THE INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CONDITIONS (_CONTINUED_): THE UNITIES[320]
The dramatic unities, three principles governing the structure of
drama and supposedly derived from Aristotle’s _Poetics_, are a subject
of perennial interest. They are known as the unities of time, place,
and action, respectively, and require that “the action of a play should
be represented as occurring in one place, within one day, and with
nothing irrelevant to the plot.” The essential facts concerning them
were recognized at least as long ago as the publication of Lessing’s
_Hamburgische Dramaturgie_ (1767). But so deep-rooted is the popular
impression that the Greeks formulated these rules arbitrarily and
observed them slavishly that no attempt to state the true situation
can be superfluous. The current doctrine is based on the fact that the
classic dramatists in France and Italy blindly obeyed the rules as a
heritage of the past, without regard to the demands of the theater at
their own disposal; and, consequently, the inference has been easily and
naturally drawn that the ancient practice was equally irrational.
But in the Greek theater, where there was no drop curtain, no scenery
to shift, and a chorus almost continuously present, a change of scene
was difficult to indicate visually. Nevertheless Aristotle nowhere
mentions the unity of place, and the Greek dramatists not infrequently
violate it. The most familiar instances occur in Aeschylus’ _Eumenides_
and Sophocles’ _Ajax_. The former play opens at the temple of Apollo
in Delphi, whither the avenging Furies have pursued Orestes after his
mother’s murder. During a momentary lapse from their watchfulness Orestes
makes his escape, but the Furies soon awaken and take up the trail once
more. The scene is thus left entirely vacant (vs. 234) and is supposed to
change to Athens, where all parties presently appear for the famous trial
before the Council of the Areopagus. The beginning of the latter play
takes place before Ajax’ tent, and Sophocles wished to introduce the very
unusual motive of having a scene of violence enacted before the audience.
As the presence of the chorus was an insuperable obstacle to such a deed,
Ajax was allowed to leave the scene and, suspicion being soon aroused,
the chorus was sent in search of him (vs. 814). Thus, the scene is again
entirely deserted by both actors and chorus, and Ajax returns, not to his
tent, but to some lonely spot near the seashore (see pp. 129 and 244,
above). This was by far the most natural and logical method of leading up
to a change of scene, was infinitely superior to Shakespeare’s practice
in _King Henry V_, where Chorus is introduced in the prologue of each
act to acquaint the spectators with the scene of the succeeding action,
but was so difficult to motivate that only some half a dozen examples
are known to us in the whole Greek drama. On the other hand, such a
technical device was usually not well adapted to represent considerable
shifts of scene, since it would seem unnatural for so large a body of
persons as the chorus always to accompany the dramatic characters to
widely separated localities. To this general restriction, however, the
_Eumenides_ furnishes a brilliant exception, because it was the especial
duty of the Furies to track the guilty Orestes wherever he might flee. In
Old Comedy, ever fantastic and intentionally impossible, greater freedom
was naturally allowed than in tragedy, so that in Aristophanes’ _Frogs_
no less than five different scenes are successively required (see pp.
88-90, above).
At the same time the need of such scene-shifting was largely obviated
by the arbitrary placing of almost all scenes before a building,
by the exclusion of interior scenes, and by the various devices
substituted therefor (see pp. 237-42, above). In particular the use
of the messenger’s speech enabled dramatists to bring indirectly
before their audiences events which had taken place, not merely in the
scene-house interior, but at far distant spots. Very commonly the unity
of place was observed by conventionally bringing together as close
neighbors structures or localities which would actually be separated by
considerable intervals. Thus the murderers of Agamemnon would not wish
his grave to stare them in the face and to remind their subjects of their
crime; nevertheless in Aeschylus’ _Libation-Bearers_ palace and tomb
stand side by side. Likewise in Euripides’ _Helen_, King Theoclymenus has
buried his father in front of his palace. Now these arrangements are not
to be interpreted in the light of the prehistoric custom of placing the
dead within the house or before its threshold. It is purely a theatrical
convention, and Euripides shows what he thought of it by deeming it
necessary to put an excuse on the Egyptian king’s lips:
Hail, my sire’s tomb!—for at my palace-gate,
Proteus, I buried thee, _to greet thee so_;
Still as I enter and pass forth mine halls,
Thee, father, I thy son Theoclymenus hail.
[Vss. 1165 ff.; Way’s translation]
Many similar instances of incongruous juxtaposition in Greek drama can be
cited, and those who remember the use of the continuous set in mediaeval
theaters will feel no surprise.
Slightly different but no less efficacious is the method of procedure
in the _Persians_. For dramatic effect Aeschylus wished to introduce the
ghost of Darius. But according to ancient notions on the subject ghosts
do not normally wander far from their tombs, and the real grave of Darius
was at Persepolis. Furthermore, under the conditions supposed the Persian
elders, the royal messenger, and Xerxes himself would not naturally
resort thither. Consequently, without the slightest compunction,
Aeschylus transferred the dead monarch’s tomb to Susa!
