The area in which neoclassical theory sparked the most controversy was undoubtedly the drama, particularly tragedy. Aristotle himself had discussed tragedy at length in the Poetics, and Renaissance critics, first bowing to his authority, then seeking to rationalize his precepts, developed his remarks into a series of rules. Most notorious of these were the three ‘‘unities’’ - those of action, time, and place (Bray 1927: 24088). The sixteenth-century Italian critic Castelvetro, adding a psychological justification for several of Aristotle’s principles, argued that the spectator judges the truth of a drama by its fidelity to his own experience of time and place. Hence not only must a play’s action be unified, but the stage can represent only one place, and the action itself should approximate the amount of time spent in the theater (Bray 1927: 256). The unities thus enforced the illusion of reality.
But the unities were not the only rules derived from ancient theories. French critics of the seventeenth century, for example, argued that each character should be restricted to its ‘‘type,’’ a concept traceable to both Aristotle and Horace. Different times of life and different social positions, they noted, all have their typical qualities: a youth differs from an old man in his habits and desires, a farmer differs from a merchant, and so on.
Under the theory of types, each character takes on added significance, for he exemplifies his age and status. The play, then, does not merely depict the encounters of individuals but the interaction of broad social forces. The characters are not particular people but representative, even universal, figures (Bray 1927: 221-2).
The primary effect of the dramatic rules was to put pressure, both artistic and social, on the playwright. The rules themselves encouraged a form of artistic purity - a play should have a simple, clear plot with representative characters. For Racine the rules appear to have been a spur to his genius, for they allowed him to explore directly and intensely the passions of his characters. Since the rules were generally known, though, a writer who neglected them risked being attacked by critics who knew no other basis for judging plays. Nevertheless, no author appears to have abided by them in all cases; the demands of plot and character often overcame the imperatives of theory. English playwrights like Dryden tended to take a middle ground: they did not adhere to the unities with any rigor, but they sought to prune extravagances and to tighten structure. The best contemporary discussion of these matters is undoubtedly Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), a dialogue in which four speakers debate the merits of ancient and contemporary drama, with a full consideration of the value of the rules.
Of all the critical controversies brought on by the application of neoclassical rules, the most important is the dispute over Shakespeare’s plays. If Shakespeare knew of Castelvetro and his theory of the ‘‘unities,’’ he paid no heed to them. It is not unusual in his plays for years to pass between scenes or for the action to shift from one nation to another, and his characters often violate the expectations set by their social roles. To many critics of the late seventeenth century, such looseness signaled a lack of ‘‘art.’’ Thomas Rymer, one of the most influential critics of the age, denied Shakespeare’s plays any merit (see especially his contemptuous analysis of Othello in A Short View of Tragedy, 1693). Indeed, Shakespeare’s artlessness was so widely accepted that many of his plays were rewritten by contemporary playwrights, and these ‘‘improved’’ versions held the stage, to the exclusion of Shakespeare’s actual texts, throughout the eighteenth century.
But Shakespeare still had his partisans, and it was the last of the major neoclassical critics, Samuel Johnson, who vindicated Shakespeare’s position as the greatest English dramatist. In his ‘‘Preface to Shakespeare,’’ Johnson returns to the most basic of Aristotelian principles, that art is an imitation of nature: ‘‘Shakespeare,’’ he tells us, ‘‘is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his readers a faithful mirrour of manners and of life’’ (1958- : 7:62). If Shakespeare violates the rules, he does so triumphantly; he dismisses the intermediaries of ‘‘art’’ and goes directly to nature. Some critics had complained that Shakespeare’s characters were not proper ‘‘types,’’ that his kings did not always act like kings and that a Roman senator was portrayed as a buffoon. To these Johnson replies:
Shakespeare always makes nature predominate over accident.... His story requires Romans or kings, but he thinks only on men. He knew that Rome, like every other city, had men of all dispositions; and wanting a buffoon, he went into the senate-house for that which the senate-house would certainly have afforded him. (1958- : 7:65-6)
As for the unities, Johnson dismisses them by attacking Castelvetro’s premise and appealing to common sense. The audience is not disturbed or confused if a play breaks the illusion of reality: ‘‘The truth is, that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players’’ (1958- : 7:77). And so ended the tyranny of literary theories over the practice of irregular dramatists.
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