Chapter III: The Theory of the Drama (2)

The observance of the unity of time could not be demanded in clearer or more forcible terms than this. But it is a mistake to construe this passage into a statement of the unity of place.[186] When Scaliger says that the poet should not move any one of the characters from Delphi to Thebes, or from Thebes to Athens, in a moment's time, he is referring to the exigencies, not of place, but of time. In this, as in many other things, he is merely following Maggi, who, as we have seen, says that it is ridiculous for a dramatist to have a messenger go to Egypt with a message and return in an hour. The characters, according to Scaliger, should not move from Delphi to Thebes in a moment, not because the action need necessarily occur in one single place, but because the characters cannot with any appearance of truth go a great distance in a short space of time. This is an approach to the unity of place, and had Scaliger followed his contention to its logical conclusion, he must certainly have formulated the three unities. But by requiring the action to be disposed with the greatest possible approach to the actual truth, or, in other words, by insisting that the action must coincide with the representation, Scaliger helped more than any of his predecessors to the final recognition of the unity of place.

In Minturno[187] and in Vettori[188] we find a tendency to restrict the duration of the epic as well as the tragic action. It has been seen that Aristotle distinctly says that while the action of tragedy generally endeavors to confine itself within a period of about one day, that of epic poetry has no determined time. Minturno, however, alludes to the unity of time in the following words: "Whoever examines well the works of the most esteemed ancient writers, will find that the action represented on the stage is terminated in one day, or does not pass beyond the space of two days; while the epic has a longer period of time, except that its action cannot exceed one year in duration."[189] This limitation Minturno deduces from the practice of Homer and Virgil.[190] The action of the _Iliad_ begins in the tenth year of the Trojan war, and lasts one year; the action of the _AEneid_ begins in the seventh year after the departure of AEneas from Troy, and also lasts one year.

Castelvetro, however, was the first theorist to formulate the unity of place, and thus to give the three unities their final form. We have seen that Castelvetro's theory of the drama was based entirely upon the notion of stage representation. All the essentials of dramatic literature are thus fixed by the exigencies of the stage. The stage is a circumscribed space, and the play must be performed upon it within a period of time limited by the physical necessities of the spectators. It is from these two facts that Castelvetro deduces the unities of time and place. While asserting that Aristotle held it as _cosa fermissima e verissima_ that the tragic action cannot exceed the length of an artificial day of twelve hours, he does not think that Aristotle himself understood the real reason of this limitation.[191] In the seventh chapter of the _Poetics_ Aristotle says that the length of the plot is limited by the possibility of its being carried in the memory of the spectator conveniently at one time. But this, it is urged, would restrict the epic as well as the tragic fable to one day. The difference between epic and dramatic poetry in this respect is to be found in the essential difference between the conditions of narrative and scenic poetry.[192] Narrative poetry can in a short time narrate things that happen in many days or months or even years; but scenic poetry, which spends as many hours in representing things as it actually takes to do them in life, does quite otherwise. In epic poetry words can present to our intellect things distant in space and time; but in dramatic poetry the whole action occurs before our eyes, and is accordingly limited to what we can actually see with our own senses, that is, to that brief duration of time and to that small amount of space in which the actors are occupied in acting, and not any other time or place. But as the restricted place is the stage, so the restricted time is that in which the spectators can at their ease remain sitting through a continuous performance; and this time, on account of the physical necessities of the spectators, such as eating, drinking, and sleeping, cannot well go beyond the duration of one revolution of the sun. So that not only is the unity of time an essential dramatic requirement, but it is in fact impossible for the dramatist to do otherwise even should he desire to do so--a conclusion which is of course the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the whole argument.

In another place Castelvetro more briefly formulates the law of the unities in the definitive form in which it was to remain throughout the period of classicism: "La mutatione tragica non puo tirar con esso seco se non una giornata e un luogo."[193] The unities of time and place are for Castelvetro so very important that the unity of action, which is for Aristotle the only essential of the drama, is entirely subordinated to them. In fact, Castelvetro specifically says that the unity of action is not essential to the drama, but is merely made expedient by the requirements of time and place. "In comedy and tragedy," he says, "there is usually one action, not because the fable is unfitted to contain more than one action, but because the restricted space in which the action is represented, and the limited time, twelve hours at the very most, do not permit of a multitude of actions."[194] In a similar manner Castelvetro applies the law of the unities to epic poetry. Although the epic action can be accomplished in many places and at diverse times, yet as it is more commendable and pleasurable to have a single action, so it is better for the action to confine itself to a short time and to but few places. In other words, the more the epic attempts to restrict itself to the unities of place and time, the better, according to Castelvetro, it will be.[195] Moreover, Castelvetro was not merely the first one to formulate the unities in their definitive form, but he was also the first to insist upon them as inviolable laws of the drama; and he refers to them over and over again in the pages of his commentary on the _Poetics_.[196]