Sometimes the unity of place was observed by causing a character to come
to a spot to which he would not naturally resort. The scene of Euripides’
_Phoenician Maids_, for instance, is laid in Thebes, and the poet wished
to show a meeting of the Theban king and his brother. Since the latter is
considered a traitor and the enemy of his country, is in banishment and
at the head of an invading army, such a meeting in real life would almost
inevitably be held between the hostile lines. Yet Polynices is forced to
intrust his head to the lion’s jaws and enter the city. He expresses his
own misgivings in vss. 261 ff., concluding:
Yet do I trust my mother—and mistrust,—
Who drew me to come hither under truce.
[Vss. 272 f.; Way’s translation]
At vss. 357 ff. he alludes to the matter once more.
Similarly, a character is oftentimes forced to remain upon the scene of
action when he would not naturally do so. Thus, in Plautus’ _Menaechmi_,
owing to a failure to distinguish Menaechmus I from his brother, his
father-in-law and a physician consider him insane and make arrangements,
in his hearing, for his apprehension. Notwithstanding, when they both
leave the stage at vs. 956 he makes no attempt to escape—an act which
would transfer the next two scenes elsewhere—but unconcernedly awaits
developments.
Finally I may mention one especially amusing artifice. In Euripides’
_Iphigenia among the Taurians_, Orestes has left the scene and is now
supposed to be some distance away. Notwithstanding, Athena addresses him
and apologetically adds: “For, though absent, you can hear my voice,
since I am a goddess” (vs. 1447). The same situation recurs, without
apology, at vs. 1462 and in Euripides’ _Helen_, vss. 1662 ff.
Likewise, the unity of time arose, not from the whim of ancient
writers, but from the same theatrical arrangements which resulted in the
unity of place, viz., the absence of a drop curtain and the continuous
presence of the chorus. Under these conditions an intermission for the
imaginary lapse of time could be secured only by the withdrawal of the
chorus, and without such intermissions the constant and long-continued
presence of the same persons in the same place without food or slumber
was in danger of becoming an absurdity. Now we have seen how difficult
it was to invent motives for the successive reappearances of actors;
to motivate the movements of a body of twelve (fifteen) tragic or
twenty-four comic choreutae was naturally still more difficult (see pp.
229-33 and 150-52, above). Consequently the chorus is rarely removed from
the stage during the action. Two instances have already been mentioned
(p. 247, above). In the _Ajax_ advantage is taken of the withdrawal to
change the scene slightly; naturally a slight interval of time is also
supposed to elapse, but in this instance this is negligible and without
significance. In the _Eumenides_ the case is different. Here the scene
is not shifted a few rods merely but from Delphi clear to Athens. As the
crow flies this was a distance of about eighty miles and, in view of the
physical conditions and ancient methods of travel, would require two or
three days to traverse. Accordingly a considerable lacuna in the dramatic
time of the play must be assumed. What is still more remarkable is that,
except for the empty stage, the spectators are given nothing to help
“digest the abuse of distance.” At vs. 80 Apollo dispatches Orestes to
the city of Pallas, at vs. 179 he begins to drive the chorus of Furies
from his shrine, at vs. 234 he leaves the stage and the scene is empty.
Up to this point we are still at Delphi. In the very next verse (235)
Orestes rushes into the theater and exclaims, “O queen Athena, I come at
the bidding of Loxias.” He has reached Athens! In Euripides’ _Alcestis_
the chorus forms part of the queen’s funeral cortège and is absent during
vss. 747-860. Although it is not usually so regarded I am inclined to
think that there is a slight change of scene here (see p. 235, above);
there is also a slight condensation of time, but neither constitutes
a serious violation of these unities. This is one of the rare cases
where the withdrawal of the chorus resulted naturally from the normal
development of the plot. For if the choreutae had been present when
Heracles announced his intention of rescuing Alcestis from death (vss.
840 ff.) the poet must have invented a reason for their not reporting
this news to Admetus or have spoiled certain features of the finale. It
was much simpler to avoid the difficulty by allowing the chorus to do the
natural thing. In the following instances apparently no change of scene
or undue compression of time is involved. In Euripides’ _Helen_ (vs. 385)
the chorus accompany their mistress inside the palace to consult the
seeress Theonoe and re-enter at vs. 515. The only advantage that seems
to accrue from this maneuver is to prolong Menelaus’ uncertainty as to
the identity of his newly recovered wife. In Aristophanes’ _Women in
Council_ (vs. 311) the women of the chorus, disguised as men, leave for
the assembly in order to vote the management of the state into their own
hands, returning at vs. 478. Unless the playwright wished to have the
assembly scene enacted before the audience he had to withdraw the chorus.
As it is their doings are reported by a messenger (Chremes) in vss. 376
ff. In the pseudo-Euripidean _Rhesus_ the chorus is absent during vss.
