Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

297

CHAPTER XXIII.

The three Unities.

IN the first chapter is explained the pleasure we have in a chain of connected facts. In histories of the world, of a country, of a people, this pleasure is faint, because the connexions are slight or obscure. We find more entertainment in biography; because the incidents are connected by their relation to a person who makes a figure, and commands our attention. But the greatest entertainment is in the history of a single event, supposing it interesting; and the reason is, that the facts and circumstances are connected by the strongest of all relations, that of cause and effect: a number of facts that give birth to each other form a delightful train; and we have great mental enjoyment in our progress from the beginning to the end.

But this subject merits a more particular discussion. When we consider the chain of causes and effects in the material world, independent of purpose, design, or thought, we find a number of incidents in succession, without beginning, middle, or end every thing that happens is both a cause and an effect; being the effect of what goes before, and the cause of what follows: one incident may affect us more, another less; but all of them are links in the universal chain: the mind, in viewing these incidents, cannot rest or settle ultimately upon any one; but is carried along in the train without any close.

But when the intellectual world is taken under view, in conjunction with the material, the scene is varied. Man acts with deliberation, will, and choice: he aims at some end, glory, for example, or riches, or conquest, the procuring happiness to individuals, or to his country in general: he proposes means, and lays plans to attain the end purposed. Here are a number of facts or incidents leading to the end in view, the whole composing one chain by the relation of cause and effect. In running over a series of such facts or incidents, we cannot rest upon any one; because they are presented to us as means only, leading to some end: but we rest with satisfaction upon the end or ultimate event; because there the purpose or aim of the chief person or persons is accomplished. This indicates the beginning, the middle, and the end, of what Aristotle calls an entire action.* The story naturally begins with describing those circumstances which move the principal person to form a plan, in order to compass some desired event: the prosecution of that plan and the obstructions, carry the reader into the heat of action: the middle is properly where the action is the most involved; and the end is where the event is brought about, and the plan accomplished.

A plan thus happily accomplished after many obstructions, affords wonderful delight to the reader; to produce which, a principle mentioned abovet mainly contributes, the same that disposes the mind to complete every work commenced, and in general to carry every thing to a conclusion.

I have given the foregoing example of a plan crowned with success, because it affords the clearest conception of a beginning, a middle, and an end, in which consists unity of action; and indeed

* Poet. cap.i. See also cap. vii.

Chapter VIII.

stricter unity cannot be imagined than in that case. But an action may have unity, or a beginning, middle, and end, without so intimate a relation of parts; as where the catastrophe is different from what is intended or desired, which frequently happens in our best tragedies. In the Æneid, the hero, after many obstructions, makes his plan effectual. The Iliad is formed upon a different model: it begins with the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemon; goes on to describe the several effects produced by that cause; and ends in a reconciliation. Here is unity of action, no doubt, a beginning, a middle, and an end; but inferior to that of the Eneid, which will thus appear. The mind hath a propensity to go forward in the chain of history: it keeps always in view the expected event: and when the incidents or under-parts are connected by their relation to the event, the mind runs sweetly and easily along them. This pleasure we have in the Eneid. It is not altogether so pleasant, as in the Iliad, to connect effects by their common cause; for such connexion forces the mind to a continual retrospect: looking back is like walking backward.

Homer's plan is still more defective, upon another account, That the events described are but imperfectly connected with the wrath of Achilles, their cause his wrath did not exert itself in action 1; and the misfortunes of his countrymen were but negatively the effects of his wrath, by depriving them of his assistance.

If unity of action be a capital beauty in a fable imitative of human affairs, a plurality of unconnected fables must be a capital deformity. For the sake of variety, we indulge an under-plot that is connected with the principal: but too unconnected events are extremely unpleasant, even where the same actors are engaged in both. Aristo is quite VOL. II 381

licentious in that particular: he carries on at the same time a plurality of unconnected stories. His only excuse is, that his plan is perfectly well adjusted to his subject; for every thing in the Orlando Furioso is wild and extravagant.

Though to state facts in the order of time is natural, yet that order may be varied for the sake of conspicuous beauties.* If, for example, a noted story, cold and simple in its first movements, be made the subject of an epic poem, the reader may be hurried into the heat of action; reserving the preliminaries for a conversation-piece, if thought necessary; and that method, at the same time, hath a peculiar beauty from being dramatic. But a privilege that deviates from nature ought to be sparingly indulged; and yet romance-writers make no difficulty of presenting to the reader, without the least preparation, unknown persons engaged in some ardous adventure equally unknown. In Cassandra, two personages, who afterward are discovered to be the heroes of the fable, start up completely armed upon the banks of the Euphrates, and engage in a single combat.‡

A play analysed, is a chain of connected facts, of which each scene makes a link. Each scene, accordingly, ought to produce some incident relative to the catastrophe or ultimate event, by advancing or retarding it. A scene that produceth no incident, and for that reason may be termed barren, ought not to be indulged, because it breaks the unity of action; a barren scene can never be

*See Chapter I.

f See Chapter XXI.

I am sensible that a commencement of this sort is much relished by readers disposed to the marvellous. Their curiosity is raised, and they are much tickled in its gratification. But curiosity is at an end with the first reading, because the personages are no longer unknown; and therefore at the second reading, a commencement so artificial loses its power, even over the vulgar. A writer of genius prefers lasting beauties.

entitled to a place, because the chain is complete without it. In the Old Bachelor, the 3d scene of act ii. and all that follow to the end of that act, are mere conversation-pieces, productive of no consequence. The 10th and 11th scenes, act iii. Double Dealer, the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th scenes, act i. Love for Love, are of the same kind. Neither is The Way of the World entirely guiltless of such scenes. It will be no justification, that they help to display characters: it were better, like Dryden, in his dramatis persona, to describe characters beforehand, which would not break the chain of action. But a writer of genius has no occasion for such artifice: he can display the characters of his personages much more to the life in sentiment and action. How successfully is this done by Shakspeare in whose works there is not to be found a single barren scene,

Upon the whole, it appears, that all the facts in an historical fable, ought to have a mutual connexion, by their common relation to the grand event or catastrophe. And this relation, in which the unity of action consists, is equally essential to epic and dramatic compositions.

In handling unity of action, it ought not to escape observation, that the mind is satisfied with slighter unity in a picture than in a poem; because the perceptions of the former are more lively than the ideas of the latter. In Hogarth's Enraged Musician, we have a collection of every grating sound in nature, without any mutual connexion except that of place. But the horror they give to the delicate ear of an Italian fidler, who is represented almost in convulsions, bestows unity upon the piece, with which the mind is satisfied.

How far the unities of time and of place are essential, is a question of greater intricacy. These unities were strictly observed in the Greek and

« VorigeDoorgaan »