Three Unities

“It is easy for critics to be severe; but if they were to give ten or a dozen plays to the public, they might perhaps slacken the rules more than I do, as soon as they have recognised through experience what constraint their precision brings about and how many beautiful things it banishes from our stage”– Pierre Corneille (1606-1684).

The unity of action
Of plot or peril
One that is complete
Which leaves serene
The mind of the spectator
After rounds of pleasant suspense.

The rule of the unity of time
Is that the tragedy ought to enclose
The duration of its action
Within a single circuit of the sun
Twenty-four or twelve or two?
But with the signal fires
smoking in the mountains
Leave the matter of duration
To spectators’ imagination.

As for the unity of place
The Attic minds are silent
But whether you find me in my boudoir
Or in the public square
Or even in my little office
In the Department of Rivers and Forests
Still shall I carry away your corpse from here with me
And I shall follow you tomorrow by a new road
And thereby make the ancient rules agree with modern pleasures
While the machine plays.