565-674, being sent in front of the camp to receive Dolon (cf. vss. 522
ff.). The presence of Trojan guards would have prevented the intervening
scene between the Greek marauders, Odysseus and Diomedes. It will be
noted how few are the instances of the withdrawal of the chorus in the
extant plays and that the observance of the unities figures in just half
of them. In New Comedy the chorus appeared only between acts (see p. 145)
and it would have been feasible to assume a lacuna several times in each
play. That this was not done was probably due to the fact that the other
practice had become stereotyped and that concentration of action resulted
in greater unity of plot. Sometimes the stage is left empty _before the
entrance of the chorus_ by the retirement of all the actors on the scene
either between the prologue and the parodus or between monologues (or
dialogues) in the prologue. Euripides’ _Alcestis_ (vs. 77) furnishes an
example of the former and his _Iphigenia among the Taurians_ (vs. 66) of
the latter. So far as I have observed such pauses are not made use of to
accelerate the time unduly.
Since it was not often possible to suspend the audience’s sense of
time by removing the chorus, the poets had recourse to the next best
expedient, the choral odes. Inasmuch as several of these occurred in
every play, this artifice was far more available than the other. In many
respects the chorus moved upon a different plane from the actors, and
we are now dealing with one of these differences. As Professor Butcher
expressed it: “The interval covered by a choral ode is one whose value
is just what the poet chooses to make it. While the time occupied by
the dialogue has a relation more or less exact to real time, the choral
lyrics suspend the outward action of the play and carry us still farther
away from the world of reality. What happens in the interval cannot be
measured by any ordinary reckoning; it is much or little as the needs
of the piece demand. A change of place directly obtrudes itself on the
senses, but time is only what it appears to the mind. The imagination
travels easily over many hours; and in the Greek drama the time that
elapses during the songs of the chorus is entirely idealized” (_op.
cit._, p. 293). Thus the choral songs were roughly equivalent to the
modern intermission, and after them the action is often farther advanced
than the actual time required for chanting them would warrant. For
example, during a single stasimon of Aeschylus’ _Suppliants_ (vss.
524-99) the Argive king must leave the scene, summon his subjects to
public assembly, state the object of the meeting, and allow discussion
before the final vote—all in time for Danaus to report the people’s
decision at the beginning of the following episode! An analogy to ancient
practice occurs in Shakespeare’s _The Winter’s Tale_, where Time as
Chorus announces the passage of sixteen years between Acts III and IV.
But at the same time that the chorus conferred this liberty it
restricted it. The presence of such a body of performers at all the
scenes of a play could seldom be entirely natural. Yet that the same
persons should be found standing about, in the same place, at various
intervals during the day is conceivable, though it does not often
happen. But that they should be found there at every moment chosen for
representation during weeks or months or years is inconceivable and
ridiculous. Only by shortening the supposed action of the piece and the
supposed lacunae in the plot could the convention be tolerated at all.
However, Professor Verrall was lacking in historical imagination when he
maintained that “the point at which the discrepancy between the facts
presented and the natural facts began to be flagrant and intolerable
was when the audience were told to pass in imagination _from day to
day_. Night is the great natural interrupter of actions and changer of
situations” (_op. cit._, p. 1). To the spoiled theatergoer of today this
would seem to be true. But the ancient drama knew no lighting effects
(see p. 224, above). On the stage day and night looked the same to them.
Scenes at midday, in the darkness of night, in the gloom of Hades, were
alike enacted in the glare of the sun. Ostensibly the entire action of
the anonymous _Rhesus_ and much of that in Euripides’ _Cyclops_ fell
within the hours of night, and characters frequently addressed the
heavenly constellations in (actual) daylight. So far were the playwrights
from avoiding the discrepancy involved in passing from one day to
another that in Terence’s translation of Menander’s _Self-Tormentor_,
when a night is supposed to elapse between Acts II and III, attention
is deliberately called to it by Chremes’ words, “It is beginning to
grow light here now” (vs. 410). In my opinion this play extends over
about as much time as the conditions which obtained in ancient drama
would normally allow; and it should be noted that it does not exceed the
twenty-four hours permitted by the unity of time.
In the third place, perhaps it is unnecessary to point out that
acceleration of time is possible in all drama quite apart from an empty
stage or choral songs. Instances can be cited even from dramatists who
owned no allegiance to the unities—note, for example, the striking of the
half-hour every twenty or twenty-five lines at the close of Marlowe’s
_Doctor Faustus_. In Aristophanes’ _Plutus_ the blind god is escorted
from the stage for a night’s treatment in the temple of Asclepius (vs.
626), the chorus remaining in its place but apparently not singing.[321]
At the very next verse one of the escort returns to announce that Plutus
has recovered his sight and to relate the events of the night! But
here again, despite the transition from one day to another, the action
does not exceed twenty-four hours. In the same writer’s _Acharnians_,
Amphitheus goes from Athens to Sparta and returns again during the
dialogue contained between vss. 133 and 174. There is no hint, however,
that his reappearance is premature or that his trip would occupy more
than the apparent space allotted it.
