Three unities :
The Aristotelian concept of three unities, the backbone of Classical drama, include the unity of time, play and action. The unity of action reads that the plot of a drama should have a single line of action with no unnecessary scenes. The unity of time implies that the time period encompassed by the action should not exceed ‘one revolution of the sun’. The unity of place refers that the action of a drama must be set in a particular local. Dryden in his An Essay on Dramatic Poesy subjects this ancient tenet to a closer scrutiny through a
debate discussion among Crites, Eugenius and Neander.While Crites lauds the Classical adherence to the unities, Neander, Dryden’s mouthpiece , defends it’s violation by the moderners, especially by Shakespeare.
Crites defends the ancients on the ground of verisimilitude. The unity of place and time are duly valid since it makes the duration and location of the play the nearest possible to reality. The unity of action is also mandatory because two actions equally driven on by the writer would destroy the unity of the play. Eugenius dismisses these unities on the ground that they are more French than Aristotelian. He argues that Aristotle emphasized on the unity of action alone. The unity of place was not at all mentioned, and the unity of time was secondarily suggested.
Dryden states his own views through the persona of Neander, who defends the violation of unities in English plays. Along with admitting the regularity of the French plays he asserts the superior liveliness and unrivaled variety of the English plays which make them multidimensional. Abundant characters and events don’t disrupt the unity of action since all of them pursue the same end via different routes. The significance of action lies in its target effect, not in its formation. The fusion of comic and tragic doesn’t violate the totality of impression. This commingling of passion and humor rather consolidates the imitation of human nature in a more realistic way since human life is more a combination of the evil and the good than a monopoly of emotion.
The Neo-classical adherence to the unity of place is not infallible since the difference between a fixed stage and a global setting can be eliminated by means of imagination. Variation of the painted scenes can contribute to the imagination that the stage denotes different places. In case of unity of time, Neander legitimizes the violation of this law by saying that the long duration can be adjusted through proportional screen time. Dryden opines that if the unities restrict the drama from presenting the multidimensionality of life, then the “just” imitation should be compromised in favour of a “lively” imitation of human nature.
Dryden’s version of the Classical unities
indicates his liberal classicism, distinguished from the orthodox views of Ben Jonson, Pope and others. His aesthetic vision was not blurred by his critical observations, due to which, artistic realism prevailed over drab material truth for him.