This then is the origin of the unities. Our discussion must have made it clear how little they deserve the traditional title of Aristotelian unities, or as a recent critic with equal inaccuracy calls them, the Scaligerian unities (_unites scaligeriennes_).[197] Nor were they, as we have seen, first formulated in France, though this was the opinion of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thus Dryden says that "the unity of place, however it might be practised by the ancients, was never one of their rules: we neither find it in Aristotle, Horace, or any who have written of it, till in our age the French poets first made it a precept of the stage."[198] It may be said, therefore, that just as the unity of action is _par excellence_ the Aristotelian unity, so the unities of time and place are beyond a doubt the Italian unities. They enter the critical literature of Europe from the time of Castelvetro, and may almost be said to be the last contributions of Italy to literary criticism. Two years after their formulation by Castelvetro they were introduced into France, and a dozen years after this formulation, into England. It was not until 1636, however, that they became fixed in modern dramatic literature, as a result of the _Cid_ controversy. This is approximately a hundred years after the first mention of the unity of time in Italian criticism.

V. _Comedy_

The treatment of comedy in the literary criticism of this period is entirely confined to a discussion and elaboration of the little that Aristotle says on the subject of comedy in the _Poetics_. Aristotle, it will be remembered, had distinguished tragedy from comedy in that the former deals with the nobler, the latter with the baser, sort of actions. Comedy is an imitation of characters of a lower type than those of tragedy,--characters of a lower type indeed, but not in the full sense of the word bad. "The ludicrous is merely a subdivision of the ugly. It may be defined as a defect or ugliness which is not painful or destructive. Thus, for example, the comic mask is ugly and distorted, but does not cause pain."[199] From these few hints the Italian theorists constructed a body of comic doctrine. There is, however, in the critical literature of this period no attempt to explain the theory of the indigenous Italian comedy, the _commedia dell' arte_. The classical comedies of Plautus and Terence were the models, and Aristotle's _Poetics_ the guide, of all the discussions on comedy during the Renaissance. The distinction between the characters of comedy and tragedy has already been explained in sufficient detail. All that remains to be done in treating of comedy is to indicate as briefly as possible such definitions of it as were formulated by the Renaissance, and the special function which the Renaissance understood comedy to possess.

According to Trissino (1563), the comic poet deals only with base things, and for the single purpose of chastising them. As tragedy attains its moral end through the medium of pity and fear, comedy does so by means of the chastisement and vituperation of things that are base and evil.[200] The comic poet, however, is not to deal with all sorts of vices, but only such as give rise to ridicule, that is, the jocose actions of humble and unknown persons. Laughter proceeds from a certain delight or pleasure arising from the sight of objects of ugliness. We do not laugh at a beautiful woman, a gorgeous jewel, or beautiful music; but a distortion or deformity, such as a silly speech, an ugly face, or a clumsy movement, makes us laugh. We do not laugh at the benefits of others; the finder of a purse, for example, arouses not laughter but envy. But we do laugh at some one who has fallen into the mud, because, as Lucretius says, it is sweet to find in others some evil not to be found in ourselves. Yet great evils, so far from causing us to laugh, arouse pity and fear, because we are apprehensive lest such things should happen to us. Hence we may conclude that a slight evil which is neither sad nor destructive, and which we perceive in others but do not believe to be in ourselves, is the primary cause of the ludicrous.[201] In Maggi's treatise, _De Ridiculis_, appended to his commentary on the _Poetics_, the Aristotelian conception of the ridiculous is accepted, with the addition of the element of _admiratio_. Maggi insists on the idea of suddenness or novelty; for we do not laugh at painless ugliness if it be very familiar or long continued.[202]

According to Robortelli (1548), comedy, like all other forms of poetry, imitates the manners and actions of men, and aims at producing laughter and light-heartedness. But what produces laughter? The evil and obscene merely disgust good men; the sad and miserable cause pity and fear. The basis of laughter is therefore to be found in what is only slightly mean or ugly (_subturpiculum_). The object of comedy, according to the consensus of Renaissance opinion, is therefore to produce laughter for the purpose of rendering the minor vices ridiculous. Muzio (1551) indeed complains, as both Sidney and Ben Jonson do later, that the comic writers of his day were more intent on producing laughter than on depicting character or manners:--

"Intenta al riso
Piu ch' a i costumi."