But neither the ordinary acceleration of time in drama nor the use of
stasima nor yet the stage left empty by the retirement of chorus and
actors tells the whole story of Greek practice. Nowadays the playbill
clearly informs us how much time has elapsed between acts, and the
piece is constructed accordingly. If a character in the third act has
occasion to refer to something which occurred in the first act ten
years or so ago he must not speak of it as if it happened yesterday.
Not so in ancient drama. The Greek audiences had no playbills, and
even the introductions to Greek plays prepared by Alexandrian scholars
contained no such information as this. I fancy that the Greek dramatist
never laid his finger upon a given line and said: “Here we must assume
a lapse of several days, or months, or years.” The events of a drama,
regardless of actualities, were conventionally treated as occupying no
more than twenty-four hours. A like convention was customary in the Greek
epic: when once a Homeric character was given a definite age or form
he maintained each unchanged throughout.[322] For example, Telemachus
is introduced in the first book of the _Odyssey_ as a young man just
reaching his majority, ready and anxious to assume the duties of manhood;
but nine years before, when he could not have been more than twelve
years of age, he is spoken of as just as old and as already a man among
men (cf. Book xi, vss. 185 f. and 449). Again, in the third book of the
_Iliad_, Helen is pictured in the prime of youth and beauty; ten years
later and thirty years after her elopement with Paris she is likened to
the same goddess as is the Maiden Nausicaa (cf. _Odyssey_ iv. 121 f.
and vi. 102 ff.). In Greek drama time relations are similarly ignored.
At the opening of Aeschylus’ _Agamemnon_ the watchman sights the signal
fire which announces the capture of Troy, and within a few hundred lines
Agamemnon has finished the sack, traversed the Aegean, and appeared
before his palace! No hint is given, however, that there is anything
unusual about all this; not a word[323] indicates that the action is
disconnected at any point.
This is the most flagrant instance, and I conceive that it is to be
interpreted as follows: The performance of Greek drama in the fifth
century was continuous in the sense that with negligible exceptions (see
pp. 250 f., above) actors or chorus or both were constantly before the
audience. Notice that this is not the same as saying that the _time_
of the plays was continuous. When critically examined it is found to
have been interrupted by numerous gaps, as we have already seen and
shall see again. But the continuity of performance gave a _semblance_
of continuity also to the action. Therefore when a modern playwright
like Pinero restricts his action to one day and represents the lapse
of several hours by the fall of the curtain between acts, he does not
thereby observe the unity of time in the Greek sense. The dramatic events
were tacitly treated by the poets as if they occupied no more than a day
and were so accepted by the public. By “tacitly” I mean that if such
crowding involved a physical or moral impossibility the dramatists never
stooped to apologize or explain but placed their events in juxtaposition
just the same. In Plautus’ _Captives_, Philocrates travels from Aetolia
(the scene of action) to Elis and back again between vss. 460 and 768.
In real life such a trip would have required several days, but in the
play it consumes less than one! Do we positively know this? Beyond the
shadow of a doubt. A parasite is introduced at intervals during the play
scheming to be invited to a meal. He is first seen at vs. 69 and does not
get a satisfactory invitation until vs. 897. A more detailed statement
would show conclusively that the same day’s meal is under discussion
throughout. Moreover, this is no mere _lapsus calami_, such as a few
phrases which are found in an opposite sense,[324] but is unmistakable
in its import and is closely interwoven with the plot. If anyone feels
amazed at so deliberate a contradiction he may console himself with a
study of the use of “double time” in Shakespeare. It would be possible,
but is quite unnecessary, to cite other plays in which restriction of
time to a single day is indicated with sufficient exactness. Of course
the Greek dramatists did not consistently introduce references to the
precise date or to the time of day. In general they were wise enough to
act upon the principle which Corneille[325] expressed as follows: “Above
all I would leave the length of the action to the imagination of the
hearers, and never determine the time, if the subject does not require
it.... What need is there to mark at the opening of the play that the sun
is rising, that it is noon at the third act, and sunset at the end of the
last?”
It is somewhat remarkable that Professor Verrall, who fully recognized
the dependence of this unity upon local conditions and published
eminently sensible observations on the subject, nevertheless felt
constrained to challenge the obvious interpretation of two plays in which
a glaring violation of the unity of time occurs. In the _Agamemnon_ he
supposed the watchman and the populace (including the chorus) to be
misinformed as to the meaning of the beacon and that it really served to
Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, and their supporters as a warning of Agamemnon’s
being close at hand! His elucidation of Euripides’ _Andromache_ was
still more ingenious and complicated.[326] But to bolster up such
interpretations Mr. Verrall ought to have explained away all similar
instances as well—to explain, for example, how in Euripides’ _Suppliants_
an Attic army can march from Eleusis to the vicinity of Thebes and fight
a battle there, and how tidings of the victory can be brought back to
Eleusis, all between vss. 598 and 634, which, as Dryden[327] expressed
it, “is not for every mile a verse.” Nevertheless not the slightest
attention is paid to such patent impossibilities, and in every case the
whole action is unmistakably supposed to fall within a day.
