so. He was writing after the golden age of Greek drama, and many Greek playwrights, notably Aeschylus, wrote plays that do not fit within these conventions. Verse is a writing that uses meter as its primary organisational mode, as opposed to prose, which uses grammatical and discoursal units like sentences and paragraphs. ... Greek theatre or Greek Drama came into its own between 600 and 200 BC in the ancient city of Athens. ... Bust of Aeschylus from the Capitoline Museums, Rome Aeschylus (525 BC—456 BC; Greek: Ασχύλος) was a playwright of Ancient Greece. ...

Even more tellingly, Aristotle does not mention the neoclassical unity of place at all. So Aristotle suggested only one unity -- that of action -- but the prevalent interpretation of his Poetics during the middle ages already inclined toward interpreting his comment on time as another "unity".

Italian critics of the 16th century, from Lodovico Castelvetro onwards, and then 17th century French critics, proponents of the neoclassical movement, both expanded Aristotle's descriptions. The result was to make them into hard-and-fast rules or prescriptions for how any play must be structured. French drama of the 17th century, particularly that of Molière and Racine was highly regular; whereas the English dramatists writing for the Jacobethan stage were largely unaware of these strictures. (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... Lodovico Castelvetro (c. ... Louis XIV King of France and Navarre By Hyacinthe Rigaud (1701) French literature of the 17th century spans the reigns of Henry IV of France, the Regency of Marie de Medici, Louis XIII of France, the Regency of Anne of Austria (and the civil war called the Fronde) and the... Neoclassicism (sometimes rendered as Neo-Classicism or Neo-classicism) is the name given to quite distinct movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Jean Racine. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ... Anthony Salvins Harlaxton Manor, 1837 – 1855, defines the Jacobethan taste. ...

By the later 17th century, however, English dramatists (under the influence of French criticism picked up by those in exile during the English Interregnum) did begin to assess their own plays according to these rules. Thus, John Dryden, among many others, compares the "irregular" Shakespeare with the "regular" Ben Jonson in his Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668), and makes use of the unity of time in this passage criticizing Shakespeare's history plays: The English Interregnum was the period of parliamentary and military rule in the land occupied by modern-day England and Wales after the English Civil War. ... John Dryden John Dryden (August 19 {August 9 O.S.}, 1631 - May 12 {May 1 O.S.}, 1700) was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator and playwright, who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Benjamin Jonson (circa June 11, 1572 – August 6, 1637) was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. ... Essay of Dramatick Poesie is a work of dramaturgy by John Dryden published in 1668. ... 1668 (MDCLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar). ... Traditionally, the works of William Shakespeare have been grouped into three categories: tragedies, comedies, and histories. ...

if you consider the Historical Playes of Shakespeare, they are rather so many Chronicles of Kings, or the business many times of thirty or forty years, crampt into a representation of two hours and a half, which is not to imitate or paint Nature, but rather to draw her in miniature, to take her in little; to look upon her through the wrong end of a Perspective, and receive her Images not onely much less, but infinitely more imperfect then the life: this instead of making a Play delightful, renders it ridiculous.

Ultimately, however, Dryden declared Shakespeare "incomparable" because of his disregard for convention:

in most of the irregular Playes of Shakespeare or Fletcher (for Ben Johnson's are for the most part regular) there is a more masculine fancy and greater spirit in all the writing, then there is in any of the French.^[1]

Alexander Pope criticizes the violation of the unities in his Dunciad. In the 1728 version of the poem, the goddess Dulness notes that "Time himself stands still at her command,/ Realms shift their place, and Ocean turns to land" (Dunciad 1728, i, 69–70). Additionally, he notes a violation of unity of action, as tragedy and comedy were mixed. Alexander Pope, an English poet best known for his Essay on Criticism and Rape of the Lock Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744) is generally regarded as the greatest English poet of the early eighteenth century, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. ... The Dunciad is a landmark literary satire by Alexander Pope published in three different versions at different times. ... Events Astronomical aberration discovered by the astronomer James Bradley Swedish academy of sciences founded at Uppsala The founding of the University of Havana (Universidad de la Habana), Cubas most well-established university. ...

Even Samuel Johnson was not free of applying the unities to drama when judging it in his Prefaces to Shakespeare. However, Johnson was well aware that Aristotle had only recommended the unity of action, and knew that rules must serve drama, not vice versa: For other persons named Samuel Johnson, see Samuel Johnson (disambiguation). ...

Whether Shakespeare knew the unities, and rejected them by design, or deviated from them by happy ignorance, it is, I think, impossible to decide, and useless to inquire. We may reasonably suppose, that, when he rose to notice, he did not want the counsels and admonitions of scholars and critics, and that he at last deliberately persisted in a practice, which he might have begun by chance. As nothing is essential to the fable, but unity of action, and as the unities of time and place arise evidently from false assumptions, and, by circumscribing the extent of the drama, lessen its variety, I cannot think it much to be lamented, that they were not known by him, or not observed: Nor, if such another poet could arise, should I very vehemently reproach him, that his first act passed at Venice, and his next in Cyprus. Such violations of rules merely positive, become the comprehensive genius of Shakespeare…

The classical unities were influential in dramatic criticism until Victor Hugo's Hernani (1844); one of the things that made that play controversial at its debut was its violation of these rules of classicism. Victor-Marie Hugo (pronounced in French) (26 February 1802 — 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights campaigner, and perhaps the most influential exponent of the Romantic movement in France. ... Hernani (Full title: Hernani, ou lHonneur Castillan) is a drama by the great French romantic author Victor Hugo. ... Jan. ... Classicism door in Olomouc, The Czech Republic Teatr Wielki in Warsaw Church La Madeleine in Paris Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicist seeks to emulate. ...

See also

• History of theater
• Theatre technique

This article or section contains information that has not been verified and thus might not be reliable. ... Theatre techniques are procedures that facilitate a successful presentation of a play. ...

Reference

1. ^ An Essay of Dramatick Poesie, John Dryden. Edited by Jack Lynch. 1668.

John Dryden John Dryden (August 19 {August 9 O.S.}, 1631 - May 12 {May 1 O.S.}, 1700) was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator and playwright, who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles...

External links

• The Poetics of Aristotle, translated by Samuel Henry Butcher, available at Project Gutenberg.
• Preface to Shakespeare, by Samuel Johnson, available at Project Gutenberg.