But Minturno points out that comedy is not to be contemned because it excites laughter; for by comic hilarity the spectators are kept from becoming buffoons themselves, and by the ridiculous light in which amours are placed, are made to avoid such things in future. Comedy is the best corrective of men's morals; it is indeed what Cicero calls it, _imitatio vitae, speculum consuetudinis, imago veritatis_. This phrase, ascribed by Donatus to Cicero, runs through all the dramatic discussions of the Renaissance,[203] and finds its echo in a famous passage in _Hamlet_. Cervantes cites the phrase in _Don Quixote_;[204] and Il Lasca, in the prologue to _L'Arzigoglio_, berates the comic writers of his day after this fashion: "They take no account of the absurdities, the contradictions, the inequalities, and the discrepancies of their pieces; for they do not seem to know that comedy should be truth's image, the ensample of manners, and the mirror of life."

This is exactly what Shakespeare is contending for when he makes Hamlet caution the players not to "o'erstep the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."[205]

The high importance which Scaliger (1561) gives to comedy, and in fact to satiric and didactic poetry in general, is one of many indications of the incipient formation of neo-classical ideals during the Renaissance. He regards as absurd the statement which he conceives Horace to have made, that comedy is not really poetry; on the contrary, it is the true form of poetry, and the first and highest of all, for its matter is entirely invented by the poet.[206] He defines comedy as a dramatic poem filled with intrigue (_negotiosum_), written in popular style, and ending happily.[207] The characters in comedy are chiefly old men, slaves, courtesans, all in humble station or from small villages. The action begins rather turbulently, but ends happily, and the style is neither high nor low. The typical themes of comedy are "sports, banquets, nuptials, drunken carousals, the crafty wiles of slaves, and the deception of old men."[208]

The theory of comedy in sixteenth-century Italy was entirely classical, and the practice of the time agrees with its theory. There are indeed to be heard occasional notes of dissatisfaction and revolt, especially in the prologues of popular plays. Il Lasca, in the prologue to the _Strega_, defiantly protests against the inviolable authority of Aristotle and Horace, and in the prologue to his _Gelosia_ reserves the right to copy the manner of his own time, and not those of Plautus and Terence. Cecchi, Aretino, Gelli, and other comic writers give expression to similar sentiments.[209] But on the whole these protests availed nothing. The authors of comedy, and more especially the literary critics, were guided by classical practice and classical theory. Dramatic forms like the improvised _commedia dell' arte_ had marked influence on the practice of European comedy in general, especially in France, but left no traces of their influence on the literary criticism of the Italian Renaissance.

FOOT-NOTES:

[109] _Poet._ vi. 2.

[110] Daniello, p. 34.

[111] _Cf._ Horace, _Ars Poet._ 182 _sq._

[112] Giraldi Cintio, ii. 6.

[113] _Ibid._ ii. 30.

[114] Cited by Butcher, p. 220.

[115] _Poet._ iv. 7.

[116] Maggi, p. 64.

[117] Maggi, p. 154.

[118] Butcher, p. 220 _sq._

[119] Butcher, p. 219, n. 1.--Mueller, ii. 394, attempts to harmonize the definition of Theophrastus with that of Aristotle.

[120] Egger, _Hist. de la Critique_, p. 344, n. 2.

[121] Cloetta, i. 29. _Cf._ Antiphanes, cited by Egger, p. 72.

[122] Cloetta, p. 30.

[123] _Etymol._ viii. 7, 6.

[124] _Etymol._ xviii. 45 and 46.

[125] Cloetta, p. 28, and p. 31 _sq._

[126] _Epist._ xi. 10. _Cf._ Gelli's Lectures on the Divine Comedy, ed. Negroni, 1887, i. 37 _sq._

[127] _Poet._ ix. 5-9.

[128] Giraldi Cintio, ii. 14.

[129] Giraldi Cintio, ii. 20.

[130] _Poet._ xi. 6.

[131] _Ars Poet._ 182-188.

[132] Giraldi Cintio, ii. 119.

[133] Scaliger, _Poet._ i. 6.

[134] Scaliger, i. 11; iii. 96.

[135] _Ibid._ vi. 6.

[136] _Ibid._ iii. 96.

[137] _Ibid._ i. 13.

[138] _De Poeta_, p. 43 _sq._

[139] _Ibid._ p. 173. _Cf._ Milton's phrase, "vain and amatorious poem."

[140] Dacier, 1692, p. xvii.

[141] _Poet._ vi. 19.

[142] _Poet._ xiv. 1.

[143] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, p. 30.