In view of the foregoing it is not surprising that Aristotle does mention
the unity of time, though only incidentally. His exact language is:
“Tragedy and epic differ, again, in their length: for tragedy endeavors,
so far as possible, to keep within a single circuit of the sun (περίοδος
ἡλίου), or but slightly to exceed this limit; whereas the epic action
has no limits of time.”[328] “Endeavors” (πειρᾶται) was mistranslated
as _doit_ by some French writers. Aristotle rather commends the unity
of time as a rough generalization which works out well in practice
than enjoins it as an invariable rule. Actually the restriction was
further reduced, in most cases, to the hours of daylight, and Dacier
even maintained that περίοδος ἡλίου means no more than twelve hours.
But Aristophanes’ _Plutus_ and Terence’s _Self-Tormentor_ (see pp. 253,
above) furnish clear examples of dramatic action beginning in the late
afternoon of one day and not concluding until the next day.
It remains to consider some of the expedients which the poets found
useful in solving the difficulties (both of time and place) caused by
local conditions. In the first place the practice of writing a series
of three plays on the same general subject (see p. 198, above) often
enabled the playwright to distribute his incidents in different places
and time-spheres without loss of verisimilitude, for a whole trilogy
was no longer than the average modern play, and each tragedy would thus
correspond to a single act and, since the chorus was withdrawn at the
close of each play in the trilogy and its place taken by another entirely
different, changes of time and place between plays were absolutely
without restriction. Thus Scythia of Aeschylus’ _Prometheus Bound_
becomes Caucasus in the second piece in the trilogy, the _Prometheus
Unbound_; in the former was shown the binding of the Titan and in the
latter his release, and he is said to have been bound for 30,000 years.
All but two days of this time elapses between plays! In Aeschylus’
Orestean trilogy the scene of the _Agamemnon_ and _Libation-Bearers_ is
laid in Argos; that of the _Eumenides_ in Delphi and Athens. Several
years are supposed to pass by in the two interims.
But even Aeschylus did not always employ the trilogic form, and
Sophocles and Euripides rarely did. When, therefore, the three or
four plays in each series were severally devoted to utterly unrelated
material, it sometimes became necessary to bring almost as many events
within the scope of one play as would otherwise be dealt with in a whole
trilogy. Inasmuch as a large fraction of these events could not possibly
be conceived of as taking place in the same locality or within the same
day, it was imperative either to exclude them or to include them in some
indirect fashion. Now two striking peculiarities of Euripidean technique
were admirably adapted to help solve these difficulties. His prologues
regularly take the form of a monologue, which, with scant regard for
dramatic illusion, rehearses the story of the myth up to the point where
the play begins. Again, Euripides’ dramas frequently terminate with
the epiphany of a deity. This device was the accustomed recourse of
unskilful playwrights, when their plots had become complicated beyond
the possibility of disentanglement by natural means, in order that a
god’s fiat might resolve all difficulties. It has often been charged
that this was also Euripides’ motive, but most unjustly (see pp. 293
ff., below). He rather “wished, by the help of a divine foreknowledge,
to put before the spectators such future events or unknown circumstances
as should settle their minds, satisfy all curiosity, and connect the
subject of the piece with subsequent events or even with the times of
living men.”[329] Thus in Euripides’ _Andromache_ the complications of
the plot are entirely solved before Thetis’ appearance at vs. 1231,
and she merely gives directions for Neoptolemus’ burial and prophesies
the future of Peleus, Andromache, and Molossus, and of the latter’s
posterity. When these two pieces of technique were combined in the same
play, the prologue, the body of the tragedy, and the epilogue sometimes
corresponded roughly to the successive dramas of a whole trilogy. This
appears most clearly in the case of Euripides’ _Electra_ and Aeschylus’
Orestean trilogy. The opening monologue of the former (vss. 1-53)
passes in rapid review the Greek expedition against Troy, the murder of
Agamemnon, and the present fate of his children. With the exception of
the last item, which is brought out in the second play of the _Oresteia_,
these are the matters contained in the prologue, which naturally is
comparatively short, and in the action of Aeschylus’ _Agamemnon_. The
body of the _Electra_ corresponds to the second tragedy in the trilogy,
the _Libation-Bearers_. At the _Electra’s_ conclusion (vs. 1238) Castor
as _deus ex machina_ forecasts among other things the acquittal of
Orestes at Athens, which is the theme of Aeschylus’ _Eumenides_. Whatever
other explanations, therefore, may be advanced for Euripides’ prologues
and epilogues (see pp. 294 f. and 299 f., below) this consideration must
also be allowed a certain weight, viz., that they permitted him to bring
events of the most diverse nature within the scope of his piece without
violating the unities of time and place.
A fourth device looking to the same ends consisted in setting
conversations at times and places which would naturally be different.
Even such a master of dramatic technique as Sophocles represented Orestes
as communicating to his fellow-conspirators the result of his inquiry
at Delphi only after they had reached Argos (_Electra_, vss. 32 ff.),
and as waiting to formulate a definite plan of action until they were in
the most unfavorable place in all the world for such a purpose—before
Clytemnestra’s palace (vss. 15 ff.). The latter incongruity does not
occur in Euripides’ version of the same story because the scene of his
_Electra_ is laid, not in the city of Argos, but before Electra’s hut in
the country. The device under consideration was conveniently supplemented
by the convention that if two or more characters enter the stage together
no conversation is thought of as passing between them until they have
come within the hearing of the audience (see p. 310, below). It will be
seen that the passage just cited from Sophocles’ _Electra_ conforms to
this rule. Another instance occurs in Euripides’ _Madness of Heracles_,
vss. 822 ff. Iris appears above Heracles’ palace with Madness, whom she
orders to incite the hero to the murder of his children. Madness protests
but is overborne and forced to perform her bidding. Though Iris and
Madness must have come a considerable distance together, all discourse
between them is apparently postponed until they reach their destination.
Furthermore, these instructions would naturally have been given to
Madness elsewhere and somewhat earlier. In that case the audience must
have lost an effective scene. The device discussed in this paragraph
enabled the poet to circumvent the unities and place the scene before his
audience; and the convention which I have mentioned preserved it for them
in its entirety.
We have seen that the unities of time and place are largely due to the
striving for illusion in a theater comparatively bare of scenery and
of facilities for scene-shifting. Conversely, their observance in the
modern theater with its ample scenic provision would naturally militate
against the scenic extravagance and actualism of which the present-day
theatocracy is so enamored. Thus it would seem that the much-abused
unities are not without a meaning and truly artistic tendency even
today, for some of the most significant influences in contemporaneous
staging are directed against excesses along these lines. Even a modern
producer, Henry W. Savage, included the following in his advice to a
young playwright: “Do not distribute your scenes so widely that you have
one on an island, another at Herald Square, and a third at Chicago. Make
the action of your play take place all in one day, if possible”[330]—in
other words the unity of time expressly and an approximation to the unity
of place. Ibsen surely retained no theatrical conventions merely because
they were old; yet he usually observed the unities. A recent critic has
written: “Though the unities of time and place were long ago exploded
as binding principles—indeed, they never had any authority in English
drama—yet it is true that a broken-backed action, whether in time or
space, ought, so far as possible, to be avoided. An action with a gap of
twenty years in it may be all very well in melodrama and romance, but
scarcely in higher and more serious types of drama.”[331]
The unity of action is the only one that is universal, since it alone
springs from the inmost nature of the drama. Yet even here local
conditions make themselves felt. The modern playwright, free (if he
pleases and has a producer complaisant enough) to change the scene ten
times within a single act and with superior facilities for motivating
entrances and exits, delights in shifting different sets of characters
back and forth and thus secures an alternation of light and shade, an
intermingling of comedy and tragedy quite beyond the ancient dramatist’s
reach. The preceding discussion has shown the immobility of the ancient
theater in these respects and, consequently, one reason why the Greeks
ruthlessly excluded everything that was not strictly germane to their
action (see also p. 201, above).
This unity, it is needless to say, plays an important part in
Aristotle’s _Poetics_. He recognized that “plot is the first essential
and soul of tragedy and that character comes second.”[332] The most
lengthy statement runs as follows: “Let us now discuss the proper
construction of the plot, as that is both the first and the most
important thing in tragedy. We have laid it down that tragedy is an
imitation of an action that is complete and whole, having a certain
magnitude, for there is also a whole that is wanting in magnitude. Now a
whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A beginning
is that which is not itself necessarily after anything else and after
which something else naturally is or comes to be; an end, on the
contrary, is that which itself naturally follows some other thing either
as its necessary or usual consequent, and has nothing else after it;
and a middle is that which is both itself after one thing and has some
other thing after it. Accordingly, well-constructed plots must neither
begin nor end at haphazard points, but must conform to the types just
mentioned.”[333] These principles were excellently restated by Lowell:
In a play we not only expect a succession of scenes, but that
each scene should lead by a logic more or less stringent, if
not to the next, at any rate to something that is to follow,
and that all should contribute their fraction of impulse
towards the inevitable catastrophe. That is to say, the
structure should be organic, with a necessary and harmonious
connection and relation of parts, and not merely mechanical
with an arbitrary or haphazard joining of one part to another.