[144] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, pp. 22, 23.

[145] _Ibid._ p. 57.

[146] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, pp. 35, 36.

[147] Twining, ii. 3.

[148] Butcher, ch. vi.

[149] Giraldi Cintio, ii. 12.

[150] _Ibid._ i. 66 _sq._

[151] Trissino, ii. 93 _sq._

[152] Robortelli, p. 52 _sq._

[153] Vettori, p. 56 _sq._, and Castelvetro, _Poetica_, p. 117 _sq._

[154] Maggi, p. 97 _sq._

[155] _Cf._ Shelley, _Defence of Poetry_, p. 35, "Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of that pleasure which exists in pain," etc.

[156] _Lezzioni_, p. 660.

[157] Scaliger, _Poet._ vii. i. 3; iii. 96.

[158] _Arte Poetica_, p. 287.

[159] _Arte Poetica_, p. 77.

[160] Butcher, pp. 229, 230.

[161] _Opere_, v. 178.

[162] Butcher, p. 280 _sq._

[163] _Poet._ xiii. 2, 3.

[164] Daniello, p. 38.

[165] _Poet._ xiii. 7.

[166] _Della Vera Poetica_, cap. iii.

[167] _De Poeta_, p. 182 _sq._

[168] _Arte Poetica_, p. 118 _sq._; also in Scaliger and Giraldi Cintio.

[169] _Poet._ xv. 1-5.

[170] _Ars Poet._ 154 _sq._

[171] Muzio, p. 80.

[172] Pope, i. 165.

[173] _Poetica_, p. 36 _sq._

[174] Capriano, _op. cit._, cap. v.

[175] Cod. Magliabechiano, vii. 7, 715.

[176] Another expression of Jonson's, "small Latin and less Greek," may perhaps be traced to Minturno's "poco del Latino e pochissimo del Greco," _Arte Poetica_, p. 158.

[177] _Poet._ viii. 1-4.

[178] _Poet._ v. 4.

[179] Giraldi Cintio, ii. 10 _sq._

[180] Robortelli, pp. 50, 275, and appendix, p. 45. _Cf._ Luisino's Commentary on Horace's _Ars Poetica_, 1554, p. 40.

[181] B. Segni, p. 170 v.

[182] Trissino, ii. 95.

[183] Brunetiere, i. 69.

[184] Maggi, p. 94.

[185] Scaliger, iii. 96. So Robortelli, p. 53, speaks of tragedy as representing things _quae multum accedunt ad veritatem ipsam_.

[186] _E.g._ Lintilhac, _De Scal. Poet._ p. 32.

[187] _De Poeta_, pp. 185, 281.

[188] Vettori, p. 250.

[189] _Arte Poet._ pp. 71, 117.

[190] _Ibid._ p. 12.

[191] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, pp. 157, 170.

[192] _Ibid._ pp. 57, 109.

[193] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, p. 534. _Cf._ Boileau, _Art Poet._ iii. 45.

[194] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, p. 179.

[195] _Ibid._ pp. 534, 535.

[196] Other allusions to the unities, besides those already mentioned, will be found in Castelvetro, _Poetica_, pp. 163-165, 168-171, 191, 397, 501, 527, 531-536, 692, 697, etc.

[197] Lintilhac, in the _Nouvelle Revue_, lxiv. 541.

[198] _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, p. 31.

[199] _Poet._ v. 1. _Cf._ _Rhet._ iii. 18.

[200] Trissino, ii. 120. _Cf._ Butcher, p. 203 _sq._

[201] Trissino, ii. 127-130. Trissino seems to follow Cicero, _De Orat._ ii. 58 _sq._ It is to these Italian discussions of the ludicrous that the theory of laughter formulated by Hobbes, and after him by Addison, owes its origin. For Renaissance discussions of wit and humor before the introduction of Aristotle's _Poetics_, _cf._ the third and fourth books of Pontano's _De Sermone_, and the second book of Castiglione's _Cortigiano_.

[202] Maggi, p. 307. _Cf._ Hobbes, _Human Nature_, 1650, ix. 13.

[203] _Cf._ B. Tasso, ii. 515; Robortelli, p. 2; etc.

[204] _Don Quix._ iv. 21.

[205] _Hamlet_, iii. 2.

[206] Scaliger, _Poet._ i. 2. Castiglione, in the second book of the _Cortigiano_, says that the comic writer, more than any other, expresses the true image of human life.

[207] _Poet._ i. 5.

[208] _Poet._ iii. 96.

[209] Symonds, _Ren. in Italy_, v. 124 _sq._, 533 _sq._