It is in the former sense alone that any production can be
called a work of art.[334]
Though it is now admitted on all sides that the unity of action is the
_sine qua non_ of dramatic composition, many fail to realize the meaning
and extent of its limitation. Aristotle indicated a mistaken notion
current in his day, and likewise in ours, in the following words: “The
unity of a plot does not consist, as some suppose, in its having one man
as its subject. An infinite multitude of things befall that one man, some
of which it is impossible to reduce to unity, and so, too, there are many
actions of one man which cannot be made to form one action. Hence, the
error, as it appears, of all the poets who have composed a _Heracleid_,
a _Theseid_, or similar poems. They suppose that, because Heracles was
one man, the story also of Heracles must be one story.”[335] Freytag
discussed the matter with keen discrimination and exemplified it by
showing how Shakespeare remodeled the more or less chaotic story of Romeo
and Juliet’s love into a unified plot whose incidents follow one another
almost as inexorably as Fate. The passage is unfortunately too long for
quotation here, but is highly instructive.[336]
The same reasoning reveals the shortcoming in Professor Lounsbury’s
contention: “What, indeed, is the objection to this mixture of the
serious and the comic in the same play? By it is certainly represented,
as it is not in pure comedy or pure tragedy, the life we actually live
and the mingled elements that compose it.... As there was no question
that sadness and mirth were constantly intermixed in real life, it was
impossible to maintain that the illegitimacy of this form of dramatic
composition was due to its improbability.”[337] The word “pure” gives
away the whole case. Aristotle would have to grant that Shakespeare’s
plays are admirable, even sublime; but he could hardly admit that they
were “pure” tragedies or “pure” comedies, however legitimate in other
respects. They fall short in the quality which Mr. Albert H. Brown placed
in the forefront of his definition: “A great drama is a _clearly focused_
picture of human conditions.”
Aristotle also pointed out that epic poetry has an advantage in that
it can present many events simultaneously transacted, while the drama
is restricted to but one.[338] A curious violation of this self-evident
principle occurred in a recent American play. Toward the end of Act II
in Eugene Walter’s _Paid in Full_, Emma Brooks is disclosed making an
appointment with Captain Williams over the telephone. In the next act we
are transferred to Captain Williams’ quarters, and the dramatic clock has
in the meanwhile been turned back some fifteen minutes, for presently
the telephone bell rings and the same appointment is made over again. In
other words, Act III partially overlaps Act II in time, but the scene is
different. It can scarcely be denied that the dramatic situation has been
enhanced by this device, but this gain has been secured at the sacrifice
of verisimilitude and dramatic illusion. Such “cut-backs” may be all very
well in moving pictures, but they hardly have a place in spoken drama.
Thus, the Greek masters were so far from evolving unities out of
their inner consciousness or from observing them invariably that they
constantly violated the unities of time and place in both letter and
spirit. Their practice throughout simply reacted to theatrical conditions
as they found them. It has remained for their successors, whose theater
has for the most part been quite dissimilar, to observe the unities
with a literalness and exactness such as never characterized the great
dramatists of Greece. That both ancients and moderns have produced
masterpieces under these restrictions is, of course, beyond dispute. In
fact, some of our most impressive plays of recent date such as Kennedy’s
_Servant in the House_, have conformed to them. That many modern plays
would have been improved by observing them is doubtless also true. Even
so uncompromising an admirer of Shakespeare as Professor Lounsbury[339]
wrote:
Let it not be imagined, however, that any attempt is made here
to deny the merit of modern plays which observe the unities,
or to maintain that a powerful drama cannot be produced upon
the lines they prescribe. Such a contention would be only
repeating on the side of the opponents of this doctrine the
erroneous assumptions which its advocates put forth. He who
ventures to take a position so extreme can hardly escape a
feeling of serious discomfort if called upon, in consequence,
to decry the productions of Corneille, Racine, and Molière,
to say nothing of some of the most brilliant pieces which
have adorned the English stage. Nor, furthermore, need it be
denied that there are conditions in which the observance of the
unities may be a positive advantage. Especially will this be
the case when the characters are few and all the incidents of
the plot are directed to the accomplishment of a single result.
The concentration of the action is likely to contribute, in
such pieces, to the effect of the representation. He who sets
out to imitate the simplicity of the Greek drama will usually
find himself disposed to adopt, as far as possible, its form.
Within its limitations great work can be accomplished by the
drama which regards the unities, and, to some extent, it will
be great work because of its limitations.
But that the unities should be arbitrarily imposed upon every drama
without exception is absurd, since the theatrical conditions that called
them forth are no longer the same. That Aeschylus and Sophocles, if
present with us in the flesh, would avail themselves of the greater
flexibility and adaptability of the modern theater I cannot doubt. At any
rate that restless spirit, Euripides, would certainly have gloried in its
freedom.
As a cumulative result of the conditions already described the action
of a Greek drama was restricted to the culmination alone, corresponding
to the fifth act of most modern plays. Though we have seen that the
Greek poets arbitrarily juxtaposed, as if within the confines of a
sun’s circuit, events which were actually separated by considerable
intervals, yet even the widest license would hardly permit a whole series
of transactions, of sufficient dignity and importance to be chosen for
tragic representation, to be compressed within a single day and limited
to a single spot. As Dryden[340] expressed it, the ancient playwrights
“set the audience, as it were, at the post where the race is to be
concluded; and, saving them the tedious expectation of seeing the poet
set out and ride the beginning of the course, they suffer you not to
behold him, till he is in sight of the goal, and just upon you.” Thus in
Aeschylus’ _Suppliants_ we see nothing of the unwelcome suit of Aegyptus’
sons and of the events which led the daughters of Danaus to take refuge
in flight. All this lies in the past and is brought before us indirectly.
The action begins when the Danaids have reached another land and are on
the point of being overtaken by their cousins. Similarly, in Euripides’
_Alcestis_ we learn by hearsay the long story of Apollo’s servitude at
the court of Admetus, of his providing a way of escape from death for the
king, and of the latter’s disheartening search for a substitute. Only the
final stage in the action, the day of the queen’s self-immolation and
rescue, is chosen for actual representation. The same situation recurs
in almost every piece. Of course in trilogies it was possible to select
three different time-spheres and three different localities for the
dramatic action. But here again only the crests of three crises in the
story were put before the spectators’ eyes; all the rest was narrated. So
invariable a method of attack would seem monotonous to us today, but its
successful employment by Ibsen and many another in modern times proves
that there is nothing blameworthy in the practice per se.
Finally, since the dramatic action was confined to a single day (however
elastic) at the culmination of the story, it was rarely possible for the
dramatis personae to experience any particular change or development
of character during the course of the play. This fixity of type was
not only a natural result of theatrical conditions in ancient times
and of the use of masks but was also in thorough accord with Homeric
conventions (see pp. 254 f., above). Moreover, it harmonized completely
with the Greek fondness for schematization. Horace’s words in his _Ars
Poetica_ are entirely Hellenic in spirit: “Either follow tradition,
or invent that which shall be self-consistent. In the former case,
let Achilles be impatient, irascible, ruthless, keen...; let Medea be
untamed and unconquerable, Ino tearful, Ixion treacherous, Io ever
roving, and Orestes in sorry plight. In the latter case, keep the
character to the end of the play as it was at the beginning and let it
be consistent” (vss. 119 ff.). All this implies more than we would think
desirable today. Not only was a positive development into a character
seemingly inharmonious with that seen at first rarely possible, but
the singleness of purpose in ancient plays, which has been called the
unity of mood (see p. 201, above), crowded out incidents which might
have revealed other phases, no matter how consistent, of a dramatic
personage’s character. The taste of some critics objected to even the
slight modifications in rôle which ancient conditions did permit. For
example, to modern readers the manner in which Medea, in Euripides’
tragedy of that name, wavers between love for her children and the
desire to punish her recreant husband by murdering them is esteemed one
of the finest touches in ancient drama. But the Greek argument which
is prefixed to this play reports that “they blame Euripides because he
did not maintain Medea’s rôle but allowed her to burst into tears as
she plotted against Jason and his second wife.” Again, so excellent a
critic as Aristotle cites the title rôle in Euripides’ _Iphigenia at
Aulis_ as an example of inconsistency,[341] inasmuch as the Iphigenia
who pleads for her life at vss. 1211 ff. in no wise resembles her later
self, who willingly approaches the altar. To modern feeling, since the
change is psychologically possible and is plausibly motived by the sudden
realization that her death can serve her country, it seems entirely
unobjectionable. But these two passages and the usual practice of the
Greek stage reveal a discrepancy between the ancient and the modern
points of view. The simplicity of character-drawing which resulted from
Greek methods is strikingly described, in a different connection, by Mr.
Cornford:
Agamemnon, for instance, is simply Hybris typified in a
legendary person. He is a hero flown with “insolence” (the
pride and elation of victory), and that is all that can be
said of him. He is not, like a character in Ibsen, a complete
human being with a complex personality, a center from which
relations radiate to innumerable points of contact in a
universe of indifferent fact. He has not a continuous history:
nothing has ever happened to him except the conquest of Troy
and the sacrifice of Iphigenia; nothing ever could happen to
him except Pride’s fall and the stroke of the axe. As we see
him he is not a man, but a single state of mind, which has
never been preceded by other states of mind (except one, at the
sacrifice in Aulis), but is isolated, without context, margin,
or atmosphere. Every word he says, in so far as he speaks for
himself and not for the poet, comes straight out of that state
of mind and expresses some phase of it. He has a definite
relation to Cassandra, a definite relation to Clytemnestra;
but no relation to anything else. If he can be said to have a
_character_ at all it consists solely of certain defects which
make him liable to Insolence; if he has any _circumstances_,
they are only those which prompt him to his besetting
passion.[342]
There seems no human thought so primitive as to have lost its
bearing on our own thought, nor so ancient as to have broken
its connection with our own life.—E. B. TYLOR.